Divine Dragon, steward of the living world, guardian of the key of life, ancient opponent of the Unliving Evil, teacher of the healing and purifying power, granter of immortal rule, warden of the fallen, vision dreamer.
Category: Characters
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3D Character Faces 2022
With another year ending, time to reflect on progress. How about a collage of all CSD characters that have been rendered in 3D using Blender. Some haven’t been worked on for years and some are in their early stages, but these are the character models that currently exist and are decent enough to show.
Row 1 left – Agwilika Rhe
Reija, Syrsi (national guardian)
Anjil, Ayra Katrin sorcerer
Crinos Kylal, Leader of the Seven Star Nation
Row 2 left – Elehura
Tatyakori, the Divine Dragon
Salus Mudrah, the Immortal Emperor
Seros, Warrior in the Order of the Eclipse
Nuzoko, Healer and sister to Seros
Slyvette, Warrior in the Order of the Eclipse
Row 3 left and row 4 – Sheshai the Purifier
Sheshai, Healer in the House of the Hand
Miryin, Commander in the House of the Shield
Sheshai’s “Shadow”
Besuri, Second Commander in the House of the Shield
Azel, Warrior in the House of the Shield
Woklah, Warrior in the House of the Shield
Adri, Scout in the House of the Shield
Ulrae, Mentor in the House of the Hand
Saydah, Civilian and exile of Lukaudalin
Row 5 – Sharpheart
Kemadrel, Tanteru and Sha Rephart Council Lord
Lunark, Lurin and Sha Rephart Council Lord
Tatyarori, Dragon and Sha Rephart Council Lord
Besudores, Sha Rephart soldier, inspiration for Besuri
Lady Obmunjalae, Lurin in Gwil form, owner of the Voidplane’s largest vessel
Lukaud, Lurin and Lady Obmunjalae’s natural form
Yuzukh’ay, Suyen and adopted daughter of Lady Obmunjalae
Tisi, of an unnamed aquatic Voidplane native race
Upper right – Miscellaneous
The Red Triplets: Baku, Biri, and Bayzil
Pagol, Healer of distant past in Elehura’s world
Shekki, a long-necked ‘desert clan’ Gwil
Unnamed Suyen male
Unnamed “Forest” Gwil, some possible inspiration for the Red TripletsSo you can see there is a definite bias for Gwil/Dragon-type characters going on here (the lack of hair/fur to deal with probably helps), and I have yet to tackle a human 3D model. We’ll just have to see what new things 2023 may bring.
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The Red Triplets and their Restaurant
Getting another post in here before the year ends, filling in more backstory to this trio.
The Red Triplets run the Three Leaf Restaurant (Ry Ajun Yumbeko in their Gwil language) in a small stopover along an inter-city road. The name comes from the leaf-like marking on their tail tips. And that there are three of them, obviously.
Baku (center) is wearing her hosting uniform, which was something I initially drew up… wow, ten years ago. Biri (left) is the primary cook, and Bayzil (right) helps out where she can. Having to cover her eyes puts some limits on what she can do. She has made various excuses for her skimpy outfit over the years. People have come from all over to seek her mystical abilities, so perhaps the look bolsters that reputation.
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Anjil as an Akelikan
Anjil from Agwilika Rhe is one of my longest-existing characters. My earliest drawing of him is over 20 years old.
Recently I was thinking over how I haven’t modeled or drawn many gray skinned Gwil/Akelikan characters. As I thought over who I could work on next, I got the idea to change Anjil from a green Agwilikan to a gray Akelikan.
This would add a new dynamic to the story. During the time it takes place, there is a strong split between the Agwilikan and Akelikan populations, with most of the latter living in the downriver cities controlled by the Army King. Few Akelikans live in Agwilcress, and they have to live with a lot of distrust from their Agwilikan neighbors. Despite this, he became an adept and respected sorcerer of the Ayra Katrin.
I guess some new symbolism can be had with the two protagonists (him and Reija) working together.
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The Red Triplets
They are not a part of any of the other mainline stories, but I have been putting some time into these characters so I decided to post about them.
The triplets started off as a red color variation of Sheshai the Purifier’s 3D model (at first nicknamed Sheshai-Hen, basically ‘Red Sheshai’), but they developed their own personalities over time.
The have a few anomalies separating them from regular Gwils. They don’t age and have narrow slit eyes and sharp teeth. Gwils are normally herbivores, but not in this trio’s case.
Baku on the left is the energetic, outgoing one. Bayzil in the middle has a quiet, mystical aura about her, and has a curse that requires her to wear a mask over her eyes. On the right…
…is Biri, the laid back and somewhat nerdy one, who also happens to be a butcher that takes her job quite seriously, as you can see by her gear.
