toast-dude art

Bored at work, Blender to the rescue. About 45 minutes.

Playing around with @neonhumbuzz's paper texture pack. I just recently discovered the technique of using watercolor splotches as additional detail layers for textures in blender, so I'm still discovering the best ways to use them.

Three textures are combined in various ways to make the dropcloth material. One texture is used as a light gobo.

I got a new computer that's significantly better at this than my old one. It would have taken numerous hours to render on my old computer, this only took half an hour.

I had a vision come over me the other day. In that vision was the general layout of this piece: Ingo stepping into a tunnel, framed by the driver's window of an approaching train.

There are a decent number of stories on Ao3 featuring Ingo being transformed into a Hisuian Zoroark and then taking the quick route to reunite with his brother. I can't remember the titles of any of the top of my head, so this is a fanart to all of them. If you wrote a Zoroark Ingo story, this art is for you.

After about 16 hours of work, I've realized my vision. I did a lot of experimentation with compositor nodes, some of which ended up in the final version and some that got thrown away because I found an easier way to do it.

Fearow and Spearow were scattered wide, everyone flying in all directions and trying desperately to avoid crashing into each other, not helped at all by the dark green shadow cast by the cloud cover, the dim lighting interrupted by  lightning flashes. They had impeccable timing, occurring just often enough to prevent anyone's eyes from getting too acquainted with the dim light. They illuminated everything for only a brief moment, too little time to judge speed and distance of any other bird.

The wind writhed violently around Esareth, tossing her around like so many spearow of her flockmates. A tailwind would push her straight into a downdraft, which shifted into a headwind. These shearing drafts were the worst storm she had ever had to fly in. The tornado wielding these winds loomed close, threatening to suck her in as she struggled to escape. Rain and hail swirled everywhere, pelting her face and wings. The roar of the tornado's winds and the earsplitting cracks of thunder battered her poor ears and the lightning flashes lit up the entire sky, leaving afterimages in her eyes. Panic long since filled her entire body and hadn't stopped. She was desperate for the peaceful flying she had known before this storm appeared.

The flock has never been caught out like this before. Storms of this magnitude were never subtle, and a flock like Esareth's had no trouble avoiding them. To the elder birds, the clouds and winds may as well whisper the future. A warm and windy day is the first sign, not audible enough to hear the warning but loud enough to get you to listen. When the winds aloft shear hard to the North, they shout to be ready to fly. When you see large clouds on the horizon, they scream loudly to run away.

In the morning, the winds were quiet and the flock was settled and relaxed. Nobody was on watch for storms because the weather was calm. Esareth was out foraging for berries with the other spearow. There was a leppa berry bush they had found recently and she wanted to eat some before Astaris ate them all.

"Esareth, where are you?" Her mom called to her from above the canopy, "come here, we have something special for you."

Esareth had only enjoyed one berry, and she was sure they would be gone by the time returned.

"I hear my parents calling, see you later," she said and gave the berry bush one last longing glance. She would love to eat more, but she had to leave.

"OK, we'll be flying back to the dock after this," one of her flockmates let her know. The flock placed a strict emphasis on keeping track of its members. The importance of knowing if someone is separated from the flock, and if they are, where they can be found, is taught to every fledgling. If you go out foraging or exploring or having fun, the less precise your directions are the more important it is to keep your ears open for flock mates trying to find you.

Esareth, who heard about the bush from Gateliel, only knew the rough bearing and direction when she told her parents, so it was sadly necessary to leave the berries behind.

"I'm here, I'm here!" Esareth called out to her soaring parents, who descended to meet her.

"Hello Esareth, we have something for you," her mom said, and rocked her wings side to side in greeting. Esareth waved back and followed as her parents descended into the canopy for a landing on the forest floor.

With his long beak, her dad reached deep into his flight bag and started digging around for something. He gave her mom a look, and she ruffled her wings.

"Esareth sweetie, we have something for you," she said again. Esareth briefly wondered how many times she would say that, as she had heard it three times already. "You're now old enough to have this," her mom still wasn't explaining anything, but her dad finally found what he was looking for, so maybe she could know soon. In his break was a necklace. It had large wooden beads around the entire length, with a bigger bead hanging off the middle. He put it around her neck and it fell into place comfortably.

"This rosary is a very important treasure," her dad filled in. "Keep it safe from anyone, OK?"

Esareth looked at both of them and nodded.

"Good. We love you very much," he said, and put a wing over her. Her mom did the same.

"We're proud of you, Esareth," she said.

Before she could push off their wings in embarrassment, a loud shrieking was heard that put everyone on alert. There was something wrong and the flock needed to reform quickly.

All three of them took off and cleared the canopy as fast as possible. The cause of the alert was immediately obvious. The overcast skies were in motion. It was an impossible motion, storms simply didn't work that way.

