posted
I'm interested in drawing illustrations of the Formics, especially the Hive Queen. I've thought about how she should look, but I think it's very important to be accurate to the book series.
So I'm asking everyone to post quotes from the book on the Formics description and what you think the quote means.
Some may say she should look like an ant, but I must point out that the Formics should have creepy looks to them because in the series, whenever a significant character meets the queen or a worker for the first time, they can see, at least, why humanity was so terrified of them...
thanks for the help, and I will post my sketches or a link to my sketches
Posts: 15 | Registered: Aug 2005
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From several discriptions the hive queen is supossed to have beautiful glimmering wings that have lost the ability of flight to the queens size, but still retain an image of benevolent majesty.
p.s. email me your sketches when done Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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"a magnificent creature clad in soft and shimmering wings, which had long since lost the power of flight but still contained the power of majesty."
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The most disturbing aspect I imagined in the queen was the thought of super intelligent eyes in an insectide body. I never thought much about the body except as a background to the eyes.
Posts: 2425 | Registered: Jan 2002
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I always had the image from the "Aliens" movies in my head when I thought about the buggers. Even such tripe as "Starship Troopers" the movie comes to mind.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Big black ants that walk on two legs. That's my visual image. That would definitely be something to creep me out if I saw it in person.
Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Hey guys, thanks for your input and keep it up. I like the opinions you give, but if you could include some quotes from the series, like Advent 115 did, that would really help.
Now, I have a hard time concieving of an ant that walks on two legs thats ALSO terrifying. When I think of an ant on two legs, I think of a children's cartoon (no offense).
Posts: 15 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
one question: Do you think they should have hands with opposable thumbs? It seems like they should considering they can do anything a man can do (excluding the philotic capabilities of the queen). They even type into a computer in Children of the Mind.
Posts: 15 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Clarify, Worker: shadowy, light glinting blue off of absolute darkness, an insectoid head with huge, sectioned eyes, antennae curved like whips ready to strike, two pairs of jet-black, lightly haired, skeleton-like arms extending from the thorax, on each a pinscer-like hand with dextrous digits, a shortened dark abdomen and two spindly legs, all a deep black that blends into darkness
quote:In the darkness, Valentine could barely see the black-reed arm with a single finger and thumb as it nudged Ender's hand. Immediately Ender enclosed the finger within his left hand; the black thumb closed like a pincer over his hand. Looking up the arm, Valentine tried to see the bugger it belonged to. All she could actually make out, though, was a child-size shadow, and perhaps a slight gleam of reflection off a carapace.
quote:It (the worker) was smaller than she had ever imagined--no taller than a meter and a half, probably less. Looking past the others, she could only glimpse parts of the bugger, but that was almost worse than seeing it whole. She couldn't keep herself from thinking that this shiny black enemy had a death grip on Ender's hand...
There were workers all around, but now, in the light, in the presence of the queen, they all looked so small and fragile. Most of them were closer to one meter than a meter and a half in height, while the queen herself was surely three meters long...
Her wing-covers looked vast, heavy, almost metallic, with a rainbow of colors reflecting sunlight. Her abdomen was long and thick enough to contain the corpse of an entire human. Yet it narrowed, funnel-like, to an ovipositor at the tip...her multiplex eyes shining like hundreds of emerald stars...
Xenocide, page 230-1:
quote:Only then were people able to distinguish one black shape from another...What they had taken for shining machinery was...living creatures, not as large as men but not as small as pequininos, either, with large heads and multi-faceted eyes...
But now, seeing them, black shining exoskeletons, a thousand lenses in their shimmering green eyes, it was not beauty but terror that they felt.
The workers also have antennae (X, pg 262). The wing-covers of the hive queen have a "black rainbow surface". (X, pg 218)
Hope that helps you, Measure! Have fun with your illustrations!
Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
OK...sorry it took so long, school doesn't really allow for much time to do other things....but here's a link to a total side view of a version of the Hive Queen http://www4.ncsu.edu/~rkjameso/Hive_Queen_sketch_small.jpg ...PLEASE comment on it and tell me what's missing or shouldn't be there ASAP....I am beginning to render it on photoshop with the goal of showing her iradescent-black beauty. I will hope to add viens to the wings and shading and show all eight of her legs, and especially add the myriad of facets to her eyes...but there's no purpose in that when, I'm sure, she needs more and less. http://www4.ncsu.edu/~rkjameso/Hive_Queen_sketch_small.jpgPosts: 15 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Looks good, but keep in mind that with her size, the proportions of the Hive Queen's arms and legs will be very different from a normal insect's. Legs that thin on a body taller than a man's would just snap under the weight.
I never saw the Hive Queen as particularly mobile to begin with... the description in "Xenocide" gave me an image of massively swollen black abdomen covered in iridescent white wings (almost mother-of-pearl looking), with nearly vestigial hind legs, but very dextrous upper limbs. Incredible age and wisdom in the eyes, made unsettling by their compound nature. Normal insectoid head and mouthparts (since she speaks mind to mind, there would be no need for lips or tongue). The overall proportions of the body would be approximately one-quarter of the height given to the head and thorax segments combined, and the rest is the abdomen. Physically, I see the Hive Queen as a cross between a queen ant and a cricket.
