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.
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.
Seros is a member of the Gwil Fire Clan, a rare subgroup of his race with red skin and markings reminiscent of flames. He was sent by the Order of the Eclipse to investigate reported disturbances in the holy land of Elehura. He is accompanied by his sister Nuzoko on the journey.
The Order of the Eclipse is a special organization founded through a collaboration of the Great Houses. Its members specialize in multiple disciplines of the Houses. For instance, Seros trained in monster slaying from the House of the Shield and magical abilities from the House of the Eye. Nuzoko loves to tease her brother for specializing in fire-based magic.
Seros is old-school. It is going on 25 years since I conceived the character. And yes, I have a copy of what may very well be the first drawing I made of him:
I guess I’ve made some progress on my skills over the years…
These siblings are the newest of the legends. They lived with the Agwilikans and Akelikans and took up residence in the forest city of Priagros, the city with the highest mix of Prerart-Agwilikan-Akelikan demographics.
Buridamer became deeply interested in the music his cousins were producing and tried his hand in making songs. Over the years, his compositions became quite popular and respected. Musicians started to play his songs regularly, including full symphonic performances in the capital city of Cresselecapera and the military headquarters of Agwilcress.
His sister Kemidamer was also interested in music, though in her case she would contribute to the art using her singing voice. Buridamer mostly worked in instrumental pieces, but Kemidamer convinced him to collaborate on lyrical songs that she could perform. As her brother’s recognition grew, so did hers. However, if someone wanted to experience her singing, they would have to visit Priagros, as the two siblings rarely ventured outside their home city. And visit they did; people would travel from far and wide for an opportunity to experience a concert of the Prerart siblings.
At the height of their careers, the Second War commenced. The two were mostly uninvolved in the fighting, except for one key event. A division of Akelikan Army soldiers were pinned down but unwilling to surrender or attempt escape. The siblings arrived and led a performance of their most emotionally charged songs. The sweeping music and Kemidamer’s sublime voice impacted the demoralized soldiers so much that they surrendered moments after the completion of the music. A majority of the soldiers defected, and the remaining were allowed to return to their homes after being disarmed. This event became the famous feat that propelled the two to become the legendary songwriter and singer of the Prerarts.
When the Lucan Hill Theater of Agwilcress was built, the architects included statues of Buridamer and Kemidamer overlooking the stage.
Lunark is one of the Council Lords of Sha Rephart. Like the other two Lords, they are an immortal native of the Voidplane. Lunark’s race, the Lurin, are shapeshifting beings able to develop alternate body forms. Lurins cannot change form on a whim, however. The ball Lunark is sitting on in the picture is their “nest”, and they must enter it in order to metamorphose into another form. With study and practice, Lurins can develop forms convincing enough to fool others into believing they are a member of a non-native race. Pictured in the above image is Lunark’s “natural” form.
Lunark was responsible for developing a magic technology known as Tokens – objects that can be used to manifest tools, creatures, magical attacks, and more. This made utilizing magic easier to use and portable between users. Control of this technology also brought Sha Rephart to prominence in its corner of the Voidplane. The most popular Token format by far is a piece of paper, allowing for the creation of Token spell books. Lunark continues to be one of the best “Dreamers”, the people who design Tokens.
Lunark’s 3D model has slowly been in development. Here’s how Lunark looked previously in 2D from about nine years ago:
Yezukai’ay is a character I came up with about six years ago, but she was hard to place so I had yet to post anything about her here. She came from a standalone story that I haven’t pursued and will likely end up wherever abandoned story ideas go. However, I just couldn’t forget such a cute character! Maybe she and other elements of that story will wind up somewhere else, most likely in the Elehura universe.
The item strapped to her back is a scribe’s case. I completed the 3d model for that part just a few days ago. In her original story, she was the personal assistant of the protagonist and handled writing things down and delivering messages as needed on their behalf.
She is a member of the ‘Suyen’ race. They’re closely related to the Gwil, but have some differing traits. They have dark gray skin and… whatever color those eyes are. Did I make her dress the same color on purpose? They are also quite short. Yezukai’ay is about 135cm or 4 foot 5 inches not counting the horns. Just in the last few days I also added the drooping ears and shorter paddle-shaped tail to differentiate them more from Gwils.
I’ve been spending a lot of time on Sheshai lately. I just completed another cycle of reading through my novel with her as the titular protagonist. A good number of corrections, adjustments, and additions came up, so it looks like I am going to go through yet another reading. How far will I get through this time before tripping over a typo or being inspired for improvements? Will it ever end?!