"Fly as fast as you can!" Some fearow shouted, "That's a tornado!"

It seemed like ages ago that Esareth had almost pushed away her parents' wings. She was tired, disoriented, bruised, and even more tired. The only thing she wanted now was to hide under her parents' wings and be shielded from this horrible storm.

She, and every other one of her flockmates, continued suffering at the whims of the tornado with no end in sight. The tornado was intensifying, and everyone was tiring.

Esareth was exhausted, and she faltered. She couldn’t flap any more, and tumbled. The winds whipped her around as she struggled to regain control.

“Esareth!” She heard someone shout, her mom or dad she couldn’t tell. The tornado was sucking her in, and she waved her wings helplessly. As she spiraled closer and closer to the vortex, the temperature fell lower and lower. With so many feathers out of place or missing, the cold was cutting to the quick much easier than normal. She shivered involuntarily, from the cold and from fear. Panic was gone, slowly being replaced with resignation at her fate. When she got too close, the winds would be so strong she would be ripped wing from wing. She would be flung up high into the sky, higher than she could ever fly herself. The ground would be so very far away, and she wouldn’t have any feathers to fly with. It would be a long and high-speed descent of certain doom.

She tried to regain control again, maybe she could power out, but her wings had no energy left to flap, but it was useless. She resigned herself to her fate, and folded up her wings snugly, and closed her eyes tight. She was along for the ride now. Around and around she went, whipped around by the intense winds as they slowly drew her in toward the center. Tears she shed didn’t stain her cheeks, they whisked away instantly by the wind.

“-After that, I don’t know what happened,” Esareth said. Caspian listened intently. “Suddenly, the entire tornado was gone. Just vanished. I don’t know where it went or where I went. This isn’t the place where the tornado started, not by a long shot. I glided down here and that’s where I’ve been ever since.” She finished her recounting.

"Oh... I'm sorry.... Being separated from your entire family is so tragic! I don't even know what that's like," Caspian said.

“Didn’t you say you lost your memory?” She double-checked.

“Yes, but not like, everything. I still remember my name after all,” Caspian defended. He was a strange one. Today, while she was waiting for her flock to come, a strange black and purple ring had formed in the sky, and he fell out of it. He was clearly unconscious and hit the ground hard. Thankfully not hard enough to kill him, but it did knock him a bit loopy, it seemed. He claimed he was something called a ‘human,’ not that it meant anything to her. He was clearly a normal starly just like she was, just a bit brain-damaged from the fall.

She looked back down at her rosary. “They didn't even get to tell me what my rosary is for!” she whined and stifled a sniffle.

“Your rosary...?” Caspian asked and tilted his head to inspect it. “The necklace you're wearing?”

“Why did they give it to me? What's important about it? It's the only thing I have from them…” she wondered.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Whoah-ho-ho! You hear that?” Koffing said as he peeked over the bush, “The wimp’s got a mysterious treasure!”

“A very important one, no less,” Zubat confirmed. He too was peeking over the bush, not that he really needed to.

Skuntank stamped his paw. “Team Skull, huddle!” he shouted as quietly as possible so not to alert those chumps. Zubat and Koffing formed in, making a triangle. “We’ve been looking for a break for a while now. Finally these chumps show up and give us one. Lets not mess this up!”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I haven’t looked for them, because if you get separated from the flock, you should stay put and they’ll find you,” Esareth tried to explain. Solitary birds were difficult to deal with. They never learned how to flock and without fail they would not understand what flock life was like.

“Hey you! Important announcement!” A voice to their side shouted. Caspian and Esareth both turned to see a skuntank jump out from behind a bush, followed by a zubat and koffing. “That treasure you have, we need it! Koffing, noxious gas combo!”

The two birds glanced at each other. What was this about?

The toxic gas cloud pokemon did a little twirl, and clouds of green toxic gas started coming out of every pore. The skuntank’s tail opened up, and it started spraying purple gas everywhere. Suddenly, it made sense. These were the people that she had to protect the rosary from! They were trying to knock her out!

“Come on Caspian, lets blow this smoke back at them,” she said, and started to beat her wings furiously. Thankfully he followed along and with the two of them, they had successfully diverted the poison gas back at her attackers.

When the smoke cleared, Koffing and Skuntank stared incredulously.

“Hey, no fair! They blew our noxious gas combo right back at us!” Koffing complained.

“No matter,” Skuntank said in a strangely nasally voice, “We’ve got plan B!”

Before anyone could ask what plan B was, Skuntank lunged forward at Esareth. She tried to take off and fly up above where he could reach, but she was too late. He yanked hard at the rosary, and it came off easily. “We just steal it! Chaw-haw-haw!” He gloated. “See ya losers!”

With that, the three of them ran off down the trail.

“No! My rosary! Give it back!” Esareth called after them and gave a half-hearted chase. “I have to get it back!” She turned to Caspian, “Please, help me get it back!”

