@Vandred Let's go! Just send me a PM with what you have in mind and we'll see what we can make happen
@Craket you're pretty much right about everything and I would love to continue what I did the past months so, yeah, probably it will go that way. SFW dress up store will open again in March I guess
It's
just that I have changed and the idea of creating some kind of
animation with plot is way more interesting to me now than having a
Yiffalicious style interaction.
If I remember correctly, Odes has stated in the past that the animation system he's got in mind should be robust enough to serve as a tool for completely SFW stuff as well. Of course, most people here are in it for the porn, so it makes sense to showcase all the sex simulation systems first of all.
Given that FurryVNE's such a robust tool already, I can assure you that there will be plenty of others who'll want to misuse it for non-porn scenarios. Yours truly included, though I do have plenty of lewd plans in addition to that. Now, if I could just stop falling down various rabbit holes of distraction and actually get back on track with my own projects... Hah, fat chance!
Yes, indeed, I thought so too but for
now, as you also already mentioned, the focus will be on sexy-time
and that's cool for everyone. Sex sells after all!
The only thing is: IF by the end of the
year some kind of animation system will go live it will most likely
only contain the lewd stuff and one year ago I would be SO in for
that as well (I mean check out what kind of poses I did one and a
half year ago with my characters and what I do now) but time and
lifestyle changes.
What I'm aiming at is: I would have to
wait way longer than a year for a engine that can do what I now have
in mind but one year in the future is already to late for me. I do
believe we had that conversation where we said that it's a nice hobby
and every little step helps but learning an animation system while
working pretty much 24/7 is simply not possible. I will most likely
pick up my second job once again which I dropped during the last year
so, yeah, no more time for old Blacky to set up stuff.
My plan for the future -at least for
now- would be continuing what I already do. Make some "cool"
characters happen. Slower than the last year, for sure, but it's
something I can contribute to all of you. Once a animation system
goes live I will check what can be done and if it's not possible to
set things up I will simply stay a character creator till I loose
interest in doing that.
Nevertheless I hope I'll get to see
some stuff from you looking forward to it!
Hey
everyone, I'm back in the game and no one even noticed that I was
away
Nah, jokes aside, I "meditated"
a lot lately about where my place will be on the long term. Like in a
year or maybe even in two years and I do believe I found some kind of
answer to that. I thought about completely quitting here because of
social stuff but I really love to sit here and be a 3d-artist. What
truly cached me is the ability to be an "artist", to really
turn visions of characters into "reality". It would be way
to sad to just simply turn my back on this hobby that fills me with
joy and stop doing character design because of the sexual content. So
let's just do it the other way around. I will continue to do my stuff
and get what I always wanted and you all benefit from that because
all my characters can be used the way you all like and that's cool
for me. It is actually pretty simple and little to nothing will
change.
So by all means, from now on let's do
ART!
So without any further philosophical
outpourings let's talk a little bit about my newest "painting"
Shiranui - Solar Flare
The making of
So,
the making of Shiranui could most likely be three pages long and I
still wouldn't cover every single thing what is going on here.
Instead I will change this section a
bit from now on.
It really takes a lot of time to
document every step but not going into the full depth of the subject
also is little to no help for beginners so I decided to just talk
about the inspiration here in this section and I will most likely do
a large scale tutorial for all of you, explaining everything I know
and all the new techniques I use to get YOU started as well.
From Star Fox to fantasy I will try to
hook you up like "Lina's Jacket Tutorial" style.
Alright, with that said, who the hell
is Shiranui???
This character originates from the game
called Okami and most of you know the main protagonist called
Amaterasu, the white wolf and goddess of the sun.
Shiranui is the historical hero
who saved the in game Kamiki Village one hundred years prior to the
start of the game. He is at full power, wielding the Solar Flare
Reflector and exuding a long, pure white mane of flowing energy. Like
his later incarnation, Amaterasu, he does not speak.
In this article Shiranui is referred to
as "he" so it was most likely a male wolf but for
creativity's sake I changed the gender
Also I decided to go with Shiranui
because @thirteeenth has a version of Amaterasu in the pipeline and I
don't want to snatch away his stuff but he inspired me to create my
own version of her. That was way longer than a year ago if I recall
correctly? Anyway.
In addition to that the character of
@THEGGH called Silliah almost instantly made me think of
Amaterasu/Shiranui so I simply had to go for it.
Alright, so I took their base model and
scaled it up quite a lot, adding a lot of hard shapes inside blender
to create a six pack and make her look fierce and a bit more muscular
or well trained since this form represents the apex of her power.
Now for the clothes I at first decided
to do a Kimono but after importing it to the cloud I decided to
change the idea and separate the pieces. It turned out to look way to
similar to my Miyuki (she was already a homage to Amaterasu).
The idea to add some kunai on a belt
around her thigh was actually a old idea and I wanted to do this for
Noelani at first but I scraped the idea back then not only for
triangles reasons but also since I thought Noelani is a more western
dragon type and has a big sword.
So basically for the kunai setup
everything was already there and I just had to assemble it after I
got the design of the skirt done. Stockings and the so called "geta"
(traditional Japanes sandals) came way later after deciding to dress
her like a kunoiche (female ninja) to once again pick up the
traditional Japanese dress code. The last thing I implemented were
the armor assets. Without them she would look quite unfinished so
those shoulder plates really wrapped things up.
I also had that texture I used all over
her body since...I do believe creating Aurelia? It was meant to be
the dress texture for her back then, but I changed my mind during her
development.
The interesting parts were of course
the weapons.
In Okami there are a lot of fancy
swords and the one I love most was the so called "eighth
wonder". Ingame this was a extremely huge blade but for FVNE I
scaled it down a lot. Prayer beads are also a huge thing in Okami so
I did a little ying and yang shape and assembled them floating around
her neck like it would be in the game and that's it!
What I was really aiming for was the
Solar Flare reflector, the signature item of Shiranui and the most
powerful reflector you can obtain during the game!
To get it done I tried to imitate the
movement of fire and added a lot o little "flames" with
brush paintings on them to pick up the Okami style a bit. It is still
a bit strange to do special effects on mesh basis but it turned out
quite well for what I was aiming for. A wild mixture of alpha layers
with a lot of color blending did the job to get it painted.
Trivia
The name
Shiranui
(不知火;
lit. "unknown fire") is a Japanese term given to the
optical or supernatural phenomenon similar to will-o'-the-wisp. The
in game description is
something like this:
"100 years ago when the ceremony
to sacrifice a maiden to drew near, a white wolf was seen roaming
around the village at night. The villagers assumed it was a familiar
of Orochi and named it "Shiranui".
Story
Inside
Okami Shiranui dies after fighting the eight headed serpent demon
Orochi but I decided to slightly change that fact to get her over to
my Universe. I decided that she received help after the fight from
Kaji's Kitsune black flame clan and got patched up again, staying
with them for the rest of the time until the present timeline kicks
in.
This would not only mean that Kaji now
has two girls on his side (lucky bastard) but also that Shiranui
would follow him doing evil things summoning bad guys to the land to
get revenge on Eilidh and ultimately on the dragon forces and the
Seven Angels. Now that's nice for adding some moral decisions further
down the road for that lore of mine.
