Redesigning the Alien Concept and Why This Could Be Messy

For the longest time, I've been rather dissatisfied over the design of Ellie's specie and of the other inhabitants of her world. The reason why this is rather significant is because the beginning of the storyboard briefly opens up in her world prior to her touching bases with planet Earth.

Original anthropomorphic sketch

 If anyone digs deep into my collection of concept art for the things I've drawn in the past, you'll find that Ellie's early design of her alien form was of a gelatinous creature. While I was content with that for a brief period, I figured that it was too simplistic and lazy, despite the amorphous form being integral to her powers at the time and being what she was supposed to be based off of. So what I did was humanize her alien design for the sake of making her early interactions within her home world much more relatable. Whether this was rightful or not, looking back, I prefer the decisions that I've made so far despite the accommodations that came with it.

Redesign

The next redesign was made to incorporate more of her design roots while still being anthropomorphic.  I still like it, but the architecture of the face really limited any form of drawing expressions for both her and in doing characters of the same specie (Note: this refers to the two profile sketches on the left and not the last one on the right). Pseudopods for arms was another concept to give her a more aquatic feel, but in drawing it in more articulated forms like grasping objects did not come out as great as I hoped it to be. Overall I still like the design and may go back to it, but I think more attention to detail in terms of biological practicality should have been made.

Next is what I sketched out yesterday.

When coming up with ideas to improve on the idea of Ellie's people, I decided on moving from both the amorphous physiology and aquatic roots and onto a more terrestrial design and origin. I decided on more human-looking eyes that could evoke more ranges of emotion while still being alien in a sense. What also came from this while figuring out the mouth and nose was a more reptilian design for the face, jaw structure, and in the aesthetic of the skin. While I still plan on giving Ellie her powers for shape-shifting and stretching, this new design really throws a wrench in it in regards to the source material for the basis of her abilities.

Nevertheless, I'm not Neil Degrasse Tyson, so I'm just going to roll with it as I feel now it's more functional and practical to the world I will reveal in the future.

Here some more concept sketches I've done of other species that her people may cohabitate with:

The Krogan were my favorite of the races in Mass Effect
because of how large beasts were always synonymous
with being thoughless, uncultured morons. Taking ideas from
that and the Ents from Lord of the Rings, I've decided on
similar creatures for Ellie's home world.

This one I felt would have added some relief and diversity
from otherwise comparibly rougher-looking inhabitants.
Inspirations from Totoro, hamsters, marsupials, and stoners.

When I come up with more sketches and ideas, I'll update this post.