ink_in_hand: For all art and craft sales (Moosebot)
ink_in_hand ([personal profile] ink_in_hand) wrote2010-01-04 11:03 pm

Day four

Disclaimer: All that I've come up with for photocats are based off a single line in a G1 episode. "A real photovoltaic pussycat." It was in reference to a pleasent disposition and that's it, everything is extraploated from that one little phrase.



*playing with colors*



Photovoltaic pussycats, or simply photocats for brevity, are autotrophic lifeforms with parts of their life cycle taking a plantlike form in which a single photocat splits itself into four identical, but independent, individuals.

1) A single photocat.

2) It is unknown which is the cause and which is the effect; all we know is that when a photovoltaic pussycat is ready for planting itself, it's colors fade a little and their tail doesn't glow quite as bright.

3) A firmly planted and already metamorphizing photocat, there is no removing the animal/plant at this point. Below the surface are tendrils reaching for energon and hard materials for it's use. You can see the strips of metal being pulled up around it that will later become it's trunk. And it's solar panels have spread open in a conical formation, no longer folded up neatly.

4) An unmistakable photocat tree. The panels have split into four groups, as has the single tail become four. You can see, beneath the panels the structures that are to become the bodies of the new generation photocats. The solar collection panels are a marvel, with energy collection cells packed on one side and acid resistent on the other. The panels are spun so that each side is exposed to the appropriate weather.

5) Once mature, the fruiting bodies expand, revealing the flexable neck and mid-body, and then drop off. The trunk won't be abandoned, it's a handy shelter and post for maximum solar energy collection. In resource rich areas you can find forests of bare photocat trunks, some even being the cats in growth.

This was fun, I've been trying to find a way to show how plant like these guys can be and having it as their reproduction cycle is rather perfect. Also, the reason the tree is bent so far is that I didn't bother making the file size larger and I had to make it fit. For the new watchers, red dude is my autotroph scientist OC Rotary. His altmode is a lawnmower, and he studies anything and everything that can derive it's own fuel directly from an outside energy source.
eerian_sadow: (Default)

[personal profile] eerian_sadow 2010-01-05 04:17 am (UTC)(link)
dude! that is so cool!

may i use this idea for my Prowl's Not Dead AU?

[identity profile] ink-in-hand.livejournal.com 2010-01-05 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you.

Would you! Yes, yes, yes, please! You may. I'd love it if people started looking at cybertronian wildlife more. All I ask is a name drop as the inspiration source.
eerian_sadow: (Default)

[personal profile] eerian_sadow 2010-01-05 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
hooray!! the wildlife has already figured into the AU prominently, so i really want more of it. and of course i'll list you as the inspiration. i'm totally using your baby here.

...may i also use your moosebots?

[identity profile] ink-in-hand.livejournal.com 2010-01-05 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
Damn, I have so much on my plate already and now I have to read your fic. If it's got the critters, I'm there.

Pffft! Now you're spoiling me, of course you may. Also, I've got a lot of notes and whatnot that haven't made to a post yet. So if there's something you need filled in, go ahead and ask, chances are I've got something.
eerian_sadow: (Default)

[personal profile] eerian_sadow 2010-01-05 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
i'll dig out the two parts i have written up so far and send you links. ^_^

i enjoy spoiling my friends. ^_^ if it helps, you're allowed to use any of my critters as you like as well. (such as my cybercats, who live in family based structures more like hawks than any large cat)

[identity profile] ink-in-hand.livejournal.com 2010-01-05 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
That would be most helpful.

With all due respect, I think I'm going to let the cybercats develop my way at first. Whereas a lot of fans enjoy writing stories about canon characters they love, I enjoy creating a believable creature that lives on the same world and just plain race expansion. But I'm not adverse to playing with other people's interpretations of the same thing, that's what makes it interesting.

[identity profile] okamichan.livejournal.com 2010-01-05 10:43 am (UTC)(link)
I'm enjoying this daily dose of your drawings. It's a very interesting idea for the photovoltaic cat. :D
eerian_sadow: (Default)

[personal profile] eerian_sadow 2010-01-05 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
links are here and here. the AU isn't particularly fleshed out yet, but a recurring theme through the whole thing is that everyone has to learn to live on a Cybertron that has been inhabited by nothing but the wildlife, since they pretty much ditched it after Unicron attacked. it's taking shape slowly.

and hey, no offense taken. we all have to work our own way. and honestly, it'll be fun to see how our takes on them differ. ^_^
Edited 2010-01-05 17:15 (UTC)

[identity profile] ink-in-hand.livejournal.com 2010-01-07 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you, I'm glad the spamming is enjoyable instead of annoying. With all the various types of reproduction on Earth it's difficult for me to accept that the human way is going to be found in robots.

[identity profile] okamichan.livejournal.com 2010-01-08 11:09 pm (UTC)(link)
This could actually be viable for the TF-verse too, if you think about it. Marvel-verse does, after all, have budding, which is rather what the 'cat-bush' reminds me off.

[identity profile] ink-in-hand.livejournal.com 2010-01-11 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
I'm not as familiar with marvel-verse as I'd like to be, but knowing budding is canon makes me one happy artist.

[identity profile] caiusmajor.livejournal.com 2010-01-11 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
Oh cool! I'm glad that someone's looking at possibilities for Cybertronian wildlife. And this is a really cool one, I like the idea of creatures that straddle the earthling ideas of 'plant' and 'animal'.

[identity profile] ink-in-hand.livejournal.com 2010-01-11 06:55 am (UTC)(link)
When I first entered the people part of the fandom I started looking for the critters mentioned in passing here and there. I was rather surprised to find almost nothing available, canon or otherwise, and now it's kinda turned into my fandom niche figuring out the possibilities. Considering that there's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponge) quite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_pen) a few (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral#Hermatype_corals) that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_anemone) already (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryozoa) do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold) that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crinoid) on Earth, alien creatures that stretch human ideas of how lifeforms are categorized aren't that unusual. Why yes, I am a sea life junkie as well.