Standing at about three feet tall and about 70 pounds, these little buggers eat a lot of…well, bugs. They're covered in thick, tough plates to give them armor against the larger predators on Ebullience, and communicate via the production (and smelling) of smells, as they don't have vocal cords. They seem to have figured out how to understand the Thanians well enough, though, as they do everything from farming to ditch-digging to mass-production of hover components for the Thanian empire. They're compelled to do so via a device attached to their neck that gives a potent shock when activated.

They have a rich history that will emerge in time, that part I have no problem with. My problem is that I want them to have that difficult blend of sturdy, earthy strange alienness and I-deserve-to-be-free cuteness. If I go too far one way, we have Ugnaughts from Star Wars (and thus few actually care about their plight), and if I go the other, they turn into toothache-producing chibis (and thus, we turn the morality play into a farce). These sketches are part of a stack of attempts to reconcile these two concepts. How can I improve them to achieve the result I'm looking for?