@@BigCroca not sure. Plants use weak red and strong blue...and there is variability as well. This might be more an accident of chemistry or an essential element... as capturing energy is just one aspect of energy transfer in the electron transfer chain. Too efficiently capturing everything might be counter productive or too complex and unecessary for then other processes to be simple and effective enough to function.
Something I love about this world is consistency. A lot of alien worlds just throw limbs together and make everything look completely unrelated to each other.
Yeah, that was an issue I had with Wayne Barlow's Expedition. The creatures looked believable but hardly any of them looked remotely related biologically.
Fun Fact: Alex is also behind "metahuman", which you may know as the "Alien God looks down at lower beings" meme image. Its shown near the end of this video!
Downside of being an intensely talented artist; people will straight up steal your shit to make memes (see also the ol' "LOL WUT" pear aka The Biting Pear of Salamanca)
This is so fascinating! Honestly I really love seeing all the cities, structures, vehicles, clothing, etc. from a non-humanoid species. Something I feel is really lacking in science fiction
It's really cool but honestly I think speculative biologists have gone a bit too far the other way from where they were in the past and imagining almost no species as being humanoid is a mistake I think. There have existed millions of different species, many of which were highly intelligent but so far we are the only ones we know of to have developed advanced cultures and civilisation, and I believe that's due to our body plan. We have no natural means with which to defend ourselves or any real means of bringing down prey and that's our real secret, this kind of body plan only works if the creature has a high intelligence to create the tools and advanced social structures that this kind of build benefits from so highly. So because of that, I would expect humanoid body plans to actually be quite common when it comes to creating civilised races because of those evolutionary pressures I talked about. It wouldn't be exclusively humanoids but I still think we'd make up at least 40% of the body plans for intelligent races.
@@sarahnade8663 Similar to the mindset of how civilisation and technology are adaptations humans had to make to compensate for our physiological shortcomings.
@@sarahnade8663 Except that's a huge assumption without much thought to evolutionary history. Looking at our own planet, over the course of hundreds of millions of years of complex life, humans as a species have only existed for about four million years, and almost all, sans modern humans, have gone extinct. Meaning that there is a good chance that our physiology and adaptations are problematic in terms of evolutionary longevity. I know that a lot of people like to think of humans as being exceptional, but strangely, besides humans, there has never been another species with our physiology(fully erect and bipedal, large-headed, tailless, etc). That's very telling, I think -- that evolutionary pressures have almost never selected a human-like physiology might mean humans were something of a fluke, and perhaps even a minor miracle. Which makes sense, as humans, though we are relatively large organisms, are rather weak compared to other large animals. And intelligence, though it can be a very dominating and powerful adaptation, is probably not very useful in the short-term -- meaning, a species that adapted high intelligence but had a weak physiology would be outcompeted by other species before their high intelligence would offer any significant advantage. And we cannot speak with any certainty about life forms on other planets, because life may arise in environments that lack an atmosphere, or have far more or very little gravity, or have extreme heat or cold, etc. Vertebrates only evolved on Earth the way they did because of the exact amount of gravity the planet exerts, and on other planets without that gravity they would never evolve at all, much less a human-like organism. So I'm not sure how you got the number that 40 percent of intelligent alien life should have humanoid body plans. The evolutionary history of our planet seems to prove otherwise (that human-like organisms would be quite rare), and we have absolutely no data about any life forms on other planets to put a number to anything.
I'd like to imagine that somewhere across the multiverse, there's a Birrin out there watching a video about those weird "humans" one of their artists came up with.
I've been reading science fiction since 1953. Del Rey Books published my one novel in 1986. I have a strong preference for hard sci fi. I want to say this is absolutely the best work of its kind I have EVER seen. I'm going to find out all I can about Alex Reis, and I will support his work to my best ability. Congratulations to Mr. Reis and to everybody who made this video.
So about the plants being red, that actually means that the sun gives off more red light than our sun. As while it is a small amount, over all, our sun actually gives off mostly green light in the visible spectrum. This might seem counter intuitive as why would you want to reflect the light the sun gives off the most? however as green light is reflected there is actually a small amount of light that penetrates deeper into the leaf and feeds more chloroplasts than the light that is just absorbed. Just a small nitpick but an interesting one non the less.
The plants might just be red if most if them have evolved to produce red ketocarotenoids, betalains, and/or red flavonoids; it could also be that a lot of the plants' common ancestors have had red pigments and the pigmentation genes remained in the current generations, which may have also been influenced by agriculture. The star is most likely a young G-type main sequence star, like our sun, because of it's sufficient longevity and habitable zone distance, especially along with the planet's atmosphere and magnetic field protecting the organisms from ionizing radiation and solar weather.
