Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Gryphite


















WHOO. It's been a while. I'll be a little more thorough to compensate.

So. I've gotten hooked again! Unfortunately, I've encountered an annoying bug with my Creepy & Cute parts pack, and haven't fixed it. Basically until I do, I can't use any parts from the pack. Nevertheless, I've come up with a new race! And I think it's even my favorite thus far.

Enter the Gryphite.

I've always loved gryphons. They are, by far, my favorite mythical creature. So, why not make one? I opened up Spore and gave it a shot, and there's my final product.

I did play this creature from cell stage. And, in creature stage, I did something I've never done before--actually make a creature EVOLVE. My sentient gryphite race evolved from this--the Pygmy Gryphon.



Ahh, they've come such a long way since then. Thumbs, brains larger than a peanut, the intelligence to operate a fishing spear... Good times.

I really like this creature both ways. But, I had a plan for this humble little gryphon race. Oh, yes. I imagined this race as being highly intelligent, and for some reason, really handy with technology. That doesn't come across very well when you don't even have thumbs yet, so two legs it was.

Unfortunately this resulted in a loss in their amazing talons. :( So it goes.

Anyway, their history becomes much less interesting at this point. I used largely premade vehicles and buildings through civilization stage because I wanted to make it into space stage quickly. That's when the fun begins.

So, the Gryphite, intelligent and geeky as they are, decided to delve into some cybernetic technology. Of course.


This was probably my favorite part. I've always wanted to use some kind of cybernetic armor with my creatures, and this is the first time I've pulled it off. The asymmetry featurea dded in the most recent patch certainly makes this much more interesting.

I'll explain a bit how I did it, because I'm sure this is something a lot of Spore creators will want to play around with. This particular outfit is very complex, and I still had about 500 outfit points left when the complexity meter forced me to stop adding stuff. In particular, this outfit uses a lot of "Metal Cap"s, which compose all of the tail and arm plating, as well as the eye, gauges on the chestpiece and shoulder, and the ankle plates. The claws were made with the "Refractor Wing" shoulder item. The tweaking arrows are your friend here, as well as tab-rotating.

The eye plate is a combination of the "Eyebot" and "Metal Cap" items. I used both so that the Gryphite's real eye wouldn't occasionally clip through the eyebot.

That's really it, for now. I'm really happy with the Gryphite myself. Definitely going to do more tinkering with outfits and asymmetry before too long!

Here are the Gryphite cards...

And, finally, the downloads! I'm putting up the Pygmy Gryphon, as well as the creature and space stage forms of Gryphite. Put the ones you want in My Documents/My Spore Creations/Creatures if you want them. Or, as always, look up the Gryphite on the Sporepedia.


Feel free to comment any suggestions or ideas! I could really use 'em!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Bird Vehicles - Jetpack Penguin, Project Eagle, & Duckie


It's been a while, mmyep.

So, I haven't been playing Spore much, but my internet was down for about half an hour so I opened it up and made a few vehicles. Bird-related ones. They're all military (except for the spaceship, jetpack penguin, to the right) vehicles, and I haven't made a land one yet. But it's pretty nifty.

First, Jetpack Penguin. I thought it'd be interesting to do a spaceship bird, and you can really have fun with it if you pick something you can enhance with technology. But what bird needs a jetpack except one that can't fly? And thus Jetpack Penguin was born! His scarf flaps around as he flies.





Second, Project Eagle. Why is the eagle a project? I'll never say. But it is. This was the first one I made of the three. His legs are a little odd, but I needed a way to integrate a weapon (his feet, which are guns) without just strapping a gun to his face or something. He flaps his wings, and I think the pose kind of looks like he's reaching down for a fish, or something. That was my intent. Otherwise, he's a pretty boring airplane-thing.

Duckie is probably my least favorite. It's OK, but nothing to write home about. I couldn't figure out where to stick the guns so I sort of ungracefully strapped them onto his neck. I may change that later.

He's obviously BASED on a mallard, but it didn't come across very well.


So, that's basically it. Here are the downloads, though you can, as always, find these on the Sporepedia.







Sunday, November 23, 2008

Bone Dragon


...And now for something completely different! This is Bone Dragon. He has just burninated the countryside. Woo!

After doing a little bit of "cute", I delved into the "creepy" side of the Spore Parts Pack. Most of what you see here came out of it. Yup. The most challenging part, I think, was the feet. It's hard to find something that doesn't look... meaty. I was trying to find parts that capitalized on the boniness of the dragon. And the feet were the hardest part. The hands are still a little too plump for my liking. But the actual skeletal hands that came in the pack were too articulated and not vicious enough.

Oh well, I suppose I never can win.

No cards.

Here's the download. Save it in My Documents\My Spore Creations\Creatures\

Amoeba


This one was kind of a lovechild between my creature crafting and my friends' lack of it. Basically, through trading text and screenshots, we designed this creature blindly. I made any change they told me to, and used only parts they approved of. It took a while, but we played through like this from cell to space stage. It's simpler than my other ones, but I think it's cute. Behold--Amoeba!

Amoeba is a he. And he has butterfly wings on his tail and a swirly-thing on the end of it. Oh, and he's a scientist. He got a planetary nuke in Space stage. Fun stuff.


Here are his cards:



The nuke is interesting. It basically pisses off every empire within flying range, too.

Here's the download. Save it in My Documents\My Spore Creations\Creatures\

Fleurite


How many posts can I make in one day? Probably one or two more. This one's called Fleurite. I love the colors on this one. So fruity. Mmm. Fruit.

This one was made on a whim. It looks a *little* like my Eepybird, but that's mostly because I love using that beak. This was fun to make. Mostly because I had fun with using bright and natural colors in an unnatural way.

Its tail bounces a lot when it moves. It's really nifty.

No cards again, this is just something I made on a whim in the creature creator.




Here's the download. Save it in My Documents\My Spore Creations\Creatures\

Stitch


Just made this one today. It's Stitch! I've always wanted to *try* to make a Spore version of something, and one of the mouths in the Creepy & Cute pack reminded me of Stitch--so I had to do it. And here's what I came up with.

His coloring is off and I can't get the spot on his back without making everything even worse, so he's not quite right in terms of coloring. His head, though, I think I got down pretty well.

If you actually download this, you'll notice that his legs are jointed really, really oddly. The legs in Spore can't quite get that lumpy quality from the movie without making him taller.

No cards on this one, this was made in the Creature Creator and I didn't play with it in-game.

When I make him do the evil laugh animation it looks exactly like Stitch and it makes me happy inside.

Here's the download. Save it in My Documents\My Spore Creations\Creatures

Eepybird


Seeing as this is my first post, I felt it'd be only appropriate to post my first, start-to-finish, cell-to-space, Spore creature. It's name? The Eepybird. Not too creative, but I'm rather attatched to it.

They ended up as Bards in Space stage. Not terribly useful, but I love them just the same. Can't do much to change that.

...Despite the fact that it looks like a disgruntled vulture-chicken.



Here are its cards:


So, there it is. My first evolved Spore creature. My mother would be so proud.

Here's the download, if you want it. Save it in My Documents\My Spore Creations\Creatures\

All versions of the Eepybird are also on the in-game Sporepedia, I believe. So if you wanted its space version, etc, have at it.