Animation project
This leads me to what I intend to do in case I sound a bit cryptic till now. Of course this is extremely theoretical and no one can tell if it is possible to do nor can iI tell if I will ever have the time to actually pull it off but I do work on some kind of script for a fantasy animation project around all those characters I'm currently creating (well, most of them at least).
There is a reason why this thing is called "Blacky's character Universe".
I intend to do a lot of shorts to pack that stuff together and I already have a lot of scenes on my mind and how it all will play out. Nothing final of course and no real plot, just turning points and key data and relationships and character personalities but I know that I would like to do something like that.
Hm.
We'll see...
At least the idea of inventing something like "Seven Angels" is like a insanely large jar filled with creativity from which I can pull out new characters in the future. And of course the fun thing for you is that they can all mix the way you want without having that clunky lore tied to them
This also brings me to the next character of mine:
I made good progress on implementing almost all of the old cast of the Seven Angels and yet I'm here for a little bit of market research. I feel a bit underwhelmed regarding the resonace of Magnus and Ophelia.
Are they really that bad? I mean, sure, they are remakes, or let's say gender swaps of old caracters of mine and Magnus is a guy, so he won't get that much votes and peoples taste is always a big thing but I feel that there is more to it.
So let me know what to improve here, cause in the end YOU will be the one using those characters, not me.
Improve your Thumbnail capture game, Ophelia has a pretty mundane front image.
Also, you have become really good at asset making, but at some point it becomes a bit too much almost. You can relax a little, just put in what is most important (Even though more garments can be pretty good for interactions at some point). Some clothing are on top of other clothing, forcing you to consider clipping issues that make you put too much space inbetween the clothings and etc etc. Just have them be a 1 piece, those 1 garment designs tend to look better.
"That old picture? Yes, that was the Legion of Light. We thought it would be a nice name for us... I can't tell how long it has been that we all were there, alive and united. *sigh* Oh what I would give to have them all back, even for just one brief moment,"
-Mai Lin-
Well,
she is THE oldest concept I have had, she is in fact so old that I
can't recall when I actually made her up. It must be at least longer
then 10 years, maybe even longer than 15.
I was making up little fantasy stories
since the beginning of my life I guess and Mai-Lin is a character
from my really early days. Of course I changed her look and her
personality a bit over the time but this is basically how I would
envision:
- Mai-Lin -
- The Night Gale -
The making of
Back
in my super old story Mai was the partner of the main protagonist and
she was described to be a real beauty, like the clear night sky.
I
think I managed to do that.
To get started I made a new ruffle model,
similar to Aurelias, but now I am capable of doing it a bit different
than back then. I did a few custom offsets, mainly to get a unique
boob shape done but despite that I stayed quite simplistic for once.
I had a little scene in mind where a
lot of people would sit in a hall and suddenly the door opens and Mai
would walks in turning everybody's head. That would be the measure
how good she has to look like:
...I would look at her...
Alright,
so to make her really sparkle, at first I added some spots with max
metallic and smoothness to get those effects on her ruffle and wings.
after the general body coloring was done I decided to do a fancy dress. I
thought about something similar to the one I made for Anastasia at
first but it should be longer. The only problem with long dresses are
that the look quite granny like if you don't do a little something. So I
decided to cut the upper half of the dress completely and also cut out a
lot of stuff to get a unique and "stylish" look leaving little bit to
the imagination.
The heels are quite simple, some open, quite basic shapes here.
The
next thing that came up to my mind was that in hyrule warriors age of
calamity the great fairies use a "weapon" called bangles and it looks
like this:
That would be a fancy thing to do, right? So I made one for her left hand.
The
other one is more of a glove made for fighting. I got inspired for that
kind of design from the movie Snow white and the Huntsman from 2012
where the Queen Ravenna wears something like that:
For
the jewels I decided to focus on pears more then on stones but a few
turquoise diamante shapes made it in there to match her eye color.
Also to keep triangles low I cut down the old Illinir wing model
quite a lot removing one complete layer of mesh. Maybe I can cut down
even more and add a little something to her tail which is pretty
basic for now but we will see
Trivia
The name
Mai-Lin is a female Chinese name meaning "beautiful orchid" or "honey sweet".
Yeah...you get the idea why she has her name right?
Story
The former "Lord of the Darkness"
and mother of Aurelia and Kyra, is a living legend. Mai is known as
one of the most beautiful dragonesses of her time and she knows it!
She is a extremely manipulative and
scheming woman and loves to play with her victims, staying always in
control. She is from Kaiga's generation and, despite her look, quite
old but she keeps her age a secret. Of course.
During her
active time as a member of the Seven Angels she was feared all over
the world as cold blooded killer "Night Gale" or Hoshi's
"Hand of God". In fact those nicknames are most justified
since Mai is one among very few dragons holding not only one but two
elements inside her body. While darkness is her main element she also
possesses the sign of wind turning her into a swift and extremely
destructive force of nature, striking at night with little to no one
on par with her strength.
While her wings sparkle like
thousands of stars in the night sky there is always a small shadow
concealing her face hiding away her true emotions...
Mai was one of the two captains of the
so called "Legion of Light", the first organization Hoshi
made come to life in order to protect mankind against evil forces.
Nowadays this organization is known as "The Seven Angels".
Mai was in charge of the night squad
consisting of Kaiga O'Brien "the Rainmaker" and Ophelia the "Whispering Breeze". Although Mai has two daughters she never got
married and she had only felt true love towards one person in her
entire life namely her squad companion Ophelia.
Till today she is one of the last two
survivors from the old time, the other one being Kaiga. The rest of
the Legion of Light died in the war of old times long time ago.
This has made Mai-Lin a quite bitter
individual and she is pretty much done with the world and all the
concerns of her former leader Hoshi but there is someone who can
break the ice. Cyrill, the son of Ophelia will most likely seek her
out one day to get answers...
- Ophelia -
- The Whispering Breeze -
The making of
Don't ask me why bit I was certain that
she would have been a tough huntress.
To get the body started I took Cyrill's
body, turned it into a female version and did some custom offsets.
Different antler, hair and a lot bigger eyes did the trick to get the
female style done.
I made some hood stuff and maybe some
of you remember her first version which was...not that good honestly.
So I did quite the remake and added a lot of fancy stuff taking
Linkle, mostly known from the "Hyrule Warriors" series as a
reference. The design of the hat was inspired by the outfit Will
Turner wears in the final scene of the first "Pirates of the
Caribbean" movie xD
Yes I have my fingers everywhere...
She's wielding not only a crossbow but
of course also one of the seven legendary weapons Hoshi forged
herself during the old times to banish demons, the "Windweaver".
I made this weapon quite a while ago and it initially belonged to
Cyrill, but of course since this is the old time he must have
inherited from someone: of course from his mom!
Trivia
The name
The name was most likely derived from
the ancient Greek “ōphéleia” (ὠφέλεια) meaning “aid”
or “benefit,” but it is best known as the name of Shakespeare’s
tragic heroine in his play “Hamlet.”