Oddly the Xenomorphs are some of the more alien aliens in media. Too bad they were retconned to be not actual aliens, but instead genetically engineered humans.
@@Xetan123 Xenomorphs aren’t genetically engineered humans, there’s a theory that they were created by the Engineers via the black goo as a bio weapon but even the aliens we’ve seen that spawned from the goo don’t directly match the Xenomorph displayed in movies 1 and 2. So it could very well be an apex alien species that the Engineers tried to copy. We don’t really know
@@Xetan123 yeah and so? Xenomorphs are bio weapons able to absorb and adapt from and to the host they come in contact with. Humans had no business in creating them.
Been following the Birrin "universe" ever since its inception, and I'm absolutely fascinated by the art, attention to detail and scientific accuracy. Good to see this being spotlighted!
Yooooo. I remember seein' this man's work in dA a while ago. Forgot their name and lost track of their work. I am so happy to see their stuff again in such neat scale
I remember this guy!!! I followed him on Deviantart years ago, and I remember his drawings of the Birrins. The drawings of the little ones were so adorable!!! It was two little ones playing and rough housing and the description was so cute!
I know right! All of his videos has thousands and sometimes millions of views now. I started following him just a couple of weeks ago when most of his videos had only a couple of views. He blew up fast!
This is the dawn of a new sci-fi interpretation of aliens, more "sci" and less "fi", finally! I was tired of aliens wich are just humans with face paint or masks, excellent job!!
If you're okay with dealing with a lot of sexism and some racism, you can actually look at a lot of Larry Niven's work in his Known Space universe. Lots of alien looking aliens, like Pierson's Puppeteers, a species with 3 legs, 2 heads, and its brain in its torso. Also some less original races, like the Kzinti, giant rat/cat people. Biggest problem is that most of his stories are kind of average quality, with a lot of 70s era sexism. But they're almost all set in amazing worlds and cultures that make biological and engineering sense.
Such a beautiful and immersive journey. It's as if the creator was there himself to record this world's history. In a way, I feel like I'm watching a documentary about us, from a stranger's perspective. I was looking at the stuff from the website, too, and wow, what a place it is, this planet. There's also a lot of love for aeronautics. The Birrin aircraft are fascinating. I'd love to see a full illustration book by Mr. Ries, if he were to make one. Thanks for the video! :)
finally! truly alien designs all in one world, they are extremely hard to come by and create. and damn, I knew the designs looked familiar, having played subnautica and blz for 4 years
I love the fact that Ries contributed to the world of Subnautica. After playing through the first game (which was absolutely terrifying), I can't wait to see Below Zero for myself, and the incorporation of his work into the game. In particular the Chelicerate looks familiar to the Birrin, which I found interesting.
Great video! I remember discovering Birrin years ago and falling in love with how weird, yet realistic it is I'd love to see you do a video on Sheather's Serina spec-evo project. It'd be impossible to cover in great detail in one video, but an overview would be awesome. It's really the gold-standard of speculative evolution projects!
Such a big inspiration for me! I love Birrin and all the artwork of it. I’m in the All Tomorrows fandom right now and I *trying* to hold a candle to the lore and worldbuilding of Birrin through my fanon Snake People country of Novy Lunia. A lot of people seem to like both my lore and artwork but I’m not gonna lie, Birrin is on a whole other level which is why it’s such a big inspiration.
Oh my god he’s so cool. His art is so cool, I love subnautica so much and seeing the similarities between his personal series and Subnautica creatures is so cool. The squid shark has the same jaws as the birrin
Alex put SO many easter eggs in Subnautica: Below Zero from the Birrin project. Those also include Skydrop's white-green-blue colour pallete in Penwing, Penling and Titan Holefish, Birrin's quadrilateral jaws in the Ice Worm and in general, the common descendance between the tropical and arctic species (Stalker-Snow stalker, Peeper-Arctic Peeper, Holefish-Titan Holefish).
This is what I've always wanted/imagined! Why are aliens always anthropomorphic like us? It never makes sense, what are the chances they would evolve similar features to us. But this is a really amazing concept
Well one theory in scifi is that all aliens have a similar origin. Like in Star Trek. In the Next generation they even have an episode explaining it. But there are plenty of scifi books that have unique aliens. You should check out Barlowes guide to Extraterrestrials. It features many non anthropomorphic aliens from literature.
I honestly can't stop watching this. It's storytelling to the extremes and I would've loved to have seen them in something like No Man's Skies. Imagine seeing something like that walking on 4 legs but pulling in nets on the banks of a river.
There's a whole bunch of other incredibly well thought out alien biology projects like Alex ries' s chirrah out there too: Like C.m kosemen's "Snaiad" project, Biblaridion's "alien biospheres" series, Wayne barlowe's masterpiece "expedition", (or Darwin IV if you're only familiar with the "alien planet" documentary) And the list goes on and on. I think these 3 aforementioned projects would make great video topics as well.
Alien Biospheres doesn't even compare. C'mon. Everything else you listed is far more imaginative than land squids and giant spiders. The only real draw is the different perspective as his videos are done more from his perspective creating these creatures rather than trying to explain them as if they're actually real per-se.
@@youcantbeatk7006 Shitting on Alien Biospheres because the art isn't as flashy or it's not been in production as long so it's "less imaginative" is pretty cringe. It's an extremely unique series that looks at evolution of life on a planet from its very beginning stages, explains the individual pressures and concepts that push evolution along, and has a considerable active community working together on the project.
@@sabinekine2737 I never stated the artwork as a reason why it's boring to me but I stand by the fact that it's not imaginative because it's not. IIRC in one of the early episodes he admitted himself that he wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel, that he was just doing it like a demonstration of how he thinks evolution works. Honestly compare all of the words you mentioned and you can't dare to honestly say alien biospheres is on the same level. It's detailed yes but it just doesn't do anything new.
@@youcantbeatk7006 i totally agree with you on the giant spiders thing, but cm kosemen's hypothesis of "drastic phenotypical convergence" could explain the resemblance between the osteopods and spiders.
Gosh, its so cool and surreal to see this artist's work being discussed on YT; I still remember discovering their art on DeviantartArt waaay back several years ago, then seeing them get hired to work on Subnautica, and now they're being talked about on youtube! :D
The alien worlds and species you featured in your videos have helped influence a novel I've been writing for quite a while now. Thank you Curious Archive for sharing the creative power of these authors-artists. :)
I think my favorite concept here is the Giants. Usually, races of giants are reserved for fantasy, but having them simply be a closely-related species that just happens to be much larger is a way for it to be believable and all the more interesting. Plus, there's the added touch of the Giants having a more distinct appearance and anatomy than that of the Birrin really drives home that they aren't just normal Birrin but huge.
My favorite new channel! Please keep up the good work finding beautiful illustrations of speculative / mistaken / theoretical biology. Bio-art? Wait that just sounds like art grown out of flesh.
I love that you can tell he worked on Subnautica. It sounds weird cause like- y'know, artists are gonna have a similar art style across everything you do, but you can really see similarities in this from Subnautica things like Squidsharks.
@@LucarioredLR That's super true XD I wouldn't just pet one of them at random, at least not without permission first since they're such intelligent beings and all.
In the Zones of Thought trilogy by Vernor Vinge, the Tines are a dog-like species whose sense of self and identity emerges at the pack level, rather than at the level of individual bodies, due to the unique way they emit and process sound. Normally, Tine packs have a much larger range of personal space than humans do, since if two packs get too close to one another, there will be interference between their "mindsounds," causing their sense of self to dissolve and their individual bodies to separate back into dumb animals. This dissolution of self is allowed to take place only during sex and warfare and only temporarily. In normal social circumstances, the packs communicate with one another from several yards away using a language that is completely different from the mindsound language that binds each pack together. When Tine packs first encounter humans, they find it difficult to understand how a single human body could house an intelligent being by itself. But once they figure out that among humans, each person just has one body, they also figure out that humans don't emit mindsound, and as a result, being close to one doesn't interfere with one's own sense of self. So the physical intimacy of being petted by humans is actually enjoyable to them, because it's an extremely novel form of closeness that they could never experience with one another without the noise breaking down their minds. It never dawns on them that this could be perceived as degrading, because their society has no real precedent for the significance of petting.
I'm putting both of these videos in a Playlist for my son(who is almost here!) Because he needs to know having an open mind is the best thing to ever have!
Reminds me of the work of Wayne Douglas Barlowe who along with H.R. Giger are the biggest influences on Ted Backman, the main monster designer for the Half-Life video game series.
This is amazing work. Beautiful art, thoughtful fauna, and geography, and very interesting history. This is an absolute inspiration to continue my work, though I like to focus more on the language development of my own fantasy world recently.
Part II, for anyone who missed it: th-cam.com/video/PfZ6RvgmS6s/w-d-xo.html
fard
Our sun already emits mostly green light, plants reflect it because it’s too strong
Is this a book like "All Tommorows"?
@@BigCroca not sure. Plants use weak red and strong blue...and there is variability as well. This might be more an accident of chemistry or an essential element... as capturing energy is just one aspect of energy transfer in the electron transfer chain. Too efficiently capturing everything might be counter productive or too complex and unecessary for then other processes to be simple and effective enough to function.