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Council Lord Kemadrel
Kemadrel is one of the three Council Lords of Sha Rephart. Like the other two Lords, they are an immortal native to the Voidplane. They are also known as the most personable of the Lords, and are often found visiting with citizens as they wander Sha Rephart island on their free time. They also act as a leader of the Sha Rephart military force, though in an unofficial capacity.
Kemadrel is a member of the Voidplane native race called the Tanteru. One trait of this race is that they are quadrupeds. Kemadrel has to wear special leg and back braces in order to stand upright, and has mechanical gloves to overcome the limitation of their paws, most importantly the lack of opposable thumbs. They decided to go through the trouble and discomfort of using these prosthetics to better fit in with the majority of mortal immigrant races.
So… apparently the image above is the last version previously posted of the character, quite likely around the time when I set this website up over ten years ago. Oh boy, the Sharpheart page is in dire need of a major revision.
I wound up removing the fangs, mainly because… why would an immortal being that does not eat need teeth? Another shared feature being applied to the Voidplane natives is they do not have noses or nostrils. They do have mouths though they do not need to breathe. They can inhale and exhale for the purpose of speaking and have a sense of smell (though not taste) in their mouth. Kemadrel’s eyes are also now shaped to be more like those of the Lurin such as Council Lord Lunark.
Eventually I have to update the third Council Lord’s look. They are of a dragon-like race that needs a Voidplane native makeover.
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Yet More Sheshai the Purifier
Hey, I got it to where I can pose her limbs a bit better! I reached another milestone for the novel – I read the entire thing out loud to my wife, partly as a way to entertain her and partly to hunt down any remaining typos or other structural issues, which I have come to believe make themselves more apparent when spoken out. I only made a few additions or alterations here or there; no new plots or characters. I may be ready to call its current state my final draft. I guess the next step would be to find some ‘beta testers’ to go through it and get some feedback from outside parties. Where exactly do you go to find willing readers for a not-for-kids fantasy adventure starring anthropomorphic characters? Well, where I won’t regret going…
I also added a new page for Sheshai the Purifier to the site to go along with Agwilika Rhe, Elehura, and Sharpheart, so check that out. In there I added an image of another character, Besuri, and I’ll go ahead and post it here too:
Still needs some work on the fur, like figuring out how to handle the matted and uneven areas better.
Ah why not, another character model – Adri of the Grepir:
My first attempt at an avian character model. I’m going for a gigantic songbird vibe for the Grepir race. I debated a long time on what colors to give Adri, but settled on blue highlights because no other character has that hue in their natural colors.
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Ten Years – Reija in a formal dress
Today is the tenth anniversary of criticalsystemsdigital.com and its existence as a WordPress site. It is not, however, the anniversary of CSD or the existence of a CSD website. Prior to this current and long lasting iteration, the site was hand-coded in HTML, with some interactive pieces made in Macromedia Flash (rest in peace). I didn’t keep a full copy of the previous website, but I did keep a copy of the content text, and the first “post” was dated in October 2006. But that wasn’t even the first version… I have an early CSD logo image from 1999, so CSD being the name representing my creative output is over twenty years old at this point. I vaguely recall using “Critical Systems Inc.” as a name in a BASIC program I wrote waaaay long ago… so yeah, I’ve been doing this a long time.
But back to this particular milestone. In recognition of it, I remade the first image I ever posted on this site iteration:
The original was a 2D vector image made in Flash, before I went full open source and moved to Inkscape. At that time I already had started 3D modeling and had one made of Reija, but never modeled out this particular dress.
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Miryin
I put some more work into Miryin’s model and tried my hand at Blender’s hair particle system again. You can see a major change I’m trying out here: giving the Felcae race a different lower face, making it more like a Gwil snout instead of a Pritar-like nose. In fact, the old nose was simply copied from a Pritar model and widened a bit. Here’s what that looked like:
The Felcae having facial features closer in resemblance to the Gwil (now adding the snout to the similar horns and ears), as well as the Felcae and Gwil both being herbivore races, suggests they have a closer genetic relationship to each other than to the other races. Note that the Gwil, whose name originates from the term “Dragon Children”, are not a race of reptiles, but mammals that evolved to not have any hair or fur. Felcae have their own genetic anomaly, having evolved to not have mammary glands.
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Anjil
Anjil is an adept user of magical powers. He is a member of the Ayra Katrin, an organization of the best sorcerers, scholars, and engineers of the Seven-Star Nation. Anjil has shown exceptional talent and has risen up in the Ayra Katrin ranks quite quickly. He has even been able to teach his girlfriend Reija some magical abilities.
I used to have a blue and silver color theme for the Ayra Katrin (as seen in his staff… guess I might have an update to make), but changed it to golden yellow. This was mainly to differentiate them from the the Kylal family’s primarily blue (with teal and silver accents) color theme. The Syrsia royal guardians and the national army have a red theme which you can see in Reija’s uniform.
Oh, and to follow my recent theme of looking back at the history of characters, my oldest existing Anjil picture circa 2001:
