The white and gold creature reminds me of one of Larry Niven's "Puppeteer" characters. A very advanced race of timid herbivores which have mastered the ability to create nearly indestructible spacecraft hulls.

yup yup, and the guy with the eyesalks is how i saw the groacci in my mind too. the way i remember seeing a kelly freas drawing of a pearson's puppetteer in analog inspired my modling of these guys. and the groacci i was reminded to make by a flat color doodle i had seen someone do in the early days on here.

Aw Geeeze... I forgot about the Groacci characters. There was one Groacci I recall who was very cooperative and a bit of a coward compared to his world conquering cohorts. He was kinda like "Dr. Smith" from Lost in Space mixed with... Uh... Oh I don't know? he closest I can think of is "Star Scream" from the Transformers, but I'm certain there might be a better example.

I still wonder if a person got ahold of one of the "Groacci's" yes and snapped it back, that the rest of the eyes would clunk about like some sort of pleasing kinetic sculpture.