When is the book gonna released?
Alex here: thank you so much for making this! I will be pitching the first book in the series at the start of 2022 so fingers crossed!
Alex ur a noob
I can't wait, do you have any idea what you will be naming it?
@@animatorshub7448 Two Sky River is the working title
@@alexries3650 Thank you, I will make sure to look out for it
@@alexries3650 Sounds like a good name
Something I love about this world is consistency. A lot of alien worlds just throw limbs together and make everything look completely unrelated to each other.
This feels like a jab at Subnautica.
Edit: man I should have watched a few more seconds BECAUSE HE LITERALLY WORKED ON THE GAME.
@@funnyswangoosething5088 Yes, it is sort of a jab at Subnautica. I love Subnautica but it doesn’t have much consistency.
haha i dont know if that sort of consistency is what subnautica is going for
Yeah, that was an issue I had with Wayne Barlow's Expedition. The creatures looked believable but hardly any of them looked remotely related biologically.
You're exactly right.
I definitely want the book when it comes out.
Agreed.
Hell, I want a movie with Ries as head writer and director. It would be something actually interesting for once.
Y e s
Mi 5
@@ccriztoff Well, I have the best movie name idea, like ‘The Other World’ or ‘A World Beyond’
Fun Fact: Alex is also behind "metahuman", which you may know as the "Alien God looks down at lower beings" meme image. Its shown near the end of this video!
9:43 for reference.
Downside of being an intensely talented artist; people will straight up steal your shit to make memes (see also the ol' "LOL WUT" pear aka The Biting Pear of Salamanca)
@@mitchh3092 i know right i was suprosed when i found out he drew that
Part of the birrin universe if you see part two
@@eliasmagus5086 hah!
The lack of aliens crabs makes this totally unbelievable. We all know that everything evolves into crabs!
#WHEREARETHECRABS
@@BoogieWoogi money money mon-
*aah AHHH AHHHHH!*
@@LilXancheX *AGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAAGGGGG AGGG AGGGGGG*
Give it time.
Mr crab took them
Aw man, I've been following the artist on DevianArt for years, so cool to see someone cover this!
Same, discovered him in school in 2012, been following him for about a decade. He has a lot of cool stuff and throws an XD at me now and then.
Also same, I was glad to see some of his work brought to live in the game Subnautica Below Zero.
Oof, now there's a name that hasn't aged well.
Same
Yup, him and C.M. Koseman (Nemo Ramjet). This is Abiogenesis. : )
This is so fascinating! Honestly I really love seeing all the cities, structures, vehicles, clothing, etc. from a non-humanoid species. Something I feel is really lacking in science fiction
🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑
It's really cool but honestly I think speculative biologists have gone a bit too far the other way from where they were in the past and imagining almost no species as being humanoid is a mistake I think. There have existed millions of different species, many of which were highly intelligent but so far we are the only ones we know of to have developed advanced cultures and civilisation, and I believe that's due to our body plan. We have no natural means with which to defend ourselves or any real means of bringing down prey and that's our real secret, this kind of body plan only works if the creature has a high intelligence to create the tools and advanced social structures that this kind of build benefits from so highly.
So because of that, I would expect humanoid body plans to actually be quite common when it comes to creating civilised races because of those evolutionary pressures I talked about. It wouldn't be exclusively humanoids but I still think we'd make up at least 40% of the body plans for intelligent races.
@@sarahnade8663 The human body's lack of natural weapons is more likely a result of our tool use and sociality, rather than its cause.
@@sarahnade8663 Similar to the mindset of how civilisation and technology are adaptations humans had to make to compensate for our physiological shortcomings.
@@sarahnade8663 Except that's a huge assumption without much thought to evolutionary history. Looking at our own planet, over the course of hundreds of millions of years of complex life, humans as a species have only existed for about four million years, and almost all, sans modern humans, have gone extinct. Meaning that there is a good chance that our physiology and adaptations are problematic in terms of evolutionary longevity. I know that a lot of people like to think of humans as being exceptional, but strangely, besides humans, there has never been another species with our physiology(fully erect and bipedal, large-headed, tailless, etc). That's very telling, I think -- that evolutionary pressures have almost never selected a human-like physiology might mean humans were something of a fluke, and perhaps even a minor miracle. Which makes sense, as humans, though we are relatively large organisms, are rather weak compared to other large animals. And intelligence, though it can be a very dominating and powerful adaptation, is probably not very useful in the short-term -- meaning, a species that adapted high intelligence but had a weak physiology would be outcompeted by other species before their high intelligence would offer any significant advantage. And we cannot speak with any certainty about life forms on other planets, because life may arise in environments that lack an atmosphere, or have far more or very little gravity, or have extreme heat or cold, etc. Vertebrates only evolved on Earth the way they did because of the exact amount of gravity the planet exerts, and on other planets without that gravity they would never evolve at all, much less a human-like organism. So I'm not sure how you got the number that 40 percent of intelligent alien life should have humanoid body plans. The evolutionary history of our planet seems to prove otherwise (that human-like organisms would be quite rare), and we have absolutely no data about any life forms on other planets to put a number to anything.
