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Lady Jalae
Lady Jalae is a female gwil Aspect of the shapeshifting Lurin named Lukaud. They are also known as “Master of the Voidplane”, or Obmunjalae in a common gwil language. This Aspect has become their favorite, and most who know Jalae would best know them as this form.
In the background is a magic generator, a device that pulls in and concentrates the magical energy that permeates the Voidplane universe. This one belongs to Jalae and powers their home base. Also a glimpse of some experimenting with what the Voidplane “sky” looks like.
Obmunjalae Mini Vessel
This vessel is Lady Obmunjalae’s personal craft. It happens to be one of the most compact Voidplane vessels in use, contrasting greatly with her main vessel (the Obmunjalae), which is the largest. In this picture, the craft is docked at its personalized spot in the Obmunjalae vessel’s hangar bay. You can also see the Lady inviting Yezukh’ay to board, though the Suyen woman looks a little nervous about it. It’s not exactly a ‘canon’ scene, as Yezu was much younger when she first took a trip on this craft.
I did some experimenting on the vessel and I think it turned out pretty nice. The most obvious change is the new fin design on the back. There’s also a fancy emblem mounted near the back. The vessel now has doors that rotate up and can put the vessel in a locked up state or enclose the cockpit during travel. It also has the same paint job as the Obmunjalae.
For reference, here is the previous design:
Shots of Sha Rephart Island
3D modeling for a “real world” application
Showing off a bit of synchronicity between my digital and analog hobbies: I have used Blender to model and plan out my garden. From this screenshot you can have a better understanding of its layout. I just completed the eastern side on the right of the picture. I put in a little curve on the separation between the red rubber mulch pathway and the bed of decorative rock to account for the rounded edge of the big bed (and to keep things from being all right angles, I guess).
Summer Time, Outside Time
Not much posting going on here over the hot months. The bulk of my creative efforts has been directed towards the non-digital, especially the garden. It’s constantly evolving, starting with two beds in the first year in our house, but now having 12 square beds, a big bed (currently dominated by zucchini plants), a greenhouse, a row on the side of the greenhouse for outdoor pots, and a fire pit area. I’m currently working on the greenhouse-opposite side to set up another pot row and get it all decorated out. I have plans to build a shed on the end of the greenhouse, but it just got too hot for that level of construction. Next year I may also work on building a drip irrigation system for the entire garden (the greenhouse has such a system already) instead of relying on the existing lawn sprinklers.
I’m not completely avoiding digital creations – I just finished another run through the Sheshai the Purifier novel. Yet again, I found corrections and ideas to expand upon or better tell the story. No huge changes, though I did add mentions of another Great House, this one being the order of engineers called the House of the Hammer, bringing the total to six (Sword, Shield, Hand, Book, Eye, and Hammer). Doing 3D modeling here and there. I am working on something for the anniversary of this site switching to its current WordPress-powered form, which will happen in October.
Paying the tax
Pride has been more meaningful to me this year, as my partner officially came out as bi recently. I am straight myself… well, I guess depending on the definition, eh Sheshai? Speaking of her, coming to terms with things has influenced my novel by a significant amount. Though it’s written primarily to appeal to my cis-het nature, I wound up writing in a number of characters that don’t adhere to the ‘norm’. I hope it doesn’t come off as pandering and instead comes across as coming from an honest place.
Put in a Blender
Just a few days ago I decided to update to the new 19.10 version of Ubuntu Linux. Along with that came the latest version of Blender – 2.8. This version is a huge overhaul and they changed some fundamental things like how texturing works. In other words, it broke all of my existing stuff. Am I going have to get an earlier version of Blender to figure out how to update the old settings to be compatible with the new system, or am I going to rebuild texturing from near-scratch? At least the bitmap images are still there, just have to re-associate them, but there’s going to be a lot of rebuilding to do. Most of my materials used procedural textures and so far it doesn’t look like there’s a way to quickly import them. On top of that I have to learn the new setup. I’ve been sick for at least a week so this is just making me a bit crankier.
Ayra Katrin Library South Building
I built a greenhouse in my backyard with my dad’s help this week. I also managed to build something virtually. A new site update in under a year!
This is the south building of the Ayra Katrin Library. Previously it had a rectangular design, but while working on the underground floors I wound up changing the shape to better work with the layout of the underground and the tapering end of the ‘tail’ that it occupies. Each floor has a central room with the stairway, two side rooms, a larger room which serves as an office for a higher ranking member of the Ayra Katrin, and two small rooms in the front quarter-circle section – probably a restroom and a utility room. The top floor has a balcony room overlooking the hexagonal patio behind the main library building.
This building is at the southern tip of Agwilcress and sits at a hilltop, making it highly visible from the south. This made me want to place some sort of sculpture to show off, and the new design includes a flat circular section of roof that was ideal to place it. I came up with a design that resembles a tree where the ‘leaves’ look similar to Agwilikan tails. These leaves hold up a large orb with a light inside.
Here’s an overhead view of the current library campus design, with the south building to the left.
Oh, and for reference, the previous south building design below. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a clear view of it.
A note about my life and CSD
It’s been a stressful year so far, between work being very busy, working through some difficult family matters, and settling into a new house. For the free time I get, I’ve not been in the mood to put it towards my CSD projects. They tend to consume a lot of time for slow payoff and mean sitting in front of the computer a lot. Okay, so I still wind up spending a lot of time there anyways, but I tend to just surf the web and watch videos – mainly other people playing video games. I’ve done minor creative things here and there, but not really part of the CSD stuff I’d post here. It’s also summer, and I really should be spending more time outside.
Sometimes I wonder why I keep this site going. I’m committed to an information technology career, and video game development just seems like a somewhat wasteful hobby at this point. It is almost assured that my game designs will never reach a production level, just concepts and tests. These are my stories and creative outlets though, and I do cherish them and part of me wants to see them be realized and presented to the world. I’ve wanted to make video games since 2nd grade, and in some ways I’ve partially achieved it. I’ve made some rudimentary games and virtual worlds. Just wish I had time outside regular living and maybe some extra talent to really flesh them out. Being able to walk through a living Agwilcress may be my biggest dream.
Who knows if and when I’ll get something cooked up that I feel will be worth posting here.