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Description
Please note that these guys are a closed species, regardless of any older comments!

Hey guys! More art, whoo! This time, it's a bit more recent.

So! Here we have a Spotlighter, pre-activation. Spotlighters themselves come in a wide array of colors, and you probably remember me mentioning that these colors randomized at start-up; but what exactly does that mean? Well. Since these guys are mass-produced, it wouldn't make sense for Secure Technologies to manufacture each and every color variation separately, it would take too much time and effort- so they found a better way.

Spotlighter 'fur' is actually comprised of a series of hollow, fiber-optic strands; these strands can be programmed to project any color or color combination imaginable, and it solves the problem of how to create lots and lots of color variation without having to make each one separately. This allows them to produce a whole slew of what are called 'shells' (the un-coded, essentially empty bodies that will later be loaded with programming, personality, color and other data) at a time, and just activate them as needed.

This is one such shell. Since no coding has been loaded yet, the fur shows up as semi-transparent; once activated, the colors will randomize, and the resulting combination will be written permanently 'to disc' along with personality and other data, and cannot be changed. However, if someone did want a specific color or pattern to show up, this information could be pre-coded instead of randomized, but it must be done prior to activation, before everything is finalized.

An interesting note on Spotlighter data and shells: though personality and color data cannot be changed, it can be transferred between shells, much in the same way data can be loaded from one computer to another. So essentially, if a Spotlighter becomes damaged beyond repair, you could transfer their entire programming 'package' (basically what makes them 'them') into a whole new shell, and that shell would have the same colors, voice, and memories as the previous one did. This also allows individual Spotlighters to transfer between the different divisions (common, medical, mechanic, etc - which all have different base shells) as many times as needed. There is a very, very slight chance of data corruption occurring during transfer, though it's very rare; but if this happens, you could wind up with distorted/glitched color data (or even patches where it didn't load at all), warped personality/memory data, glitchy programming, and all sorts of other things that would be pretty bad, considering it's something that you can't fix. 8'D

Also! This shows some things a lot more clearly than the old art did, like how the tube-things on their sides look. XD They're actually hollow, and display the same color as their eyes and spotlights do. :> I also changed them to having only three spikes on their back, rather than five.

(And if you guys wanted to see what they're built like underneath all that fur, I uploaded a 'naked' version to my scraps here !)

--

Also, you guys! For those of you who don't watch my journal, please take a moment to check out a cool new community on LJ by the name of Artstickers! The whole thing is primarily member-driven, so the more the better; the basic idea is that people post art 'assignments' for you to do by a certain date, and when you finish, you get a shiny digital sticker to add to your collection! (these stickers are limited edition, too; once the deadline for the particular assignment passes, you can't get that sticker anymore, so it's added incentive to finish) Whether you try for every sticker or just go for the ones you really like is up to you; there's no pressure whatsoever, and the goal is just to have fun drawing and get in some practice! A good place to find out more is the intro post here ; hope to see you guys there!

Description
Please note that these guys are a closed species, regardless of any older comments!

Hey guys! More art, whoo! This time, it's a bit more recent.

So! Here we have a Spotlighter, pre-activation. Spotlighters themselves come in a wide array of colors, and you probably remember me mentioning that these colors randomized at start-up; but what exactly does that mean? Well. Since these guys are mass-produced, it wouldn't make sense for Secure Technologies to manufacture each and every color variation separately, it would take too much time and effort- so they found a better way.

Spotlighter 'fur' is actually comprised of a series of hollow, fiber-optic strands; these strands can be programmed to project any color or color combination imaginable, and it solves the problem of how to create lots and lots of color variation without having to make each one separately. This allows them to produce a whole slew of what are called 'shells' (the un-coded, essentially empty bodies that will later be loaded with programming, personality, color and other data) at a time, and just activate them as needed.

This is one such shell. Since no coding has been loaded yet, the fur shows up as semi-transparent; once activated, the colors will randomize, and the resulting combination will be written permanently 'to disc' along with personality and other data, and cannot be changed. However, if someone did want a specific color or pattern to show up, this information could be pre-coded instead of randomized, but it must be done prior to activation, before everything is finalized.

An interesting note on Spotlighter data and shells: though personality and color data cannot be changed, it can be transferred between shells, much in the same way data can be loaded from one computer to another. So essentially, if a Spotlighter becomes damaged beyond repair, you could transfer their entire programming 'package' (basically what makes them 'them') into a whole new shell, and that shell would have the same colors, voice, and memories as the previous one did. This also allows individual Spotlighters to transfer between the different divisions (common, medical, mechanic, etc - which all have different base shells) as many times as needed. There is a very, very slight chance of data corruption occurring during transfer, though it's very rare; but if this happens, you could wind up with distorted/glitched color data (or even patches where it didn't load at all), warped personality/memory data, glitchy programming, and all sorts of other things that would be pretty bad, considering it's something that you can't fix. 8'D

Also! This shows some things a lot more clearly than the old art did, like how the tube-things on their sides look. XD They're actually hollow, and display the same color as their eyes and spotlights do. :> I also changed them to having only three spikes on their back, rather than five.

(And if you guys wanted to see what they're built like underneath all that fur, I uploaded a 'naked' version to my scraps here !)

--

Also, you guys! For those of you who don't watch my journal, please take a moment to check out a cool new community on LJ by the name of Artstickers! The whole thing is primarily member-driven, so the more the better; the basic idea is that people post art 'assignments' for you to do by a certain date, and when you finish, you get a shiny digital sticker to add to your collection! (these stickers are limited edition, too; once the deadline for the particular assignment passes, you can't get that sticker anymore, so it's added incentive to finish) Whether you try for every sticker or just go for the ones you really like is up to you; there's no pressure whatsoever, and the goal is just to have fun drawing and get in some practice! A good place to find out more is the intro post here ; hope to see you guys there!