I really love all the art of Birrin civilisation it's a really well realised hexapod society
Meanwhile in an Alternative universe: The incredible world of humans.
It amazing what the lifeforms of the distant earth planet look like!
As the equatorial regions became too hot to live and humans fled to the north and south~
@@NPSao Nah we go to another planet due to the earth is now a hothouse and the entire oceans are toxic due to pollution
The humans fled their homeworld to the fourth planet in their solar system
More like the shitty world of humans.
I'd like to imagine that somewhere across the multiverse, there's a Birrin out there watching a video about those weird "humans" one of their artists came up with.
OMG YES!!!!! You don't even know what valuable finds videos like this are to me!
Don't think your comment will take off just because you're verified.
Alteori , plox do a video on this , Alex rise is incredibly underrated
hello there alteori 😄
hold up
@@JovaJovenile-m4j bruh
I've been reading science fiction since 1953. Del Rey Books published my one novel in 1986. I have a strong preference for hard sci fi. I want to say this is absolutely the best work of its kind I have EVER seen. I'm going to find out all I can about Alex Reis, and I will support his work to my best ability. Congratulations to Mr. Reis and to everybody who made this video.
This video's description has links to Alex's sites.
Congrats on the Del Rey publishing! I know you say it's one novel but still, that's more than I've managed!
You're old
@@cold_raviol3616 You can count
Which book?
So about the plants being red, that actually means that the sun gives off more red light than our sun. As while it is a small amount, over all, our sun actually gives off mostly green light in the visible spectrum. This might seem counter intuitive as why would you want to reflect the light the sun gives off the most? however as green light is reflected there is actually a small amount of light that penetrates deeper into the leaf and feeds more chloroplasts than the light that is just absorbed. Just a small nitpick but an interesting one non the less.
Completly accurate. Great comment.
I was thinking along those lines and confusing myself. You answered the question well.
plants wherent always green on earth though and thats not the only theory / idea to why there green know
The plants might just be red if most if them have evolved to produce red ketocarotenoids, betalains, and/or red flavonoids; it could also be that a lot of the plants' common ancestors have had red pigments and the pigmentation genes remained in the current generations, which may have also been influenced by agriculture. The star is most likely a young G-type main sequence star, like our sun, because of it's sufficient longevity and habitable zone distance, especially along with the planet's atmosphere and magnetic field protecting the organisms from ionizing radiation and solar weather.
What about red algae on earth?
Your channel is really scratching an itch inside me that I didn’t even know existed.
Look up SpecEvo channels on youtube. Thats what our subculture is called
Same
You ever get the feeling where you are itching so you scratch it but it feels like its inside your skin
Same
I hate when aliens worlds are just "big earth animals" or a planet of only "super predators" I'm looking at you JJ Abrams.
Oddly the Xenomorphs are some of the more alien aliens in media. Too bad they were retconned to be not actual aliens, but instead genetically engineered humans.
@@Xetan123 Xenomorphs aren’t genetically engineered humans, there’s a theory that they were created by the Engineers via the black goo as a bio weapon but even the aliens we’ve seen that spawned from the goo don’t directly match the Xenomorph displayed in movies 1 and 2. So it could very well be an apex alien species that the Engineers tried to copy. We don’t really know
@@ameliaslater9383 But in Prometheus David created the xenomorphs by mixing Human, alien wasp DNA, and the black goo together.
@@Xetan123 yeah and so? Xenomorphs are bio weapons able to absorb and adapt from and to the host they come in contact with. Humans had no business in creating them.
Ya
Been following the Birrin "universe" ever since its inception, and I'm absolutely fascinated by the art, attention to detail and scientific accuracy. Good to see this being spotlighted!
Lovely video
@@DyslexicMitochondria HI man nice seeing you here. Love ur channeII btw
Yooooo. I remember seein' this man's work in dA a while ago. Forgot their name and lost track of their work. I am so happy to see their stuff again in such neat scale
Oy, now there's a name that hasn't aged well.
I remember this guy!!! I followed him on Deviantart years ago, and I remember his drawings of the Birrins. The drawings of the little ones were so adorable!!! It was two little ones playing and rough housing and the description was so cute!
