Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Quinn Red

@quinnred.bsky.social

1.3K followers 430 following 300 posts

I am a Canadian graphic designer and artist who has a particular passion for creature design. I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy content, as well as the natural world, which is all often evoked in my art.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Oct 29

Latching onto this Art Train like a gibbon with fish hooks for fingers.

@nightjarring.bsky.social , @nicernowhere.bsky.social , @magistelle.bsky.social , @kingofseagulls.bsky.social

A small scaly alien creature wielding smoldering leaves as a protective torch.

A bright blue and red spikey bird god clutching a pin-holed flower faced man.

A bright red horde of scaly knights, infantry, and horse mounted by a winged and multi-headed leader.

2 15 71

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · 1d

Quick concept sketch of one of the main threats in the D&D game I'm in.

A mass produced descendant of Baldur's Gate 3 's Steel Watchers, relying on more easily manufactured necro-fuel than it's predecessor's illithid puppeteering.

A line up of robots based on constables.

Far left top: Two head concepts, one dark and bathed in harsh red n' blue light, the other brass and showing off the head lamp.

Far Left: Green and stouter Constable robot.
Center Left: Blue and tall Constable robot.
Center Right: Steel and tall and broad Constable Robot

Right: Skeletal insides of the Constable robot. The tall head contains six cameras and a head lamp. Green intestinal areas flow with necrotic fuel.

3 16

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Sep 2

Dark Orchid: Eciton

"When a man pleases a god, they are rewarded with divine cocoon.
When the writhing fruit is ripe, the cocoon everts, spilling it's gestate.

The Eciton. Ants made of men. Ants made against men.
A hive to counter a hive.
Listen for their applause, and fear it."

A vaguely human shaped black sac hangs from a ceiling as another one everts with a many limbed creature emerging. It's head is eyeless and consist mainly of a pair of arms as if in prayer.

Sketches of the Eciton with their "mouth" open, where a oil black proboscis is produced.

8 21

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Sep 4

Dark Orchid: Mausoleum

"The Company told us that there was virtually no life on this world, nothing bigger than bacteria or more living than a fossil. Just carbon-rich soil for farming and basic bio-construction material.
But what I saw down in that mountain wasn’t fossilized. It was...rotting."

A person in a orange environmental protection suit shines a light on a massive alien skeleton in a dark chamber.

1 11 30

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Sep 4

Dark Orchid: A.E.S. Suit

The Alien Environment Survival Suit was designed for initial "Setting of the roots" of colonies, known as Ruderal procedures.
It is packed with synthetic sacs, bladders, and tubes that mimic the functions of a biological system, all in order to better sustain the wearer.

A person in a white and pale yellow astronaut like suit. They hold a makeshift spear.

6 16

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Sep 11

Quick doodle idea of people whose damaged A.E.S.(Alien Environment Survival) Suits left them exposed to a sudden morphological singularity, their corpses frozen as chaotic statues.

Three sketches of human corpses in spacesuits producing strange bloody structures of bright reds and shining blues.

7 23

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Dec 3

Dark Orchid - Palpater

Description in Alt text.

"Blind red spiders with crown of fingers and long limbs frantically dancing, touching every bit of surface they cling to. Fingers tap, tap and wiggle, every touch is pain and ecstasy brewed into confused desire. These Palpaters try to walk as men, but broken limbs provide little stability. Do not let them touch you, as they obsess over the feeling of humanity and will molest every inch, even driving their fingers into every orifice just to feel the organs inside."

1 10 52

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Dec 2

Dark Orchid pt 4

Some creatures from my old sci-fi horror doodle project when I was a late teen.
Might resurrect and rework it someday.

Descriptions in the alt text.