Origin: Borrowed from an ancient Greek
word, the name was first seen (spelled as “Ofelia”) in the 1504
poem “Arcadia” by Jacopo Sannazaro. It appeared in Shakespeare’s
play almost a century later, spelled in the way that is now most
common.
That's a lot of good stuff for me.
Ancient Greek is pretty nice sine Cyrill is also Greek. Of course she
would name her boy in that way. The meaning of "aid" is
something for her personality. She's a good soul!
Story
The Shakespear thingy got my attention
and...yes...most sadly I decided to one day kill her. Oh cruel
world...
Aaaanyway that will of course only
happen if I ever come to do animations the way I imagine it and then
I would have to actually do it.
The concept is however that she died in
combat against a character I still have to work out but I do have his
name spooking around here for some time now: Zodd the Immortal.
All that happened long time ago, like
570 years or something like that, 'cause Cyrill was pretty young when
he lost his mother. That was also a reason why he is like he is now.
Alright so let's talk about the living
years!
Ophelia is a young and, at first, shy
dragoness, incredibly talented in using wind magic but also
incredibly afraid of any form of combat.
She was ordered to Hoshi's domain to
replace the last Windlord and from that day on she started to work
hard for her goal. Protect those who can't protect themselves. Over
the years she turned from a shy young lady to one of the toughest
women alive. She was a bright and supportive one and she came along
extremely well with her two companions. There is one thing she messed
up quite hard though. She has no idea who Cyrill's true father is and
till today he never showed up!
When Cyrill asked Mai about how she was
he got an answer like this:
"Your mother was many things, but
most of all she was fearless and brave. She was more of a man, so to
speak, than most of the guys I've met and believe me those have been
a lot!
...And I really miss her."
- Kaiga -
- The Rainmaker -
The making of
I made this one really long time ago but never uploaded it since it wasn't that feasable to use on poses -as you might imagine- it's quite the overload but I also really love all those assets on him. It really changes his style and it tells a different story of him. Not the "man-of-honor-samurai" but a bit more of a scoundrel.
To get the daggers done I just scaled down his sword that I already had, most of the assets consist of belts, so nothing new here either. Horn and instruments are freeware, so I had to do only some textures to get this going and the shirt is the exact same as the kimono but without the texture. I just added a leather jacket on top of it and changed the color of the pants to get a new look and I must say I really like him that way.
Story
Kaiga already has a huge amount of lore
on the earlier post but he's a old one and has a long life so there
is a lot to tell.
He is the second member of the Legion of Light who is still alive
today and he served under Mai-Lin and alongside Ophelia. Although
pretty much every male was chasing after Mai, Kaiga never showed much
of interest in her. Of course he respected her and followed her
without hesitation but he only had eyes for a different person always
near him. Sharing almost the same attitude he came along extremely
well with Ophelia but she never saw him as a partner, more as a good
friend...
Kaiga was the healer of the gang and as a bard he took the role as
a support but he was also the one who stood right in front of
everyone. Being a true master of swordplay he took on every
foe no matter the size or notorious reputation.
This however lead to things he, till today, wishes to undo.
While fighting Samael he got severely injured and lost his ability
to hold a sword almost entirely. Mai decided that the team should
change formation so Kaiga was now in the back rows with Ophelia's
crossbow and Ophelia would be on the front lines. Although Ophelia
was a fine fighter as well this decision was the one that they all
regretted pretty soon afterwords.
No wonder he feels responsible for Cyrill as well or is there even
another reason for that?
-Oros-
-The Crimson Eclipse-
Story
Now, let's sit down and talk about this old man here...
I had the idea that Noelani, one of Cyrills daughters, looted a
cursed sword in an ancient crypt which contains the spirit from a
person from the "old days" as I used to put it. So the idea
of Oros was borne.
I decided that he and Noelani would be
the bridge between the two timelines that I now created and he can
take over a major part for storytelling and how stuff went back then.
After all he was alongside Mai-Lin the other squat leader.
Oros had the hots for Mai from the
first moment he saw her and over the time they both had a child named
Kyra, the "Lord of Darkness" in the present time line.
So stuff is only some hundred years ago
not thousands, just for finally getting some numbers right.
So, let's do the key facts:
- He is captain in charge of Magnus and
Leilani who are forming the day squat of the Legion of Light
- Wile Magnus is his buddy he is also
his rival for the lady's matter sine both have their eyes laid on
Mai-Lin.
- He is the one most respected by the
whole legion, even Hoshi is honored to have him fight for her goals
-His sword has the ability to store his
very soul inside it which prevents him from fully dying
- In the current timeline he is
traveling alongside Noelani across the land fighting and banishing
the demons from the old time.
-Magnus-
-The Radiant Roar-
The making of
Magnus is the father of Aurelia, so
let's take her base model to get stared with. From top to bottom: The
crown is nothing special, I made lot's of those like on Hoshi, Kyra,
Krystal and so on if you count in the bandanna of Eilidh and the
tiara of Anastasia. Just added some pearls and a stone to make it a
bit different. The scarf is also nothing new, I discovered that
clothing style for me after doing lot's of Star Fox content and
Noelani. Cape and shoulder plates are also nothing new, shoulder
plates work like on Shiranui and the cape is nothing else like a one
plane long thing similar to the loincloth of Eilidh. chest plate is
quite the same like on Kyra. You notice something? All I'm doing is
throwing in stuff that I already made. maybe that's the reason why no
one likes him?
Nothing special?
Wait what's with that hammer and that
insanely clunky shield? Well, he's a paladin, so he needs that stuff.
Maybe at least I can make that shield a bit smaller...
But how to make those? The hammer is a
cube with a lot of subdividing and subdivision surface mod on it,
then some alt+E along normals extrusions and some of alt shift s to
get the round shapes done on the "hammer" side. Generally
to speak I tried to do a lot of shapes on him to represent the sun.
That's why all those lines and torus' and round shapes fly around on
pretty much every piece of his gear.
pants is simply cloth pro, the belt is kind of a crude imitation
for the sign of the light dragon from my universe.
Trivia
The name
The name Magnus is a boy's name
of Latin origin meaning "greatest", that has a Scandinavian
feel. It dates back to Charlemagne being called Carolus Magnus, or
Charles the Great. Norwegian king Magnus I, named after Charlemagne,
introduced it to his culture, and thus Magnus was the name of six
early kings of Norway and four of Sweden. It is still a highly
popular name in Denmark and Norway.
Oh well, he definitely doesn't live up
to his name...in fact he is my worst character. Maybe I should
consider renaming him...xD
I picked it not because I wanted him to be the most successful
character but because he's the knight in shining armor along those
other dirty folks running around in my universe though.
Story
Magus is the youngest of the whole
Legion of Light and he is also the most cocky one. He has little to
no experience with fighting and women and soon became the protege of
Oros after entering the Legion. The two came along quite well despite
the fact that they both started to fight for Mai-Lin's attention
which they both managed to get at some point...
Magnus has the sign of the light dragon on his arm and he is a god when it comes to shield his companions from evil atacks. His "Shining Bind" shield can block any attack from this world when he combines it with his magic abilities. Also this shield hs it'S name for a reason as it is capable of holding enemies in place to get them crushed with his hammer afterwords.