I now want a show or movie based exactly on this outstanding work.
The channel is doing really good after the all today’s video
I know right! All of his videos has thousands and sometimes millions of views now. I started following him just a couple of weeks ago when most of his videos had only a couple of views. He blew up fast!
Yep, I started watching him when he's still have 200+ subs, I'm happy to see his channel grow.
Dude I cannot express how happy I am that you covered the Birrin project!
The number of people following him on twitter went up significantly.
9:40 I've seen this picture a billion times. Finally I know where it's from.
This is the dawn of a new sci-fi interpretation of aliens, more "sci" and less "fi", finally! I was tired of aliens wich are just humans with face paint or masks, excellent job!!
A new, unique gerne.
If you're okay with dealing with a lot of sexism and some racism, you can actually look at a lot of Larry Niven's work in his Known Space universe.
Lots of alien looking aliens, like Pierson's Puppeteers, a species with 3 legs, 2 heads, and its brain in its torso. Also some less original races, like the Kzinti, giant rat/cat people.
Biggest problem is that most of his stories are kind of average quality, with a lot of 70s era sexism. But they're almost all set in amazing worlds and cultures that make biological and engineering sense.
Subnautica actually got me into speculative biology, so I can credit this guy for my interest in it.
Such a beautiful and immersive journey. It's as if the creator was there himself to record this world's history. In a way, I feel like I'm watching a documentary about us, from a stranger's perspective. I was looking at the stuff from the website, too, and wow, what a place it is, this planet. There's also a lot of love for aeronautics. The Birrin aircraft are fascinating. I'd love to see a full illustration book by Mr. Ries, if he were to make one. Thanks for the video! :)
You should look into serina. It's a world that is populated by finches and it shows their evolution. People would love it.
I was just thinking of that one! That would be so cool to cover
Created by the author of All Tomorrows.
@Sharkastic ah. My bad. I just saw the two peoples works associated with eachother.
Omg I just realized I've been watching this channel for a while and it only has 50k subs. I thought everyone knew this channel, it's so good
finally! truly alien designs all in one world, they are extremely hard to come by and create.
and damn, I knew the designs looked familiar, having played subnautica and blz for 4 years
I’ve been following this artist work for years. Great to see their truly getting the recognition they deserve
I love the fact that Ries contributed to the world of Subnautica. After playing through the first game (which was absolutely terrifying), I can't wait to see Below Zero for myself, and the incorporation of his work into the game. In particular the Chelicerate looks familiar to the Birrin, which I found interesting.
Fascinating! I'd never heard of him nor his creations.
8:20 I love how even tho the Birrin have facial structures completely different to our own you can tell that the rebel here is furious
Great video! I remember discovering Birrin years ago and falling in love with how weird, yet realistic it is
I'd love to see you do a video on Sheather's Serina spec-evo project.
It'd be impossible to cover in great detail in one video, but an overview would be awesome. It's really the gold-standard of speculative evolution projects!
Such a big inspiration for me! I love Birrin and all the artwork of it. I’m in the All Tomorrows fandom right now and I *trying* to hold a candle to the lore and worldbuilding of Birrin through my fanon Snake People country of Novy Lunia. A lot of people seem to like both my lore and artwork but I’m not gonna lie, Birrin is on a whole other level which is why it’s such a big inspiration.
Holy shit! The birrin, i never expected a video about them.
I know, right?!
yeah there wearing swat armor 8:21
A prime example of Imaginative realism. Really awesome artist.
Oh my god he’s so cool. His art is so cool, I love subnautica so much and seeing the similarities between his personal series and Subnautica creatures is so cool. The squid shark has the same jaws as the birrin
Careful how you say that name
Alex put SO many easter eggs in Subnautica: Below Zero from the Birrin project. Those also include Skydrop's white-green-blue colour pallete in Penwing, Penling and Titan Holefish, Birrin's quadrilateral jaws in the Ice Worm and in general, the common descendance between the tropical and arctic species (Stalker-Snow stalker, Peeper-Arctic Peeper, Holefish-Titan Holefish).
This is what I've always wanted/imagined! Why are aliens always anthropomorphic like us? It never makes sense, what are the chances they would evolve similar features to us. But this is a really amazing concept
Even worse it's when the supposed aliens look exactly like humans and can even reproduce with them.
@@axolotl1777 gotta get those alien cheeks man
You should check out Birrin aviation and space tech next Id think you'd like it
Well one theory in scifi is that all aliens have a similar origin. Like in Star Trek. In the Next generation they even have an episode explaining it.
But there are plenty of scifi books that have unique aliens. You should check out Barlowes guide to Extraterrestrials. It features many non anthropomorphic aliens from literature.
I honestly can't stop watching this. It's storytelling to the extremes and I would've loved to have seen them in something like No Man's Skies. Imagine seeing something like that walking on 4 legs but pulling in nets on the banks of a river.
A game is the next step, man. So many possibilities.
@@lepmuhangpa
Or VR simulator. Ofcourse you can't see through 2 of the 4 eyes but maybe that could be compensated some how.
@@djprogramer973 By connecting it directly to the brain? That's my idea but probably hard to commercialize. Hahaha.
There's a whole bunch of other incredibly well thought out alien biology projects like Alex ries' s chirrah out there too:
Like C.m kosemen's "Snaiad" project, Biblaridion's "alien biospheres" series, Wayne barlowe's masterpiece "expedition", (or Darwin IV if you're only familiar with the "alien planet" documentary)
And the list goes on and on.
I think these 3 aforementioned projects would make great video topics as well.
Alien Biospheres doesn't even compare. C'mon. Everything else you listed is far more imaginative than land squids and giant spiders. The only real draw is the different perspective as his videos are done more from his perspective creating these creatures rather than trying to explain them as if they're actually real per-se.
@@youcantbeatk7006 Shitting on Alien Biospheres because the art isn't as flashy or it's not been in production as long so it's "less imaginative" is pretty cringe. It's an extremely unique series that looks at evolution of life on a planet from its very beginning stages, explains the individual pressures and concepts that push evolution along, and has a considerable active community working together on the project.
All the of them is worth checking out indeed. I also reccomend Serina: A Natural History of the World of Birds.
@@sabinekine2737 I never stated the artwork as a reason why it's boring to me but I stand by the fact that it's not imaginative because it's not. IIRC in one of the early episodes he admitted himself that he wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel, that he was just doing it like a demonstration of how he thinks evolution works. Honestly compare all of the words you mentioned and you can't dare to honestly say alien biospheres is on the same level. It's detailed yes but it just doesn't do anything new.
@@youcantbeatk7006 i totally agree with you on the giant spiders thing, but cm kosemen's hypothesis of "drastic phenotypical convergence" could explain the resemblance between the osteopods and spiders.
My favorite illustration is the one with the riot gear. It shows how different an yet how similar they are to us.
conflicts and war may be random for civilication
NOOOOO WE NEED MORE!!!! THIS IS SO INTERESTING!!!!!! I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL THE BOOK COMES OUT!!!!
Gosh, its so cool and surreal to see this artist's work being discussed on YT; I still remember discovering their art on DeviantartArt waaay back several years ago, then seeing them get hired to work on Subnautica, and now they're being talked about on youtube! :D
I absolutely *love* the design of these aliens, and if they made a game set on this world, land-based and water-based, i'd buy it in a heartbeat
FINALLLY , Alex rise gets the attention he deserves , you don't know how long ive waited for this
9:45 ohhh so this meme is about the Birrins....
It's a good day when curious archive posts
I feel like I’ve seen you before there’s a chance you’ve seen me
?
That was so incredible. Thank you for making this! The Artist is amazing!!!!! Can't wait for the book Alex Ries!
The alien worlds and species you featured in your videos have helped influence a novel I've been writing for quite a while now. Thank you Curious Archive for sharing the creative power of these authors-artists. :)
Saw some of this artwork a while back on DeviantArt..
Exceptionally awe inspiring stuff.
I absolutely love Alex Ries's works
This is some of the most impressive Alien Biosphere art I have ever seen. Wow.
I think my favorite concept here is the Giants. Usually, races of giants are reserved for fantasy, but having them simply be a closely-related species that just happens to be much larger is a way for it to be believable and all the more interesting. Plus, there's the added touch of the Giants having a more distinct appearance and anatomy than that of the Birrin really drives home that they aren't just normal Birrin but huge.
My favorite new channel! Please keep up the good work finding beautiful illustrations of speculative / mistaken / theoretical biology. Bio-art? Wait that just sounds like art grown out of flesh.
I need a new fleshbook
Sketchbook
Hey, just wanted to say that I love your content and keep up the good work! 👍
He is 1 of my favorite artists, as thinking out alien life was my childhood hobby. See someone else doing it with commitment feel my heart with joy.
dude this is one of my favorite artists period
I strive for my series to be as good as this one. These drawings are SO GORGEOUS!!!
I love that you can tell he worked on Subnautica. It sounds weird cause like- y'know, artists are gonna have a similar art style across everything you do, but you can really see similarities in this from Subnautica things like Squidsharks.