Speaking of improvements, my work on Sheshai’s 3D model continues ever on. Adding more polygons here and there for a smoother shape, trying different texturing techniques, just added eyelids yesterday, and slowly improving on making her more animated. Some things take so much work and I wonder if I’ll ever get it to where I am fully satisfied with it; I have occasionally reminded myself of the sheer number of names in the credits of mainstream animated movies and be proud of what I have accomplished on my own.
Yes, the Prerarts are the kind of people who remember someone for sleeping. Well, someone being known to sleep for days in a row is a bit more to memorable than someone who really liked naps. His peers noted that he certainly did put a bit of art and passion into his sleeping and the rituals of preparing for it.
One time, his village was performing a periodic migration. Despite his attempts to discipline himself to be ready for this event, when the time to depart arrived, Raralara was fast asleep again, in a particularly long session. Irritated by his continued behavior, his village left him behind. Eight days later, he caught up to them. He told them he had slept for another day past the departure. After waking, he desperately searched for the others, apparently going those seven days of searching without any sleep. He had a few misadventures during his separation, and his telling of them endeared the others so much that he wound up becoming the village’s lead storyteller later on.
Though that is his most famous story, it was not really Raralara’s famous feat. There was a surprising side effect of his lengthy sleeping. It was hypothesized that he did not age while in deep slumber, as he wound up living nearly four full Prerart lifetimes. This went very well with his new role, so though in his legend he’s primarily called the “Sleeper”, he’s also known as Raralara the Storyteller.
A little personal retrospective of a character that has evolved a lot over the years: Myrian/Miryin of the Felcae race.
Yep, the Felcae started as humans with wings over 20 years ago. This was back when I was a big fan of Super Nintendo RPGs. The cast of playable characters from one my stories each had a signature weapon type and a magic alignment. Myrian… or it might have been Marian or Miriam back then… used a bow and wind magic. Around this time I also established the Grepir race, which are birds, so this winged near-Human race came off to me as redundant and a lame concept. Side note: the bird character was a master of earth magic just to mess with assumptions.
At some point I came up with a new design for the Felcae, with inspiration from herbivore mammals.
For a while, I went with an idea to differentiate the Felcae from the other races by having them be a centaur-style being. During this time I also added on horns, which took inspiration from gazelles.
I wound up scrapping the centaur thing. I recall that decision came about when I was playing around with ideas for Sharpheart and decided if all the main races were playable, I would make them all bipedal to simplify game mechanics. The centaur design also just plain lost favor with me.
I wound up porting Myrian to Sharpheart, though I never put much into developing the character. I guess she operated more as an example of a Felcae character existing in that universe. I ported a number of characters experimentally to Sharpheart, now that I think of it.
As I got into 3D modeling, Myrian was one of the early characters I tried out. I didn’t work with this model for a long time after the initial setup, as you can see by the rougher quality.
A few years later I made an update to the character for Sharpheart. I renamed them Miryin, which I did not realize I had done all the way back in 2012 until I looked back on older posts here, so now I’m revising this post to append the timeline! Actually, looking further back in my archives I found out the character was named “Suyeen Myryn” at one point around 2007. Sometimes it’s so surprising to read the fragmented history and realize how far back some things go and wondering how my train of thought went back then.
I altered the tail design to be short and fluffy. Another concept I hit on here is that the Felcae are pseudo-mammals. In other words, the women of this race don’t have boobs.
I finally revisited the 3D Felcae design this year when I started writing my novel, adapting the character into Miryin of the House of the Shield. Despite the universe, gender, and uniform color change, the character is still depicted as an expert archer, calling back across the decades. For the time being I have scrapped the Human-like hair and the horns aren’t so thin and gazelle-like. I don’t know if those are permanent changes yet.
I’m not 100% sure on the spelling of Felcae. I pronounce it “fell-say” but I don’t know if other people will correctly derive that from that spelling.
I had a story line for a while called the “Seraphelines” (Seraph-Felines, the Angel Cats, basically) about a crew of Pritar soldiers that fought undead hordes in a somewhat modern world setting. It’s pretty much a dead project now. So why am I bringing it up now? Well, I did some repurposing of items in that story line for my new novel. The leftmost character in the picture? That is Sheshai Gilms. I liked the name enough to reapply it to the titular Gwil character. The three males, Mars, Azel, and Silfred, are also characters in the novel. Unlike Sheshai, they stayed as Pritar and basically kept the same appearance. Who knows, Yoseka and Katherine might appear somewhere else.
The other name borrowed from the Seraphelines is the location called Lukaudalin. In that story, it was a Human empire that the team’s nation fought as a side antagonist to the undead.