So, let's do the key facts:
- is forming alongside Oros and Leilani
the day squat
- has the hots for Mai, just like is
captain Oros
- is the father of Aurelia
- is dead in the current time line (most likely died to buy Mai-Lin some time to escape)
- has no family and considers the
Legion his home
- is close to Leilani and considered
her like his sister
So I managed to capture this quite epic moment here for my hall of fame after releasing my version of Belladonna:
Took me long enough though
So greetings go out to @Craket
and @Chyann. I'm here as well! Not that it would matter that
much, it's just a number and a personal stretch goal of mine. However
I'm gonna celebrate this one with a character that is pretty much
"Blacky-like". Since I already know what the software can
do after doing Rivet and R.O.B. 64 I had the "diabolic"
Idea to do a funny something for you and me in order to maintain my
title as "The madman". Thanks @Dogson for this one, I
really appreciate it, no joke!
He's no furry but also no human and he
will be pretty much SFW only so it's ok if there is not that much of
resonance for him but I'm a huge fan of him and for some kind of
music animation his violin is quite the must...
Have a cryptic one since I'm in
test-phase for now:
I also have to write down a lot of stuff about all those new characters and so on. Time is short so I am only focusing on creating stuff and do the rest later on.
1000 Karma celebration time with: PARTY MUSIC!!! Yohohoho!
Brook
"Soul King"
Since we have a moon ingame I simply had to do this one!
The making of
Oh well, where to start? I am a huge
fan of Brook and so I decided to give it a shot.
The first things I made was a blank
character with some extremely thin but long limbs to get a base model
for later attachments. I then made the hair, the hat and the spine.
To get the afro done just add a sphere,
subdivide two times and add the displace modifier. Select clouds as a
texture and set the noise to Voronoi F3, maybe F4 (it's up to you how
you prefer your afro) and play around with the size slider. Apply
modifier and we go on.
Hat is a cylinder. Bevel in one edge
and extrude the other by simply hit E and S. Pull out and you're
done. spine is also simple, add a Cylinder, bevel in both edges,
maybe do subdivision surface mod one time and you have one bone.
Now we do a chain setup like this one:
That's super nice to get all sorts of
stuff done! Try it
With this general layout done I made
the jacket and added the ruffles.
For the jacket, as always, simply cloth
pro base model and extrude around the neck to get the characteristic
style. For the ruffles I took the skirt model from simply cloth and
duplicated it (need it a few times more) I placed one on one side of
the jacket, mirror it over to the other side and were practically
done. Unify both parts to get one piece.
Handkerchief consists out of three
skirt, one is just turned 180° upwards and one is scaled a bit more
so get different shapes. add some spheres to the thin area toget tose
pearls and : done!
Pants are again just auto generated
simply cloth templates, just scaled a bit around the foot area.
Shoes: I have a freeware template for
shoes in general which I scale around to my liking so this is half my
work and half template to get me started. I suck at making good shoes
so I decided that this will be the best way to tackle the issue for
the future...
Violin is freeware, Fabienne uses the
same model, so grab it if you need it.
Sword and stick are a cylinder and a
torus but cut in half, you can do it also with the path and circle
technique to get that rounded shape. The blade itself is a clone from
my many blades I already made in my katana forge, I believe I posted
a tutorial on how to make blades a while ago but here you go:
Bones from the hip are a cube with
subdivision surface mod and mirror and some creative shape bending
around it to make it look right. Ref sheet helps a lot...
Hands and fingers are in fact clones
from the original FVNE character that lies beneath the model, I just
cut out a few parts which would not be bone in real life to get it
going. I must say that the Rivet and R.O.B. creating was a good
teacher for myself to get those sorts of characters done.
Oh yes, THE SKULL!!!
Oh well, that was some hard work to
make him look just kind of Brook-like... I used a Sphere, mirrored it
and started to work on eyes and general layout. Then I moved the
lower part in and started to delete stuff to make some space for the
teeth. It's hard to describe but I didn't captured any screenshots
for I reworked that skull like ten times till I was convenient with
it. Sort of. Sorry for not reproducing this one, It would take a lot
of time and nerves and I don't have much of either one
It's a fun character after all and I
guess if someone ever decides to do a skull that someone might find a
better way than my half-ass "tutorial" here...
What can I say, it's a lot of custom offset and a bit of adding clothes to her. Mayor part of that process was getting the eyes right and that took a really long time...I had her under development for like 14 days or so and the clothes took maybe one day total.
I must say I'm not the best for doing toon characters but I'd love to seem them here so let's do it!
Don't worry, from what I can tell the app is currently pretty dead till a new build comes around, so need to push yourself. Everyone is just waiting for the animation system and I myself am not pretty fond of making new stuff either. It's currently just not worth the time. I'll finish the expression updates, do maybe two more characters where I have concepts for and call it quits for a while as well.
I once again allowed myself to work a bit of my own magic on one of "your" ones, in the hope that it would be appreciated!?
So he looks exactly the same as in "Starfox Adventures" I still like the design best, when otherwise Japanese people draw a fox it always looks like a duck to me.
Krystal's staff is still missing!
Unfortunately, the visor slips as a result, and the gloves are no longer in the intended place after the first reload.
It will be a while before I can return to active duty, the Warhammer hobby also needs some love and attention.
That's super amazing stuff @Vandred !
I took the "newer" Fox McClouds as a reference like Assault and Zero but of course I love his adventure look a lot. Guess why I rebuild the adventure emblem on his jacket despite the fact that he wears it only in adventure and is never be seen again in the whole series. Adjusting clothes should be no problem at all, gloves can be redone and so on, so this is pretty awesome sauce here!
Bad thing is: I really lack time to do stuff. Especially completely new charcters. I gotta say I also lack creativity in doing so. This is actually a big thing for me as I used to have lot's of concepts and never catching up on my stuff. Seems like it's the other way around now... Good thing is: I have The FurFangGang backing me up.
I know that Shanon still misses her post (and Adventure-Fox as well...) but let's say I was busy doing other things:
I will do what I can do best: dressing up stuff. Again.
Still working on those two and chances are that I will do a japanese full armor for Thelonious as well. Also gonna do expressions for all my characters and tweak around a little bit more but, well, that's it.
For now no new characters are planned and I don't know when I will have a good idea. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in six months. Till then it's clothes time and pondering about what the future will bring (especially once animations get relevant).
Sorry for the rather disappointing news, but I still want to thank everyone sticking to my work and all the new guys coming over giving me some votes.
It's no different for me either, here and there you have to give your thoughts time to develop and you have to do something different from time to time. Then you had energy again to give your ideas the necessary audience!
To work on Shanon felt like a refreshing rain after a long drought. I returned to my dragon epos and digged up the remaining names I already dropped here so it's time to give that name a face!
The making of
Shanon unifies a lot of stuff I learned over the years. Be it textures, hair style and shading, body shape and custom offsets, dragon style assets, clothes with shape keys and not to forget: expressions. Heck those characters really start running out of control. I don't want to complain but this is mostly the reason why I became so slow in producing new characters. I want to keep my standards high and push to the limits of the app and my own skills.
