Inspired by fish

I did some research by looking in to how life on other planets could look and what would make them different to us. I found that climate played a big part. I also researched how humans came to be the way we are, how the eye is formed and how it is different to other animals, how we got different types of skin and eye colour, the evolution of body hair. These were interesting to read, however there was just so much information and I did not know how to incorporate or depict these things, or rather I did not know how I could come up with believable life on a planet such as Mars. I would have to take into consideration a lot of elements of that planet that would affect life there. 

So I found a PDF titled "What would life on other planets be like" by Andy Howell (http://www.dahowell.com/uploads/2/2/4/7/22474426/life.pdf), which was an interesting document on alien depiction in film and TV and also the purpose that the design served, but also the fundamentals of life and how evolution affects that. So what I took from this was, my characters are for a game, they need to not only be practical but they must look interesting, the player must be able to recognise elements of the characters and sympathise with them to create an emotional bond. To me this suggests that there must be some human qualities, as for me personally, I cannot really relate to a starfish for example. 

Anyway, after coming across numerous articles and posts about life on Earth as well as what life on other planets could look like, I thought I should deviate from my very humanoid characters and take inspiration from the sea. However this was very new to me, I have never really drawn non-human figures. 

Having been greatly inspired by DotA's Naga Siren, I decided to go in a different idea and experiment with drawing inspiration from fish fins mostly. Below is one design inspired by the Oriental flying gurnard fish, which looks like this: 

The above design is inspired by a variation of the betta fish (siamese fighter) fin. 

After the first two drawings, I realised that the character would not need eyebrows, and that the eyes were somewhat too small and human-like, so I made them bigger and more rounded. This one was inspired by the Portuguese Man o' War jellyfish. I could have changed the direction of the top bit, but then it would have looked a bit like a mohawk, and that was just not as interesting to me.

This one was based on the Siamese fighter (betta fish), and the long tail fin was meant to represent hair, however I did not like this design at all, as it looked too human.

This one was vaguely inspired by the redfin fish, taking the image below and making it more symmetrical around her face.

This one was inspired by the fins of the tropical angle fish.