“I will!” He said, “but I don’t know how I can help; I’ve never flown before…”

This confused Esareth a great deal. He was not a fledgling. Just how much did that fall make him forget?

“Hold your wings out, you’ll remember!” She shouted, antsy that her rosary was getting further and further away. Caspian did so, and looked at each wing in turn. He folded them up again and flicked them out, as if doing it again would help.

“It’s not coming to me,” he admitted.

“Are you a bird or not? Bend your legs, spread your wings wide, jump, and flap down hard! You know how to fly!” Esareth demanded. She did as she described, perhaps him seeing it would spur his memories. He followed suit, and when she jumped and flapped hard, he did the same.

“Whoah! He said in surprise once he got airborne. “I’m flying!” he exclaimed in excitement.

"Hooph," Akari let out a big breath once she was safe inside Galaxy Hall. Rei, right behind Akari, took a moment to brush the snow off his uniform.

Hisui was deep in winter. The snow and ice, normally reserved to patrolling the icelands, had come south and blanketed the rest of the island. Many pokemon had retreated to their dens to hibernate, but others were content to brave the cold and short days. These pokemon needed study, so Rei and Akari ventured into the wilderness to observe. Despite how beautiful it was in the fieldlands, it was nice to warm up in the sturdy walls of Galaxy Hall.

With her own scarf shaken out and returned to its proper place on her head, the pair of surveyors made their way to Professor Laventon's office, making sure to wave 'hi' to Bagin on their way.

Professor Laventon was a kind soul. When he found her on the beach alone and afraid, he offered her a place in the Galaxy Team. She couldn't think of anyone who was more kind and generous. She couldn't remember-

A fire was burning low in Cyndaquil's fireplace. The fire-type was curled up on the edge of the coals, right next to the cast iron kettle that the professor kept warm. He knew the cold wasn't Akari's element. Warm tea was always warranted after these expeditions. A pair of empty teacups were waiting on the central table, thoughtfully placed, ready for two explorers to find.

Akari, the closest to the table, grabbed the two ceramic cups, while Rei walked to the fireplace, ready to pour. It was a routine they were well-practiced in. Lifting the kettle from its stand woke Cyndaquil, who jumped up and squeaked at the intrusion.

"I'm sorry Cyndaquil, I didn't mean to startle you," Rei said, and gave the fire mouse pokemon some pets on the head after returning the kettle.

While Rei was busy with the tea, Akari dug through her bag until she found her pokedex and Oshawott's pokeball, setting them on the table. Akari sat down on the rug, cross-legged, and let Oshawott out of the ball. He appeared in a ball of blue light and chirped happily, looking around. Akari giggled at the cute sight. Siezing the opportunity, Oshawott climbed up and snuggled into Akari's vacant lap.

One teacup per hand, Rei carried the drinks carefully and set them on the table.

"Hoo?" called Rowlet from his tree. "Hoo!" A ruffling of feathers and Rowlet was in the air, making a beeline for Rei.

"Hello Rowlet," Rei chuckled, leaning forward as Rowlet landed on his head. The bird had a soft spot for Rei, especially now that he was spending more time in the office thanks to the cold.

Not to be left behind, Cyndaquil stretched and hopped down from his fireplace and made a lazy pace toward the congregation of people and pokemon. The fire type had an affinity toward Akari, who knew exactly where he needed scritchess.

With pokedex in her right hand, Akari reached out her left hand and made scritching motions. Like clockwork, she felt a tiny furry body snuggle up against her.

"This is just what I needed!" Rei said, warming his hands with the tea.

Here in Laventon's office, warmed by the oil lamps and the fire, insulated from the frost on the windows and the falling snow, surrounded by her friends...

I've been working on and modifying the Pokemas Malva and Diantha models in Blender. I've been tweaking the armature and materials over the past several days, such as engineering material drivers that give me control of Malva's eyes and eyebrows directly from the rig. Iris position, eye shape, and eyebrow are controlled by different bones, so I can mix and match them and point the eyes wherever I want. Malva's asymmetric expression above is the result of this work. Compare this to the game where she has a fixed set of ~13 faces that have the eye positions baked in.

Fanart of @erazonpo3's OC Luculia. I made this on a very short timeframe so it doesn't have the polish that I think it deserves, but it's good enough to publish today.

Eyy wassa matta with you? You never seen a tough guy before?

Making of:

All the models were made from scratch. Mari's proportions are a bit off because she was made to fit the scout's rig.

This binding process is jank but works. Empties are generated at the position and rotation of all the relevant FK handles of the rigify rig. The FK handles are copy-transformed to these empties. The empties are child-of to the relevant scout bone. This is necessary because the scout bone orientations are not what Blender uses. The scout rig is then bound to the animated rig via copy transform constraints generated by name.