busy1) If they're similar to a Terran species, just keep the same basic features. So a catlike alien would tend to have vertical slits. This is helpful if you want to use some of the really weird shapes.
2) If they're not similar to a single species, look for parallel evolution. Were their ancestors predators (vertical slits), prey (horizontal slits) or active foragers (round)?
3) If they have a totally different shape, make sure you provide an explanation that makes sense. Frex, hourglass pupils might have a separate rod/cone mix, so that each half would dominate under different lighting conditions.
August 9 2015, 13:03:10 UTC 5 years ago
August 9 2015, 14:16:05 UTC 5 years ago
The planimals of Traipah are even weirder, in that they don't have eyes as such. They can see perfectly fine. To what level of detail, I don't know yet, but well enough that there are planimals that hunt by sight. One species looks something like green hairless dogs with no eyes, and teeth made of wood. (Planimals = similar to plants in that many are capable of making their own sugar with photosynthesis, but not all; and most planimals eat animals or plants or other planimals.) That species doesn't get much out of photosynthesis. Other species do; there are omnivorous/herbivorous prey planimals that the Ah'Koi Bahnis have domesticated, which are like walking bushes covered in a great many leaves.
Anyway, planimals have some kind of eyes, somewhere, somehow on their bodies. Probably even on their heads; at least some of the predators do. But they don't look like they have eyes. I haven't figured out the details yet.
I have another species, in my Lyria fantasy universe, called the Harun. [Hah-roon] Their eyes are pretty weird too. Their pupils look like crosshairs. Not sure why, other than that it looks disturbing. Also, their eyes have a magical ability; they can emit some kind of magic or radiation that lets them see not only in the dark, but also see through solid objects (like Moody's blue eye, in Harry Potter), make perfect 3D models of things by looking at them (like Hugh of Borg in Star Trek), and act like living MRI machines in that they can scan inside things and beings, even down to the DNA.
Their eyes also shapeshift, like the rest of their bodies, and can look like any kind of eye. But to use their special sight, they have to have the crosshair-pupils. And there's a brief but small flash of light whenever they first activate that ability.
Yes...
August 10 2015, 04:23:18 UTC 5 years ago
I think the most unusual that I've made is the Eye of Fate in Monster House, which sees things that touch on destiny but not things that don't.