Kepler Kritters, My Little Pop-Up Alien Pet Store Project

Last year at Neotropolis I introduced the "Neobums," a gang of shiftless alien vagrants that spent the event panhandling on the streets or passed out in the bars.  It mostly got me to thinking that that particular off-world colony needed a lot more aliens.

Since the location itself is usually at least a bit inhospitable, the idea of putting together a creature costume is a little daunting.  The heat means that heavy masks become pretty uncomfortable and the lack of running water makes prosthetics and other special effects makeup a pretty tall order.

So I'm not about to dress up as an alien, but what I can do is bring more little alien critters for people to carry around, incorporate into their characters' lore and costumes, and/or decorate their spaces with.  Since I can't really afford to go around giving away a bunch of creature building work, I went ahead and applied to set up shop as a vendor at the event and actually sell things.

Lo and behold, my application was approved, so I'll be building a little pet store for the five-day festival in the desert.

The first step was establishing some branding.  So I had Rachel sit down and churn out a cutesy little logo for the shop:

The next step was to launch a Kickstarter campaign to scare up some cash for molding and casting materials.  If you'd like to contribute, you can check out the campaign here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/272424209/kepler-kritters-a-neotropolis-pet-store

While that's going on, we've been busy stacking up sketches and concept art and invited a few people to come over and do some sculpting.  

Here's early progress on an ugly little dude by my friend Jason Babler:

And this is a digital turnaround render of a "Screecharound" sculpted in Zbrush by my friend Peter Mitchell Rubin:


Here's one of a handful of sketches by Cary Gunnar Lee:

And another one by Rachel Corn-Hicks:

While we make progress printing, sculpting, and planning, we've also got a few molds started.  For now we've been casting "nerms," these gelatinous blobs of jellied love:

Mixed in with all of the other creatures we're making are a few more recognizable things, albeit souped up to make them more fantastical.  Case in point is our hunting bees:

And for folks who want something to hang on their wall instead of something to carry around or wear on their person, we've been putting together a collection taxidermy mounts:


And a handful of alien skulls:


And finally, to help out folks who would like to show their dedication to the Cult of Crob, we'll have a few Crob idols available for sale as well:

So that's a big pile of what we'll be churning out for the next month or two.  I'll post more details as we get closer to the event.  In the meantime, there's still six days to back the Kickstarter campaign here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/272424209/kepler-kritters-a-neotropolis-pet-store

Stay tuned!