More 2019 art delving into some previously unexplored worlds in my universe...

After my "Greetings from Keone" pic a while back, which explained a bit of the background of one of my races, received quite a bit of positive feedback, that encouraged me to actually go ahead and share a bit more about some of the other planets in my galaxy, and the creatures that inhabit them.

Here is an as-yet-unnamed Almaki (the same race as Aludra and Adhara, decided to finally draw a male of their species) standing out on the dunes, ready for a bit of gathering and scavenging. The Almaki are one of two sapient races native to Alamak (art of the other race, the Karukalak, is coming soon), a hot, dry planet. Most of the planet's surface is desert or savanna, with a few small seas and lakes scattered around the surface. The equatorial regions are quite hot and dry and almost exclusively desert, rocky badlands, and the now-dry beds of long-gone lakes and seas. The temperate regions host savannas and scrublands, and the polar regions consist of cool, dry, rocky deserts with scattered glaciers and small ice caps at both poles.

Almaki civilization is native to the desert areas, their cities springing up around the various lakes, seas and other oases that dot the dune seas of the planet's equatorial and tropical regions. The planet's citizens led relatively simple lives until the Jerboa-like Jeroban made contact with them at some point roughly 2500 years ago, quickly becoming allies and trading partners. As a result, Alamak simply adopted much of the Jeroban technology and rapidly advanced their civilization, and became a valued part of what would later become the Cygnian Federation.

As for what this guy might be searching for out in the desert... the shifting sands hide a variety of useful minerals and ores, deposits of which are often revealed after sandstorms rearrange the sand dunes. These same sandstorms also kick up a wide variety of small edible creatures, uncover lost spacecraft that crashed and fell into the desert to be lost to the sands of time, the remnants of ancient settlements, and, on rare occasions, reveal cave systems that lead to subterranean caverns filled with water.