7:41 this looks wholesome for some reason
They look like chill
Love abiogenesis art. It's honestly something special
9:40 so that's where that image came from, I'm surprised
yes ! I always loved the art of Abiogenisis ^^
This is weird, but I would actually like to pet a Birrin. Assuming that it would not be offended or antagonized by me doing so.
most people don't like having their heads pat by a complete stranger
so it's safe to assume you'd need to bond with one first
@Lelo Stimulous bruh
@@LucarioredLR That's super true XD I wouldn't just pet one of them at random, at least not without permission first since they're such intelligent beings and all.
@Lelo Stimulous I have no idea what this has to do with my original comment, but okay!
In the Zones of Thought trilogy by Vernor Vinge, the Tines are a dog-like species whose sense of self and identity emerges at the pack level, rather than at the level of individual bodies, due to the unique way they emit and process sound. Normally, Tine packs have a much larger range of personal space than humans do, since if two packs get too close to one another, there will be interference between their "mindsounds," causing their sense of self to dissolve and their individual bodies to separate back into dumb animals. This dissolution of self is allowed to take place only during sex and warfare and only temporarily. In normal social circumstances, the packs communicate with one another from several yards away using a language that is completely different from the mindsound language that binds each pack together.
When Tine packs first encounter humans, they find it difficult to understand how a single human body could house an intelligent being by itself. But once they figure out that among humans, each person just has one body, they also figure out that humans don't emit mindsound, and as a result, being close to one doesn't interfere with one's own sense of self. So the physical intimacy of being petted by humans is actually enjoyable to them, because it's an extremely novel form of closeness that they could never experience with one another without the noise breaking down their minds. It never dawns on them that this could be perceived as degrading, because their society has no real precedent for the significance of petting.
So glad someone popular covered this!
I love this sort of speculation about the present and future please keep it up I will definitely keep watching and subscribe
I follow the artist on DA and been a fan of his work for years! Thanks for uploading this in TH-cam!
The world building is so detailed, it felt like I have discovered a possible area of reality that I have never ever seen!
5 days ago you were at like 10-30k subs. Now you're at nearly 55k! Good job bro
Outstanding , very interesting . I would be interested in learning more about this fascinating alien world 🌎
I remember discovering Alex Ries' DeviantArt channel more than a decade ago and falling in love with his aesthetic and his attention to detail.
I’ve always wanted to make up an alien world. Nice video!
I'm putting both of these videos in a Playlist for my son(who is almost here!) Because he needs to know having an open mind is the best thing to ever have!
This is so cool, the Birrin are pretty interesting.
The kind of content I love!
I want more works with non-human intelligent aliens with this level of consistent world building, really!
I've been following Alex for years, so nice to see him get some recognition
I love it when an alien species looks well completely alien.
I've been following his work since the beginning its so cool seeing someone make a video about it!!
This is so interesting keep up the good work man
Amazing vid! We need part 2 now!
Yeeeeeesss finally getting the attention they deserve!!!
Alex's a blessed boi now. :P
I was also looking at doing this topic, it’s super fascinating
Yooooo azfk good to see you here! Could you do a vid on this sometime?
Brooo this is amazing I can’t wait to learn about the rest of the world
I have known of Alex Ries for years now, it is really cool to see a video finally covering the Birrin species
Reminds me of the work of Wayne Douglas Barlowe who along with H.R. Giger are the biggest influences on Ted Backman, the main monster designer for the Half-Life video game series.
I am 100% buying this book. I’ve been following Alex’s work for years now.
The birrin are surprisingly plausible as what an alien species on an alien planet might look like
Ever since I watched your first video I couldn't stop myself from binge watching. Keep making these types of videos.
i would love to see an ultra realistic CGI documentary about this. like the dinosaur ones coming out in the 2010’s
Love to see this get more attention!
half of these pictures just look like subnatutica concept art, they hired the right man for the job.
That picture of the rioter attacking the riot cop, and the second cop sprinting in to help, is amazingly well done.
This is amazing work. Beautiful art, thoughtful fauna, and geography, and very interesting history. This is an absolute inspiration to continue my work, though I like to focus more on the language development of my own fantasy world recently.
So cool to finally see someone covering this
First heard about Abiogenesis because he was a Subnautica: Below Zero alien desginer.
all I know is that he made the chelicerate, which is def one of the best designed in below zero
@@anon515 Ah yes, evil shrimp.
@@anon515 Subnautica: Below Zero's Wiki page shows he did a VAST majority of the creatures for the game.
@@anon515 it's by far the least impressive design. I'll take literally anything else.
@@Astro_Aladfar It's very evident. I agree with you lol.
This dude is awesome, been following him for a while
This is amazing!
a video on my favorite artist? awesome!!!