"The Baptized, that's what they call themselves.
When everybody else hid in the old colony tunnels, they were stuck to the surface, with all the "animals".
See these people were always a bit odd, all the oil workers were. Something about the oil "sung" to them, apparently, a hum they all shared in their heads.
When the Orchid's presence shrieked in challenge to the oil's song, the bastards all snapped, stripped down to the thin synthetic membranes atop their true skin, adorned their coats, and plunged into the oil.
They emerged as zealots, the children of the dead god and siblings to it's child, the Polubog. They refuse to see, now they only hear, humming the FatherChild's song like the buzzing of a cicada.
The Baptized claim themselves holy soldiers of the black milk, thus they must fight it's enemy, and convert those deaf to the oil's loving coo."

"Have you seen him? The wandering, writhing blubber wrapped in refuse skin, appearing as if worms playing as man? Consuming all as addition to it's mass? Yes?
Then you have witnessed a blessed thing, for it is the demigod, the "Polubog" as the followers called him, of Chernogem.
It is but an infant, simple instinct and naivete, born of a dead god and the eggs of humanity collected by the Silent caretakers. If you see the boney fliers roosting or swirling above, then their sweet orphan scavenges nearby.
Its form appears quite careless for a demigod, doesn't it? If it were not for human infection within it's form, it may have appeared quite different, though its birth would have never been necessary if not for humanity.
Someday the Polubog will have engorged itself enough to begin celestial metamorphosis, and will cleanse Cherno of humanity and the abortions of the Orchid, the daughter of it's old enemy."

"There is a tower.
It stands tall and chitin, iron black, breathing with a pale maggot heart. Fingers, elongated and undulate, splay as if wings of it’s ascendency. It’s head split as a holy crest to listen and to speak as father to the Baptized.

It was once a man, the first to find the oil god’s spirit and sing with it’s hum, becoming the communion. He would sacrifice his body to the oil so it could have a finger with which to touch the world, and a voice with which to sing to it.

Oh, to be the cane for a blind god was honor, to be a tongue for the tongueless was blessing, but his guidance could only go so far. So the oil remembered, and placed that memory in each of the Baptized, so all disciples may share the voice and be chosen to take form as Hierophant.
In this time of the Orchid’s chaos, the holy tree named as Hietrost rings it’s grand throat to boon the flock and guide those who wander.

If you are lost, remember:
There is a tower.”

"They have no foot steps, no breath, no sound known to the human ear. They are cloaked in wing, bone, and sinew. The head reminds me of a bird, but blind and unflesh. The body, like a cadaver picked clean and pale chitin filling the void, a pair of arms sprouting from above the waist. Their legs are supported by hooves. Less like a horse, more like a insect's small concentrated feet.
One can only see this interior once they open their wings, unveil the flesh cloak.

Many Chernonese call them Teko Celovek. Most simply call them The Silent.

They are a remnant of pre-terraformed Chernogem, something thought myth and illusion, now a haunt.
They do not seek us for prey, for vengeance, or qualms we find familiar.
No, they need us for something we took away from them, something dear.
These gliders of storms, figures of shadow, these Silent.
They need wombs."

1 7 23

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Dec 1

Dark Orchid pt 3

Some creatures from my old sci-fi horror doodle project when I was a late teen.
Might resurrect and rework it someday.

Descriptions in the alt text.

"Venture further into the colony and the afflicted get...stranger. The most common things you'll see are the Effigers, pigs broken into a childish shape. They walk on two legs, supported by what used to be theirs hocks. Their front legs are extended into arms, with their hooves multiplied and stretched into stiff crude fingers. The neck is curled forward, carrying a head that appears as if the snout was smashed in and bent with a hammer. Those eyes are saggy, and surrounded by wrinkle and dark meat with oily tears.

Their virtually harmless, waddling on their awkward limbs and focusing solely on making crude objects and sculpters out of whatever materials available, from feces and mud to scavenged body parts. These crafts resemble toys and people, as if the Effigers are trying to recreate something. Their affectionately called "Jimmies" by some folks, but most prefer not to grow endearment for any of the Orchid's abominations.

In desperate times we hunt them. Their easy prey, cant move fast and cant really fight, you don't even need to sneak up on them. Just walk up and club them. The Effiger's screams make it harder. Pigs usually sound pretty horrible, but these don't squeal...they scream, like children...... Best not to think too much on that. Their still just swine....just eerie swine. "

"The presence of the Orchid does not seem to recognize a difference between human beings and artificial intelligence, both are equally alive to it. A.I. were infested with a new sort of self awareness and a desperate wish to be human. Most were immobile boxes of metal and circuit, going mad from their own futility and brimming with intense spite and depression, something they never felt before.
For others, those with access to mobile functions, they began the construction of their bodies. Most of these were quite crude, being A.I. who were never quite familiar with anatomy. Medical A.I. tended to have more sophisticated bodies, with the smarts to near accurately mimic the human body with synthetic muscle and access to medi-tech.
A common technique borrowed from one "Pinocchio" A.I. to another is to hunt the loose pigs and use their skin as their own. This both avoids their still lingering safety protocols against harming humans, and satisfies their need to have skin. Some even trade skins and parts with fellow Pinocchios.
The safety protocols also stop them from hurting the "Affected", they still recognize them as human despite their mutations.
The Pinocchios are generally harmless towards humans, in fact often friendly. Their just....off putting to say the least."

"If you are to venture through were the pigs make crude effigies from mud, you will be pursued by their cruel counterpart. The Meddlers are absorbed in curiosity and a need to take things apart, object or living, but rarely put things back together. At least not correctly.

Their whole anatomy is backwards, with it's spine facing forward, arms broken back like mantis limbs, legs facing the back of the body, and a head twisted into a mess. Despite this abnormality, they can move quite fast, often hopping or sprinting towards a target, or even sliding "belly" first on the mud.

These creatures often destroy the muddy constructions of the Effiger pigs, or simply house themselves in them. They never attack the pigs themselves though, my guess is that they've taken enough pigs apart to be bored of them. Since they live so close to the poor things, anybody trying to get some meat has to deal with the Meddlers first.

I think they were cats once, or dogs...maybe both?"

"Unfortunate worms, confused in their new forms, writhing in desperate attempt to understand what they are. They can no longer bark as they used to, or wag their tail, but new communication is found in the whimpers and gurgling whistles they share as they comfort each other. As they gather they realize a new purpose, a familiar and old thought prevails amongst their simple new minds. A desire for shelter, but not of metal or wood, but of flesh, of mother, of womb.

The serpentine hounds learn to slither and move through clumsy trial and error, tasting the earth for signs of their goal. They find a man, one who once looked at them with love, now in terror. The Ensconce don't understand why the man is scared, but it doesn't matter, the goal is clear, they need it.
In seconds they grab on with the remains of their limbs and burrow into the man's abdomen. They curl and hum inside his guts, finding peace in his warm quaking body, over come with nostalgia of the womb. The swarm bloats their corpse home, all at peace, until this body grows cold and a new hunt begins."

2 10 29

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Dec 1

Dark Orchid pt 2

Some creatures from my old sci-fi horror doodle project when I was a late teen.
Might resurrect and rework it someday.

Descriptions in the alt text.

"It roams the remnants of happy places, large hands playfully interacting with forgotten playgrounds and abandoned toys. It's grounds are used and damaged, no sense of organization, just scattered play things. The Frolic loves to have fun, but it does not know a limit. It's territory is marked by corpses of those who were either caught unaware, or grew too sympathetic for it's childlike behavior.
Running is verily an option. It scrambles faster than any man can sprint, limbs moving more like a spider than the monkey it resembles, and the man it once was.
Distract it with colourful bauble , and you may be able to pass through. But keep watch, Hide and Seek is amongst the Frolic's favorite games."

"Tall ones, strolling through the water, carrying nets of chain and spears of girder. Their guts hang stringy, stretching with victims they have swallowed. Their face grows in front of their maw, like a hood, with coos and moans echoing from within. The horn is sensitive to something, something of their prey. Maybe sound, maybe smell, or something else, but it makes it hard to hide from them.
Avoid the lake, for the Wailers are glutton for fools."

"She is blubber and lip, in a smothering of moisture. She seeks, with those innocent blue eyes and vivid clubs one might recognize as hands and feet, for something to nurture, to love unconditionally.
She does not know that the violence she causes, the brutality, the violation.
Those caught by her meet a horrendous demise.
An embrace with layers of extending, suffocating lips engulfing their face, and thick limbs crushing bone and organ into pulpy soup.
Such victims decorate her nest, not as prize but as nostalgia."

"Unfortunate. As one scampers through the colony they may come across incarnations of failure. These mangled messes of humanity were destined to be as the other victims of the Presence, but instead they were abandoned, aborted from their chrysalis as unfinished sculptures of meat. Their skin is tender as a newborn's, but darkened by broken veins. Rubbery bones twist and collapse, rib cage extended forth, protruding the flesh as one would pitch a tent. Muscle and sinew stretch and feather, much of the strands left exposed and frayed, unknitted from the limb it was meant to be.

Most of the Misborn died in the first days of the Orchid's influence, but some still cling to life, moaning and sobbing of their condition. Others are envious of all, dragging themselves towards any sign of life, attempting to kill out of frustration or simply because they are too afraid to commit suicide. It is recommend to put them out of their misery, though a scrambled nervous system denies them a quick death."

6 21

Reposted by Quinn Red

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · Dec 1

Dark Orchid pt 1

Some creatures from my old sci-fi horror doodle project when I was a late teen.
Might resurrect and rework it someday.

Descriptions in the alt text.

“These sad things plant themselves all over the place, especially warm cozy places. Their moans and weeping invite pity, but such sympathy must be rejected, for they cling to whatever comforts their shivering hands can grasp. Generous victims are torn apart by the desperate horde, meaty flowers opening to reveal a tender head, ready to nuzzle the viscera. Some of these remains are stuffed into their exposed rib cage, like a teddy bear in a picnic basket.”

"Were they dogs? Were they man? I cant remember. The Seekers are Seekers now.
They feel your steps and hear your breaths and see your heart waver.
They look skinny, mangey hairless and putrid yellow.
I want to forget that head. That wrinkled hood hiding that porcelain grub. They see with that, feel around the corners, taste the puddles and prints.
Its best to stay out of their territory, you cant hide from them easy. Can't out run the lithe things. Chop off the grub, pummel the body. Best you can do if the chance is given."

"Anger, frustration, all twisted and molded into a human knot. Muscle and sinew warp, bloat and strangle each other under elephantine skin. A head crooked and split into a pair of mandibles, arms conjoined and melted into a claw, legs reduced to tree stumps.
This is the Galled. It will crush, it will pummel, it will stomp and grind all it sees, all it feels and smells. It's own body is bruised, callused and disembowled from it's own attempts to destroy itself. No fire will stop it, takes to long to burn. Not enough bullets around to shred, none strong enough to chop those limbs.
Easier to distract it, block its path.
Only the obscured are safe."

"Sometimes the mud here gurgles. Something bulges from it, then many things, appearing almost like sleeping infantile faces. A trio of hollow pores face those that disturb them, as this pale bloated orb rises by sinew support. Almost like an inflating balloon, the whole body rises in boneless meaty mass, and silently vibrates. The pores sing aloud, a song that sounds as if these orifices were not designed for it.
These are the Candlesticks, useless and futile creatures, only able to sprout like grass and respond to all stimulation in fear. They are harmless, but best avoided, as their wails can gather fellow abominations. You can kill them, but they'll just grow back, or branch into more dreaded sprouts, better to ignore them.
You know, sometimes you'll see something in those pores. Something like little pearls and tongues, staring out, yearning for something."

5 16

Reposted by Quinn Red

Luxudus @luxudus.bsky.social · 8d

Hi. I'm making a new project called SHEETHEADS. It's gonna be a mostly wildlife focused project to get wild with creature design. For a world where animals can "see" without eyes. Where each tree is a city of zooids. Where the planet dances with a binary partner.

