Perhaps a different approach would work better for modeling something that Winter could approve:
I'd suggest, before starting a new alien model, to think about what lower creature form an alien could come from, the type of planetary environment it may have started in, etc. (A volcanic, rocky planet? A mostly ocean-covered/aquatic planet? High-gravity? Low-gravity?) Then think along the lines of how it may have evolved over time, through different forms, how it survived and lived, what prey and predators it may have had and how it adapted to hunt and/or avoid being hunted. Think it through, going through at least several levels of development, until you have something that could be intelligent for a reason and be able to manipulate tools (fire a plasma gun).
If you have a "game-plan" idea of the background story of how an alien creature came about before and while you model, its much better than just modeling almost at random something that looks big, ugly, and scary, then working backwards trying to explain all of the creatures features, attributes, and abilities so it got that way.