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!

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.