So, how to get started on her? I had her name and title already in mind when writing Kaiga's background story. The concept would be a flashy girl with flashy colors. Maybe a dancer or songstress Kaiga met on one of his trips to Asia? Clearly she has to be a water dragon if she is married with Kaiga... and there is one important character already existing: her daughter, Niamh. So I let myself get inspired by Niamh's ruffles, colors and body shapes. You can make out those antennae, yes? That's where they come from. To make Shanon's ruffles a bit more flower-like I made new models for those. I decided to try to make her look a bit like a mermaid with those long hair, big eyes, full lips and colorful patterns. Shaping her head and coloring her hair was probably the most fun part of the entire model. Talking colors: sea creatures are quite colorful in real life so I had no need to hold myself back and throw a lot of different colors on her body. As for she's actually a deep sea dragon I made her glow in the dark and added some sparkles as finishing touch. Regarding her clothes I kept it quite simple with a white shirt and black leather pants. Her body pattern makes it quite hard to find clothes that match her. On the bikini however I grabbed Niamh's version, changed the texture and shape and now she's ready to take a swim. I also have a concept of her wearing a long black sparkling dress but triangle limitations held me back once more. I had to decide between the two main outfits and the girl with the long dress is Mai-Lin so it was shirt and pants.
Trivia
The name
Shanon:
It means "old river" and it's an Irish name, Anglicised from Sionainn. Alternative spellings include Shannen, Shannon, Shannan, Seanan, and Siannon. Sionainn derives from the Irish name Abha na tSionainn for the River Shannon.
So I once again went into Ireland and decided to name a water dragon girl after a river, why not? I picked the spelling with one “n” only for aesthetic reasons, don't know why, but “Shannon” just looks kinda weird to me. Oh well...
"The Neon Flower" title:
This one is from the Beast in Black song “One night in Tokyo” where the first verse is:
Dangerous attraction Femme fatale in action The most beautiful mistake of my life She's a neon flower
Pure seduction power
The true nerds among you will notice something here: I used Beast in Black lyrics a few times for my characters but only for my “evil” fraction, the demonic realms. Now that has changed. Maybe I simply decide to turn her over to the bad guys one day, who knows :P
This very song also inspired me for her whole plot.
Did you know that deep sea jellyfish glow in fancy colors in the dark? Yeah, those creatures stood model for Shanon's ruffles on her legs.
Alright, with that said it's time for some background story. As we are back in the Water Lord's domain this is gonna be a bit more, but don't worry, no five pages long full script. I guess I need a separate whole article to cover everything concerning house O'Brien's story in chronological order one day though...
Story
Shanon is not only young dragoness with a body of a goddess, no, she also has a voice of a true angel and she's a master of seduction. The Irish girl left the green island behind to start a career as a vocalist and ended up in Tokyo where she managed to make good money performing in a well-known club. So it happened that twenty-four years ago on Friday evening Kaiga entered this very club to free his head from his daily life. She recognized him, of course. By that time Kaiga was already a living legend and well known in Asia and England alike. After catching his eye it was almost to easy to wrap the former Lord of Water around her finger. Shanon started to flirt with him while she was performing and after the show there was not much to talk about...
However, the following two nights they spent together should change both their lives forever. Kaiga never spoke about what happened that weekend and why he suddenly appeared back in England with a new women by his side but it didn't take long till the two got married. Soon, the reason for that quick decision was clearly visible: Shanon got pregnant and Kaiga simply couldn't allow it to have a bastard child, not in his position. He he sold a lie to everyone about his new true love he found years ago but had to hide her for political reasons which are now out of the way. Almost everyone believed him but his eldest daughter, Tallulah, was not so easy to convince. She started to hate Shanon for tricking her father into marriage and Tallulah was certain, that Shanon was solely interested in wealth and the power her new husband would provide her. The truth, however, is very different. At first, Shanon felt pure lust for the way older Kaiga but after that she begun to develop a feeling she never had for another person in her life: love. Although the two met under one-night-stand-circumstances and despite the age difference in the end that little accident played out well for almost everyone. The children came along well among each other but Tallulah's grudge against Shanon never ended.
Tallulah simply couldn't accept the fact that her father married again...and on top of it: He married a GIRL, half her own age! The mere thought that Shanon could easily be her sister, that she sleeps with her father...no! Tallulah began to distance herself more and more from her father and started to go her own way as a member of the Seven Angels.
Comments
@Craket you're pretty much right about everything and I would love to continue what I did the past months so, yeah, probably it will go that way. SFW dress up store will open again in March I guess
If I remember correctly, Odes has stated in the past that the animation system he's got in mind should be robust enough to serve as a tool for completely SFW stuff as well. Of course, most people here are in it for the porn, so it makes sense to showcase all the sex simulation systems first of all.
Given that FurryVNE's such a robust tool already, I can assure you that there will be plenty of others who'll want to misuse it for non-porn scenarios. Yours truly included, though I do have plenty of lewd plans in addition to that. Now, if I could just stop falling down various rabbit holes of distraction and actually get back on track with my own projects... Hah, fat chance!
Yes, indeed, I thought so too but for now, as you also already mentioned, the focus will be on sexy-time and that's cool for everyone. Sex sells after all!
The only thing is: IF by the end of the year some kind of animation system will go live it will most likely only contain the lewd stuff and one year ago I would be SO in for that as well (I mean check out what kind of poses I did one and a half year ago with my characters and what I do now) but time and lifestyle changes.
What I'm aiming at is: I would have to wait way longer than a year for a engine that can do what I now have in mind but one year in the future is already to late for me. I do believe we had that conversation where we said that it's a nice hobby and every little step helps but learning an animation system while working pretty much 24/7 is simply not possible. I will most likely pick up my second job once again which I dropped during the last year so, yeah, no more time for old Blacky to set up stuff.
My plan for the future -at least for now- would be continuing what I already do. Make some "cool" characters happen. Slower than the last year, for sure, but it's something I can contribute to all of you. Once a animation system goes live I will check what can be done and if it's not possible to set things up I will simply stay a character creator till I loose interest in doing that.
Nevertheless I hope I'll get to see some stuff from you
looking forward to it!
Hey everyone, I'm back in the game and no one even noticed that I was away
Nah, jokes aside, I "meditated" a lot lately about where my place will be on the long term. Like in a year or maybe even in two years and I do believe I found some kind of answer to that. I thought about completely quitting here because of social stuff but I really love to sit here and be a 3d-artist. What truly cached me is the ability to be an "artist", to really turn visions of characters into "reality". It would be way to sad to just simply turn my back on this hobby that fills me with joy and stop doing character design because of the sexual content. So let's just do it the other way around. I will continue to do my stuff and get what I always wanted and you all benefit from that because all my characters can be used the way you all like and that's cool for me. It is actually pretty simple and little to nothing will change.
So by all means, from now on let's do ART!
So without any further philosophical outpourings let's talk a little bit about my newest "painting"
Shiranui - Solar Flare
The making of
So, the making of Shiranui could most likely be three pages long and I still wouldn't cover every single thing what is going on here.
Instead I will change this section a bit from now on.