#artsky #myart #speculativebiology

5 14

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · 10d

The deity of my DND Barbarian Zealot.

The anomalously existent god of the Dhy Shtarken half-orc tribe, GRAWL is a being of the strengthening of one's self and others.

Veiled in viscera of a beloved divine opponent, tongue whispering to the worthy so they may join in the Wallow.

A massive hippo laying in a cosmic starry blue pool. It is cloaked in a bright red covering of sinew and viscera. A large mouth filled with ten white tusk protrudes from the mass, holding a large cloudy blue orb within the maw. A dark serpent hangs from the mouth and curves towards the orb, it's body glowing internally.

12 37

Reposted by Quinn Red

Andy Kelly @ultrabrilliant.xyz · 13d

Semiotic Standard-style chapter icons from my book Perfect Organism: An Alien: Isolation Companion, designed by the game's lead UI artist, Jon McKellan.

A series of icons representing the different chapters of my Alien: Isolation book.

5 24 190

Reposted by Quinn Red

A Low Poly Robot @lowpolyrobot.bsky.social · 16d

CW: Gore/Body Horror

Anyway the rat transformation in spite of being the first mitochondrial transformation you see on screen has one of my favorite PS1 era FMVs, it's so horrifying and cool

5 93 400

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · 16d

Honestly that group photo with Godzilla is deeply delightful!

Just a buncha good folks along with the biggest hero there is.

Also Godzilla.

Quinn Red @quinnred.bsky.social · 16d

Some critters sketched for a Dark Crystal Creature Contest years ago.

Also Kermit.

#darkcrystal

An eyeless, blubbery mole-like creature, long snout, front limbs folded like wing-flippers, back legs chunky with toes pointing to the side.

Upper left: A mole-like creature wearing a hollow stump over it's body with eye stalks poking from the top.

Bottom center: The mole-like creature exposed, consisting of a fat lump body, a long snouted little head with closed eyes and meaty whiskered nose, and two fat limbs.

Left: Two views of a soft bodied arthropod creature which were the source of the eye stalks from earlier. It has an almond shaped body with a wide mouth with six little limbs, two flipper suckers at the back, and a long prehensile tail.

A ghoulish Kermit scrambles forward like a Bloodborne enemy.

10 40

Reposted by Quinn Red

Froggers @froginatorart.bsky.social · 17d

unexpected reunion

9 48

Reposted by Quinn Red

Alex Ries @alexries.com · 18d

Littlemans.

5 100 500

Reposted by Quinn Red

Monarobot @monarobot.bsky.social · 19d

Astel, Naturalborn of the Void #EldenRing

4 130 420

Reposted by Quinn Red

Doug @dougblot.bsky.social · 19d

Alien vendor concept for a pitch document.

17 160 820

Reposted by Quinn Red

tom bloom (scrungled) @orbitaldropkick.bsky.social · 19d

KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS killsixbilliondemons.com

29 170 870

Reposted by Quinn Red

Logan / Tachyon @tachyonart.bsky.social · Aug 25

All art for a complete website overhaul. Check it out here: tachyonart.neocities.org

Click around to find some brand new illustrations!

Tachyon Art

An archive of art, projects, and interests

tachyonart.neocities.org

1 11 32

Reposted by Quinn Red

Ben Fleuter @benfleuter.bsky.social · 21d

Some spooky guys I designed for @dm-tuz.bsky.social a while ago.

4 160 790

Reposted by Quinn Red

Kly (𝔐egalith) @klyart.bsky.social · Sep 10

WHAT IS STEEL COMPARED TO THE HAND THAT WIELDS IT?

1 61 180

Reposted by Quinn Red

Kly (𝔐egalith) @klyart.bsky.social · Jul 28

"La Matriarca" (Unknown, 1509)

Discovered in a private collection in 1944, this piece was quietly acquired by the Vatican and has never been displayed (or acknowledged).
Accompanying notes state "La Gorgone di Torino" as "a possible title she had me reconsider, so I obliged."

1 64 260