BTW for ideas, I'd like to point out that a lot of things that look cool as art can't really be put into texture form. At least, not easily at all.
Take the stuff on page 2 for example. Most of them are well shaded, yes, but there isn't anything too special for their actual skin. What makes them really cool to me is their design. Unfortunately, we're gonna be limited by the shape of the tori.
I've always found already humanoid stuff to work best.
As for the force/lax thing....A lot of people work with two tones for that reason, although you REALLY only need to work with forces, since that's what shows in replays anyway. And even if it's not in two or more tones, a guy could just use void/demon/plat lax and it'd all be good too!
IMO, if we do organic, it shouldn't be alien, but more like an earthly monster. But then we'd be stuck on what to do for the body, since all the interesting details would be in the face.
Armor is so much easier >_<