The description of the workers varies between "Xenocide" and "Ender's Game." IIRC, in "Ender's Game," OSC describes them as being only slightly shorter than humans, having internal skeletons, and using vision as a primary sense (he mentions that they have "artificial lighting" at one point). By "Xenocide," the Bugger workers have become childlike in size, with hard, black exoskeletons, and do not require or use artificial lighting in their tunnels. Personally, my mental picture lies somewhere between the two: definitely insectoid, with hard exoskeletons, but about the height of a human.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I wonder if OSC would be required to treat fandrawing as he does fanfiction? (Because of copyright issues, OSC has come out as firmly against fanfiction with his characters.)
You might want to email the Hatrack HelpDesk about this project and make sure it's okay, Measure. Regardless, nice pictures!
---------------- Edited to add: I went ahead and flagged my post, and (I think) Papa Janitor will take a look.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Last time someone posted a fan picture (of Ender commanding his fleet, I think in his final test), OSC just said it was cool. So I'd assume he's ok with fan art.
posted
yes ClaudiaTherese, you have already proven yourself to be a great moderator. Thank You! I have a tendency to presume I would have read something somewhere that told me I couldn't do this...but thanks to you we can all be assured this project is legit...
Tarrsk, I see where you're coming from and must agree...Fortunately, I have set myself up to modify her abdominal legs with pen and tracing paper without having to redraw her body. The pics definitely helped to show the difference in size of legs, thanks. But I think your idea of her proportions of abdomen to head and thorax conflict with mine...(of course, if you can find quotes regarding your view, please post them).. I believe, though, that her head must be large in order to accomodate for a few things actually: 1) her brain must be large: observations regarding corrollation in brain size and intelligence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_and_intelligence) 2) her brain must be large because of the extremely high amount of sensory-input and output processing she must do, due to the fact that she's controlling hundreds of other creatures doing hundreds of other things. 3)she's not some half-witted insect that lays eggs all day...well, I'm sure you know that, but that's what I think of when I think of an insect that has a larger max diameter in her ovipositor than max diameter in her head.
Posts: 15 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Good points. I'm not entirely convinced of the brain/ body size ratio = intelligence thing, but I can definitely buy (2). And I do think her ovipositor is longer than her head, but that's mostly because in my mind, it's HUUUUUGE. Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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"In the darkness Valentine could barely see the black-reed arm with a single finger and thumb as it nudged Ender's hand. Imediatly Ender enclosed the finger within his left hand; the black thumb closed like a pincer over his hand. Looking up the arm, Valentine tried to see the bugger it belonged to. All she could actually make out, though, was a child-sized shadow, and perhaps a slight gleam of reflection off a carapace."
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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"Hive queens are usually surrounded only by workers and drones that function as part of themselves.They never learn shyness."
"she couldn't take her eyes off the silhouette of the bugger leading them. It was smaller than she had ever imagined- no taller than a meter and a half, probably less"
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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" The tunnel suddenly opened wide, and now they stood blinking in a large chamber with a shaft of bright sunlight stabbing through a hole in the vault of the ceiling. The hive queen was smack in the center of the light. There were workers all around, but now, in the light, in the presence of the queen, they all looked so small and fragile. Most of them were closer to one meter and a half in height, while the queen herself was surely three meters long. And height wasn't the half of it. Her wing-covers looked vast, heavy, almost metallic, with a rainbow of colors reflecting sunlight. Her abdomen was long and thick enough to contain the corpse of an entire human. Yet it narrowed, funnel-like, to an ovipositor at the quivering tip, glistening with a yellowish translucent fluid, gluey, stringy; it dipped into a hole in the floor"
"The hive queen manuvered her body so that her face was directly in the sunlight, her multiplex eyes shining like hundreds of emerald stars."
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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"All at once her mental image of the hive queen included no loathing at all. Instead she seemed majestic, royal, magnificent. The rainbows from her wing-covers no longer seemed like an oily scum on water; the light reflecting from her eyes was like a halo; the glistening fluids at the tip of her abdomen were the threads of life, like milk at the nipple of a womans breast, stringing with saliva to her baby's suckling mouth."
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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"In the shadows, a smallish figure, watching him. Encased in smooth hard armor, only two clawlike fingers on its slender arms, arms that could be bitten off and cast down like brittle kindling wood"
"The hive queen isn't an insect. She and her people are warm-blooded"
"They respirate, they sweat like mammals. They may carry with them the structural echoes of their evolutioary link with insects"
Thats all of the discriptions of the buggers I could find in Xenocide so far. I hope that this info helps Measure. Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tarrsk: Looks good, but keep in mind that with her size, the proportions of the Hive Queen's arms and legs will be very different from a normal insect's. Legs that thin on a body taller than a man's would just snap under the weight.