It really takes a lot of time to document every step but not going into the full depth of the subject also is little to no help for beginners so I decided to just talk about the inspiration here in this section and I will most likely do a large scale tutorial for all of you, explaining everything I know and all the new techniques I use to get YOU started as well.
From Star Fox to fantasy I will try to hook you up like "Lina's Jacket Tutorial" style.
Alright, with that said, who the hell is Shiranui???
This character originates from the game called Okami and most of you know the main protagonist called Amaterasu, the white wolf and goddess of the sun.
Shiranui is the historical hero who saved the in game Kamiki Village one hundred years prior to the start of the game. He is at full power, wielding the Solar Flare Reflector and exuding a long, pure white mane of flowing energy. Like his later incarnation, Amaterasu, he does not speak.
In this article Shiranui is referred to as "he" so it was most likely a male wolf but for creativity's sake I changed the gender
Also I decided to go with Shiranui because @thirteeenth has a version of Amaterasu in the pipeline and I don't want to snatch away his stuff but he inspired me to create my own version of her. That was way longer than a year ago if I recall correctly? Anyway.
In addition to that the character of @THEGGH called Silliah almost instantly made me think of Amaterasu/Shiranui so I simply had to go for it.
Alright, so I took their base model and scaled it up quite a lot, adding a lot of hard shapes inside blender to create a six pack and make her look fierce and a bit more muscular or well trained since this form represents the apex of her power.
Now for the clothes I at first decided to do a Kimono but after importing it to the cloud I decided to change the idea and separate the pieces. It turned out to look way to similar to my Miyuki (she was already a homage to Amaterasu).
The idea to add some kunai on a belt around her thigh was actually a old idea and I wanted to do this for Noelani at first but I scraped the idea back then not only for triangles reasons but also since I thought Noelani is a more western dragon type and has a big sword.
So basically for the kunai setup everything was already there and I just had to assemble it after I got the design of the skirt done. Stockings and the so called "geta" (traditional Japanes sandals) came way later after deciding to dress her like a kunoiche (female ninja) to once again pick up the traditional Japanese dress code. The last thing I implemented were the armor assets. Without them she would look quite unfinished so those shoulder plates really wrapped things up.
I also had that texture I used all over her body since...I do believe creating Aurelia? It was meant to be the dress texture for her back then, but I changed my mind during her development.
The interesting parts were of course the weapons.
In Okami there are a lot of fancy swords and the one I love most was the so called "eighth wonder". Ingame this was a extremely huge blade but for FVNE I scaled it down a lot. Prayer beads are also a huge thing in Okami so I did a little ying and yang shape and assembled them floating around her neck like it would be in the game and that's it!
What I was really aiming for was the Solar Flare reflector, the signature item of Shiranui and the most powerful reflector you can obtain during the game!
To get it done I tried to imitate the movement of fire and added a lot o little "flames" with brush paintings on them to pick up the Okami style a bit. It is still a bit strange to do special effects on mesh basis but it turned out quite well for what I was aiming for. A wild mixture of alpha layers with a lot of color blending did the job to get it painted.
Trivia
Shiranui (不知火; lit. "unknown fire") is a Japanese term given to the optical or supernatural phenomenon similar to will-o'-the-wisp. The in game description is
something like this:
"100 years ago when the ceremony to sacrifice a maiden to drew near, a white wolf was seen roaming around the village at night. The villagers assumed it was a familiar of Orochi and named it "Shiranui".
Story
Inside Okami Shiranui dies after fighting the eight headed serpent demon Orochi but I decided to slightly change that fact to get her over to my Universe. I decided that she received help after the fight from Kaji's Kitsune black flame clan and got patched up again, staying with them for the rest of the time until the present timeline kicks in.
This would not only mean that Kaji now has two girls on his side (lucky bastard) but also that Shiranui would follow him doing evil things summoning bad guys to the land to get revenge on Eilidh and ultimately on the dragon forces and the Seven Angels. Now that's nice for adding some moral decisions further down the road for that lore of mine.
Animation project
-Alexandra "Lexy" Cole-
I saw @THEGGH 's Linxia inside the app and felt like I have to do a little something for her. She's just my taste!
This is a little dress up I made in my spare time to add up to my Leather Jacket Gang.
Cheers!
Now Magnus is most likely someone who will be ignored for the rest of his life, gotta live with that I guess...
"The Legion of Light"
Well, she is THE oldest concept I have had, she is in fact so old that I can't recall when I actually made her up. It must be at least longer then 10 years, maybe even longer than 15.
I was making up little fantasy stories since the beginning of my life I guess and Mai-Lin is a character from my really early days. Of course I changed her look and her personality a bit over the time but this is basically how I would envision:
- Mai-Lin -
- The Night Gale -
The making of
Back in my super old story Mai was the partner of the main protagonist and she was described to be a real beauty, like the clear night sky.
I think I managed to do that.
To get started I made a new ruffle model, similar to Aurelias, but now I am capable of doing it a bit different than back then. I did a few custom offsets, mainly to get a unique boob shape done but despite that I stayed quite simplistic for once.
I had a little scene in mind where a lot of people would sit in a hall and suddenly the door opens and Mai would walks in turning everybody's head. That would be the measure how good she has to look like:
Trivia
Story
The former "Lord of the Darkness" and mother of Aurelia and Kyra, is a living legend. Mai is known as one of the most beautiful dragonesses of her time and she knows it!
She is a extremely manipulative and scheming woman and loves to play with her victims, staying always in control. She is from Kaiga's generation and, despite her look, quite old but she keeps her age a secret. Of course.
During her active time as a member of the Seven Angels she was feared all over the world as cold blooded killer "Night Gale" or Hoshi's "Hand of God". In fact those nicknames are most justified since Mai is one among very few dragons holding not only one but two elements inside her body. While darkness is her main element she also possesses the sign of wind turning her into a swift and extremely destructive force of nature, striking at night with little to no one on par with her strength.
While her wings sparkle like thousands of stars in the night sky there is always a small shadow concealing her face hiding away her true emotions...
Mai was one of the two captains of the so called "Legion of Light", the first organization Hoshi made come to life in order to protect mankind against evil forces. Nowadays this organization is known as "The Seven Angels".
Mai was in charge of the night squad consisting of Kaiga O'Brien "the Rainmaker" and Ophelia the "Whispering Breeze". Although Mai has two daughters she never got married and she had only felt true love towards one person in her entire life namely her squad companion Ophelia.
Till today she is one of the last two survivors from the old time, the other one being Kaiga. The rest of the Legion of Light died in the war of old times long time ago.
This has made Mai-Lin a quite bitter individual and she is pretty much done with the world and all the concerns of her former leader Hoshi but there is someone who can break the ice. Cyrill, the son of Ophelia will most likely seek her out one day to get answers...
- Ophelia -
- The Whispering Breeze -
The making of
Don't ask me why bit I was certain that she would have been a tough huntress.
To get the body started I took Cyrill's body, turned it into a female version and did some custom offsets. Different antler, hair and a lot bigger eyes did the trick to get the female style done.
I made some hood stuff and maybe some of you remember her first version which was...not that good honestly. So I did quite the remake and added a lot of fancy stuff taking Linkle, mostly known from the "Hyrule Warriors" series as a reference. The design of the hat was inspired by the outfit Will Turner wears in the final scene of the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie xD
Yes I have my fingers everywhere...
