The Oculari
Original, unadjusted RGBA version
Final version, CMYK with K cranked consistently above 33% (for the sake of printing)
Whoops. This one is K-cranked properly... the other one was in the other direction. Great way to tick off an editor, Michael...
Initial sketch
Clown Pass, so I can easily grab different parts of the body
Just texture, no post processing
Texture with post processing
Canonically, Argos got creative while the crew was frozen for a few aeons. The ship got out-of-control big, and he couldn't be everywhere at once, while Rhea was more likely to be part of the problem than any help. So, he engineered the "Oculari", a hive species, borrowing from vespid DNA (wasps, hornets, ants, bees) and the blanket-octopus. (These were my drawing inspirations.)
In short, imagine a whole swarm of these vespid cuttlefish, slithering over the ship and maintaining the environment, sometimes at personal cost to them, at the direction of some offshoot of the Argos persona.
I wanted something that worked with the general cool-color and organic feel of the vessel, but didn't borrow (at least not consciously) from any established media. It may have been partially inspired by the tarantula hawk, the state insect of New Mexico; which, while extraordinarily painful to be stung by (like grabbing a live car battery painful), are generally pretty chill and are quite beautiful. Also, blanket octopi are crazy cool, and I just can't leave that alone!