I never saw the Hive Queen as particularly mobile to begin with... the description in "Xenocide" gave me an image of massively swollen black abdomen covered in iridescent white wings (almost mother-of-pearl looking), with nearly vestigial hind legs, but very dextrous upper limbs. Incredible age and wisdom in the eyes, made unsettling by their compound nature. Normal insectoid head and mouthparts (since she speaks mind to mind, there would be no need for lips or tongue). The overall proportions of the body would be approximately one-quarter of the height given to the head and thorax segments combined, and the rest is the abdomen. Physically, I see the Hive Queen as a cross between a queen ant and a cricket.
The description of the workers varies between "Xenocide" and "Ender's Game." IIRC, in "Ender's Game," OSC describes them as being only slightly shorter than humans, having internal skeletons, and using vision as a primary sense (he mentions that they have "artificial lighting" at one point). By "Xenocide," the Bugger workers have become childlike in size, with hard, black exoskeletons, and do not require or use artificial lighting in their tunnels. Personally, my mental picture lies somewhere between the two: definitely insectoid, with hard exoskeletons, but about the height of a human.
The buggers never had artifical lighting, it is said in Xenocide that they see mainly in infared. They had no light even aboard their ships. But they do have a form of repeating patterns throughout their structures that can only be viewed in infared.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Thanks a bunch Advent 115. Those quotes are what I need.... looks like I'll need to modify the transition from abdomen to ovipositor and make it more funnel-like.
Posts: 15 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:The buggers never had artifical lighting, it is said in Xenocide that they see mainly in infared. They had no light even aboard their ships. But they do have a form of repeating patterns throughout their structures that can only be viewed in infared.
Check your copy of "Ender's Game" again. Mazer Rackham quite specifically states that the Buggers had artificial lighting, just like us, and could probably see in the same spectrum. It's one of several things that OSC changed between EG and "Xenocide."
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:They see in a specrum not identifiable to the naked human eye
*sigh*
Yes, they do, according to "Xenocide." My point is that Mazer's description in "Ender's Game" blatantly contradicts the later description in "Xenocide." I don't have my copy of EG with me, or I'd dig up the exact quote, but it's in the conversation in which Mazer and Ender are discussing Bugger vs. human technology. Trust me, I've read both books dozens of times, and picked up on the contradiction every single time.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I think that considering her weight her legs are probably at her sides, while her belly rests on the ground. While her forelimbs are fully articulate. And her head appears too large.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Measure: one question: Do you think they should have hands with opposable thumbs? It seems like they should considering they can do anything a man can do (excluding the philotic capabilities of the queen). They even type into a computer in Children of the Mind.
I'm sure it's possible to type without thumbs. =is doing so right now=
I doubt they would have opposable thumbs. In my imagination, they don't really have hands, their wings kind of come off of their arms.
Posts: 63 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Advent 115: "In the darkness Valentine could barely see the black-reed arm with a single finger and thumb as it nudged Ender's hand. Imediatly Ender enclosed the finger within his left hand; the black thumb closed like a pincer over his hand. Looking up the arm, Valentine tried to see the bugger it belonged to. All she could actually make out, though, was a child-sized shadow, and perhaps a slight gleam of reflection off a carapace."
Does anyone even look at these quotes first?
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
hehe....yeh, I saw that post as an answer to my question regarding opposable thumbs...so I drew the Queen's hands as a finger-thumb pincer. well, that is what I meant it to look like...
Posts: 15 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Does anyone even look at these quotes first?
I often skip details when reading - I'm just that kind of person. And just because they /have/ thumbs, that doesn't mean that they're /opposable/. I mean, they could be, I don't know, but yeah.
Posts: 63 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Measure: yes ClaudiaTherese, you have already proven yourself to be a great moderator. Thank You! I have a tendency to presume I would have read something somewhere that told me I couldn't do this...but thanks to you we can all be assured this project is legit...
Measure, I just caught this. (I don't read very often over here.)
I may be dim, but I read this as my having touched a nerve or been annoying in a nosey, smartypants, really-none-of-my-dagummed-business way. I'm truly sorry if this is how I came off to you.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: I may be dim, but I read this as my having touched a nerve or been annoying in a nosey, smartypants, really-none-of-my-dagummed-business way. I'm truly sorry if this is how I came off to you.
I certainly didn't mean it in such a way...I'm definitely not that kind of person. Let me apologize in the same manner: I'm sorry that my compliment came off as being sarcastic as if you had 'touched a nerve'. I suppose, now, we're even. Posts: 15 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I was intrigued and drew a picture of what I thought a bugger looked like... Its color inverted so that it is more easily seen. I will try to connect it here.
posted
I'm afraid you're making them too cute. Try some disturbing mandibles (perhaps with multiple parts, like a grasshopper's). You might think about what a Formic would eat and then tweak its body and moutparts in that direction. Try some spiky things on the exoskeleton. And definitely thicker legs. Also, consider how the Formics might breathe. I highly doubt it is the same as an insect, which breathes through holes in its sides. Perhaps some sort of nose function would make its insectile face more disturbing? And the eyes - are they fractile like an insect's, or perhaps many lensed giving a sense of both protection and depth, or are they squishy like a mammal's? Much to consider.
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