She's wielding not only a crossbow but of course also one of the seven legendary weapons Hoshi forged herself during the old times to banish demons, the "Windweaver". I made this weapon quite a while ago and it initially belonged to Cyrill, but of course since this is the old time he must have inherited from someone: of course from his mom!
Trivia
The name
The name was most likely derived from the ancient Greek “ōphéleia” (ὠφέλεια) meaning “aid” or “benefit,” but it is best known as the name of Shakespeare’s tragic heroine in his play “Hamlet.”
Origin: Borrowed from an ancient Greek word, the name was first seen (spelled as “Ofelia”) in the 1504 poem “Arcadia” by Jacopo Sannazaro. It appeared in Shakespeare’s play almost a century later, spelled in the way that is now most common.
That's a lot of good stuff for me. Ancient Greek is pretty nice sine Cyrill is also Greek. Of course she would name her boy in that way. The meaning of "aid" is something for her personality. She's a good soul!
Story
The Shakespear thingy got my attention and...yes...most sadly I decided to one day kill her. Oh cruel world...
Aaaanyway that will of course only happen if I ever come to do animations the way I imagine it and then I would have to actually do it.
The concept is however that she died in combat against a character I still have to work out but I do have his name spooking around here for some time now: Zodd the Immortal.
All that happened long time ago, like 570 years or something like that, 'cause Cyrill was pretty young when he lost his mother. That was also a reason why he is like he is now.
Alright so let's talk about the living years!
Ophelia is a young and, at first, shy dragoness, incredibly talented in using wind magic but also incredibly afraid of any form of combat.
She was ordered to Hoshi's domain to replace the last Windlord and from that day on she started to work hard for her goal. Protect those who can't protect themselves. Over the years she turned from a shy young lady to one of the toughest women alive. She was a bright and supportive one and she came along extremely well with her two companions. There is one thing she messed up quite hard though. She has no idea who Cyrill's true father is and till today he never showed up!
When Cyrill asked Mai about how she was he got an answer like this:
"Your mother was many things, but most of all she was fearless and brave. She was more of a man, so to speak, than most of the guys I've met and believe me those have been a lot!
...And I really miss her."
- Kaiga -
- The Rainmaker -
The making of
Story
Kaiga already has a huge amount of lore on the earlier post but he's a old one and has a long life so there is a lot to tell.
He is the second member of the Legion of Light who is still alive today and he served under Mai-Lin and alongside Ophelia. Although pretty much every male was chasing after Mai, Kaiga never showed much of interest in her. Of course he respected her and followed her without hesitation but he only had eyes for a different person always near him. Sharing almost the same attitude he came along extremely well with Ophelia but she never saw him as a partner, more as a good friend...
Kaiga was the healer of the gang and as a bard he took the role as a support but he was also the one who stood right in front of everyone. Being a true master of swordplay he took on every foe no matter the size or notorious reputation.
This however lead to things he, till today, wishes to undo.
While fighting Samael he got severely injured and lost his ability to hold a sword almost entirely. Mai decided that the team should change formation so Kaiga was now in the back rows with Ophelia's crossbow and Ophelia would be on the front lines. Although Ophelia was a fine fighter as well this decision was the one that they all regretted pretty soon afterwords.
No wonder he feels responsible for Cyrill as well or is there even another reason for that?
-Oros-
-The Crimson Eclipse-
Story
Now, let's sit down and talk about this old man here...
I had the idea that Noelani, one of Cyrills daughters, looted a cursed sword in an ancient crypt which contains the spirit from a person from the "old days" as I used to put it. So the idea of Oros was borne.
I decided that he and Noelani would be the bridge between the two timelines that I now created and he can take over a major part for storytelling and how stuff went back then. After all he was alongside Mai-Lin the other squat leader.
Oros had the hots for Mai from the first moment he saw her and over the time they both had a child named Kyra, the "Lord of Darkness" in the present time line.
So stuff is only some hundred years ago not thousands, just for finally getting some numbers right.
So, let's do the key facts:
- He is captain in charge of Magnus and Leilani who are forming the day squat of the Legion of Light
- Wile Magnus is his buddy he is also his rival for the lady's matter sine both have their eyes laid on Mai-Lin.
- He is the one most respected by the whole legion, even Hoshi is honored to have him fight for her goals
-His sword has the ability to store his very soul inside it which prevents him from fully dying
- In the current timeline he is traveling alongside Noelani across the land fighting and banishing the demons from the old time.
-Magnus-
-The Radiant Roar-
The making of
Magnus is the father of Aurelia, so let's take her base model to get stared with. From top to bottom: The crown is nothing special, I made lot's of those like on Hoshi, Kyra, Krystal and so on if you count in the bandanna of Eilidh and the tiara of Anastasia. Just added some pearls and a stone to make it a bit different. The scarf is also nothing new, I discovered that clothing style for me after doing lot's of Star Fox content and Noelani. Cape and shoulder plates are also nothing new, shoulder plates work like on Shiranui and the cape is nothing else like a one plane long thing similar to the loincloth of Eilidh. chest plate is quite the same like on Kyra. You notice something? All I'm doing is throwing in stuff that I already made. maybe that's the reason why no one likes him?
Nothing special?
Wait what's with that hammer and that insanely clunky shield? Well, he's a paladin, so he needs that stuff. Maybe at least I can make that shield a bit smaller...
But how to make those? The hammer is a cube with a lot of subdividing and subdivision surface mod on it, then some alt+E along normals extrusions and some of alt shift s to get the round shapes done on the "hammer" side. Generally to speak I tried to do a lot of shapes on him to represent the sun. That's why all those lines and torus' and round shapes fly around on pretty much every piece of his gear.
pants is simply cloth pro, the belt is kind of a crude imitation for the sign of the light dragon from my universe.
Trivia
The name
The name Magnus is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest", that has a Scandinavian feel. It dates back to Charlemagne being called Carolus Magnus, or Charles the Great. Norwegian king Magnus I, named after Charlemagne, introduced it to his culture, and thus Magnus was the name of six early kings of Norway and four of Sweden. It is still a highly popular name in Denmark and Norway.
Oh well, he definitely doesn't live up to his name...in fact he is my worst character. Maybe I should consider renaming him...xD
I picked it not because I wanted him to be the most successful character but because he's the knight in shining armor along those other dirty folks running around in my universe though.
Story
Magus is the youngest of the whole Legion of Light and he is also the most cocky one. He has little to no experience with fighting and women and soon became the protege of Oros after entering the Legion. The two came along quite well despite the fact that they both started to fight for Mai-Lin's attention which they both managed to get at some point...
Magnus has the sign of the light dragon on his arm and he is a god when it comes to shield his companions from evil atacks. His "Shining Bind" shield can block any attack from this world when he combines it with his magic abilities. Also this shield hs it'S name for a reason as it is capable of holding enemies in place to get them crushed with his hammer afterwords.
