Kismet background scene ideas

[sholio]

Hey all - I am working on a big splash-page crowd scene for an upcoming scene in Kismet, which is going to be followed by a series of pages taking place in the same area, a large indoor marketplace that is Kismet's main shopping district. I'm running out of ideas for different sorts of people and various sight gags to have in the background. I asked my sister for some ideas, and she had some good ones (a person with a hat-top garden on their head; someone selling things out of a trench coat). But since I'm going to need to repeatedly come up with different people to appear in the background, more ideas are definitely better. Mostly it'll just be run-of-the-mill random bystanders, but I want a fair amount of weird to go along with the standard marketplace kinds of things.

Kismet is a future dome-city, and while there's no organized government, so theoretically anything goes, the marketplace itself is run by a sort of mafia-like organization (the Galleria Merchant's Association) that tends to police it fairly strictly and with extreme prejudice for anything that would discourage business; therefore you won't have a whole lot of, say, panhandling, streaking, etc.

Actually for starters, I'm working on just coming up with what you might see in the crowd in a normal marketplace/street fair/mall, like:
- mimes and living statues
- people on unicycles
- people with visible disabilities
- small children
- street artists
- people texting or using phones
- buskers

Stuff which is possible in a Kismetlike space opera setting:
- people with physical modifications (horns/wings/animal heads/etc)
- people carrying large guns
- people with very strange pets (like, I have a person walking a dinosaur on a leash)
- etc ...?

(Kismet leans heavily towards the moderately-anachronistic space opera end of the sci-fi spectrum, as opposed to being serious sci-fi, so the overall feel I'm going for here is not really a serious science fiction look at a future street fair, so much as "street fair with various weirdness and assorted futuristic sight gags in the background". Also, there are no sapient aliens, though domestic alien creatures are possible.)

Comments

[malnpudl]

I instantly thought of pigeons or whatever the equivalent critter might be. There will always be some wild/feral life form that hangs around populated spaces and scavenges food and hopes for handouts.

And pets. If there's not at least one pet for every twenty people in a scene like that, I feel like something is missing. You mention strange pets, but I keyed in more on the prevalence.

[sholio]

Oh, yeah - these are good. :) (I know Kismet has both mutant rats and feral garbage-collecting robots, and probably other stuff as well.) And that's a good point about pets; I never noticed they're that common, but you're right!

[ratcreature]

You could include a plein air painter in the background. Also therer's always self-referential gags of news vendors selling copies of your comic (or giant news screens showing stuff if they've gone paperless). Funny advertising on posters or screens.

[sholio]

mmmm, I definitely need to remember to get more advertising in there! And painters, yes, you're right.

[madripoor_rose]

Our local art fairs always have someone who brings a ridiculous-sized dog for the crowd...mastiffs and grayhounds.

So...a big-dog sized triceratops on a leash? would be all kinds of awesome.

[sholio]

Yeah, I've got a scene already with someone walking a dinosaur; I should have more of that kind of thing around!

[winter_elf]

someone selling kids toys - like balloons, or hoops, or foam somethings

someone selling candy - brightly colored and wildly shaped

beggar or street performer with pet 'monkey' (or something like that) doing tricks?

Some steampunk fancy style outfits (I love the look, what can I say)

someone who's wearing a super fancy - out of place outfit - you know like full tudor or regency or like that

[sholio]

Thank you, these are excellent! (oooh, steampunk - I like that one especially! :D)

[mific]

Hmmm - do they have antigrav? If so, people directing along floating heavy things they just bought.
Or force-field containment rather than packaging - like water and fishes in a force field.
Or...a person with a very tall coiffure that turns out to be a pet sitting on their head or shoulders when it uncoils or stretches, or spreads its wings.
Stilts or body-mod that's like stilts.
Weird hats, possibly with aerials.
:)

[sholio]

Ooh, thank you, these are excellent! Yes, they do have antigrav, so I should definitely have floaty carry-alls.