So, let's do the key facts:
- is forming alongside Oros and Leilani the day squat
- has the hots for Mai, just like is captain Oros
- is the father of Aurelia
- is dead in the current time line (most likely died to buy Mai-Lin some time to escape)
- has no family and considers the Legion his home
- is close to Leilani and considered her like his sister
Took me long enough though
So greetings go out to @Craket and @Chyann. I'm here as well! Not that it would matter that much, it's just a number and a personal stretch goal of mine. However I'm gonna celebrate this one with a character that is pretty much "Blacky-like". Since I already know what the software can do after doing Rivet and R.O.B. 64 I had the "diabolic" Idea to do a funny something for you and me in order to maintain my title as "The madman". Thanks @Dogson for this one, I really appreciate it, no joke!
He's no furry but also no human and he will be pretty much SFW only so it's ok if there is not that much of resonance for him but I'm a huge fan of him and for some kind of music animation his violin is quite the must...
Have a cryptic one since I'm in test-phase for now:
For the fun of it I decided to do a query to see how the karma rankings are.
Brook
"Soul King"
The making of
Oh well, where to start? I am a huge fan of Brook and so I decided to give it a shot.
The first things I made was a blank character with some extremely thin but long limbs to get a base model for later attachments. I then made the hair, the hat and the spine.
To get the afro done just add a sphere, subdivide two times and add the displace modifier. Select clouds as a texture and set the noise to Voronoi F3, maybe F4 (it's up to you how you prefer your afro) and play around with the size slider. Apply modifier and we go on.
Hat is a cylinder. Bevel in one edge and extrude the other by simply hit E and S. Pull out and you're done. spine is also simple, add a Cylinder, bevel in both edges, maybe do subdivision surface mod one time and you have one bone.
Now we do a chain setup like this one:
That's super nice to get all sorts of stuff done! Try it
With this general layout done I made the jacket and added the ruffles.
For the jacket, as always, simply cloth pro base model and extrude around the neck to get the characteristic style. For the ruffles I took the skirt model from simply cloth and duplicated it (need it a few times more) I placed one on one side of the jacket, mirror it over to the other side and were practically done. Unify both parts to get one piece.
Handkerchief consists out of three skirt, one is just turned 180° upwards and one is scaled a bit more so get different shapes. add some spheres to the thin area toget tose pearls and : done!
Pants are again just auto generated simply cloth templates, just scaled a bit around the foot area.
Shoes: I have a freeware template for shoes in general which I scale around to my liking so this is half my work and half template to get me started. I suck at making good shoes so I decided that this will be the best way to tackle the issue for the future...
Violin is freeware, Fabienne uses the same model, so grab it if you need it.
Sword and stick are a cylinder and a torus but cut in half, you can do it also with the path and circle technique to get that rounded shape. The blade itself is a clone from my many blades I already made in my katana forge, I believe I posted a tutorial on how to make blades a while ago but here you go:
Bones from the hip are a cube with subdivision surface mod and mirror and some creative shape bending around it to make it look right. Ref sheet helps a lot...
Hands and fingers are in fact clones from the original FVNE character that lies beneath the model, I just cut out a few parts which would not be bone in real life to get it going. I must say that the Rivet and R.O.B. creating was a good teacher for myself to get those sorts of characters done.
Oh yes, THE SKULL!!!
Oh well, that was some hard work to make him look just kind of Brook-like... I used a Sphere, mirrored it and started to work on eyes and general layout. Then I moved the lower part in and started to delete stuff to make some space for the teeth. It's hard to describe but I didn't captured any screenshots for I reworked that skull like ten times till I was convenient with it. Sort of. Sorry for not reproducing this one, It would take a lot of time and nerves and I don't have much of either one
It's a fun character after all and I guess if someone ever decides to do a skull that someone might find a better way than my half-ass "tutorial" here...
-Tiny Kong-
The making of
I took the "newer" Fox McClouds as a reference like Assault and Zero but of course I love his adventure look a lot. Guess why I rebuild the adventure emblem on his jacket despite the fact that he wears it only in adventure and is never be seen again in the whole series. Adjusting clothes should be no problem at all, gloves can be redone and so on, so this is pretty awesome sauce here!
Bad thing is: I really lack time to do stuff. Especially completely new charcters. I gotta say I also lack creativity in doing so. This is actually a big thing for me as I used to have lot's of concepts and never catching up on my stuff. Seems like it's the other way around now...
Good thing is: I have The FurFangGang backing me up.
Shanon O'Brien
-The Neon Flower-
The making of
Heck those characters really start running out of control. I don't want to complain but this is mostly the reason why I became so slow in producing new characters. I want to keep my standards high and push to the limits of the app and my own skills.
So, how to get started on her? I had her name and title already in mind when writing Kaiga's background story. The concept would be a flashy girl with flashy colors. Maybe a dancer or songstress Kaiga met on one of his trips to Asia? Clearly she has to be a water dragon if she is married with Kaiga... and there is one important character already existing: her daughter, Niamh.
So I let myself get inspired by Niamh's ruffles, colors and body shapes. You can make out those antennae, yes? That's where they come from.
To make Shanon's ruffles a bit more flower-like I made new models for those. I decided to try to make her look a bit like a mermaid with those long hair, big eyes, full lips and colorful patterns. Shaping her head and coloring her hair was probably the most fun part of the entire model. Talking colors: sea creatures are quite colorful in real life so I had no need to hold myself back and throw a lot of different colors on her body.
As for she's actually a deep sea dragon I made her glow in the dark and added some sparkles as finishing touch. Regarding her clothes I kept it quite simple with a white shirt and black leather pants. Her body pattern makes it quite hard to find clothes that match her. On the bikini however I grabbed Niamh's version, changed the texture and shape and now she's ready to take a swim. I also have a concept of her wearing a long black sparkling dress but triangle limitations held me back once more. I had to decide between the two main outfits and the girl with the long dress is Mai-Lin so it was shirt and pants.
Trivia
Femme fatale in action
The most beautiful mistake of my life
She's a neon flower
This very song also inspired me for her whole plot.
Story
However, the following two nights they spent together should change both their lives forever. Kaiga never spoke about what happened that weekend and why he suddenly appeared back in England with a new women by his side but it didn't take long till the two got married. Soon, the reason for that quick decision was clearly visible: Shanon got pregnant and Kaiga simply couldn't allow it to have a bastard child, not in his position. He he sold a lie to everyone about his new true love he found years ago but had to hide her for political reasons which are now out of the way. Almost everyone believed him but his eldest daughter, Tallulah, was not so easy to convince. She started to hate Shanon for tricking her father into marriage and Tallulah was certain, that Shanon was solely interested in wealth and the power her new husband would provide her. The truth, however, is very different.
At first, Shanon felt pure lust for the way older Kaiga but after that she begun to develop a feeling she never had for another person in her life: love. Although the two met under one-night-stand-circumstances and despite the age difference in the end that little accident played out well for almost everyone. The children came along well among each other but Tallulah's grudge against Shanon never ended.
Tallulah simply couldn't accept the fact that her father married again...and on top of it: He married a GIRL, half her own age! The mere thought that Shanon could easily be her sister, that she sleeps with her father...no!
Tallulah began to distance herself more and more from her father and started to go her own way as a member of the Seven Angels.