The sun cast its light ever so brightly through the clear sky, creating glimmering reflections on the water surface that danced along with the waves which looked almost like the stars in the night sky. The curvy coastline led her eyes from the farthest point her eyes could see to the nearest point far below her where the source of the distant water splashing sound can be seen; the jagged rock formations that rose from below the water surface.
Accompanied by the sound of waves, the vague murmur and clanking sound of tablewares didn’t make the most quiet of time. But, she found the establishment a fine place to relax in with a good book nonetheless. Her favourite spot was the close one to the railing for a clearer view. She might have found the weather too hot if not for the wooden roof and the sea breeze that kept it clement.
“One Eveberry Strudel with extra cream for the miss. Enjoy!” spoke the waitress in a playful tone as she put down the plate.
"Oh... I forgot to ask you for the extra cream, but you remembered it for me. Thank you, my dear."
The girl's bright smile was her reply. She walked away still wearing the smile on her face, hugging the tray to her chest.
She was halfway through her dish and a bit more through the pages when an impulse struck her head, a sort of brief telepathic shock. A call that one might describe like a tap on the shoulder, except it wasn’t on the skin. “Oh, how could I almost forget?! All these pleasantries are a time sink,” she said to herself as she closed her book and put it aside.
She reached inside her purse and took a folded piece of paper out. “’3 caravans. Minimum escort, no adventurers. Onyx Point, around sundown. Problems: Either Redbeard or Ignasius are expected. Or both.’ Aah, why do they have to come around these times?! My poor strudel,” complained her, crumpling the note and threw it off the cliff.
She turned her seat to face the ocean, only this time not to enjoy the view. Briefly, she looked around, making sure everyone was busy with their food and chattering. She relaxed, leaning back to her chair before her eyes started glowing with teal light. Her gaze fixed towards the ocean, but her eyes were seeing something else. She flew, high up in the sky, far away from where she was sitting. She could feel the muscles of her wings, flapped them as if they were her own, and steered the small feathery body anywhere she pleased.
She was circling above Onyx Point, observing things in and around that crossroads. “Only two people? What are you up to, creepy guy? Stop grinning, please. Is that a fuse?” she mumbled. She concentrated more, sharpening her vision greatly that she could see the ladybug between the blades of grass. She followed the length of the thin fuse, finding where the man had hidden the other end. “Strange. If he hides the explosives in those bushes, where would the ambushers wait in?”
“Excuse me, miss. Can I get you more coffee?” the same playful voice from earlier came from behind her.
“No, thank you, my dear. Can you bring me the check instead, please?” she replied calmly and casually, without turning around, without even the slightest shock.
“Right away, miss!” she said as she walked away with a pot of coffee in hand.
The grinning man walked backwards into the abandoned inn, drawing the fuse inside with him. He was out of view when a group of people came from one of the roads. Dressed in travel-worn outfits with a touch of reds and dark colours, they were carrying rifles, pistols, blades, and unpleasant bodily smells she bet from their overall barely kempt look. They talked to a girl who seemed to be waiting for them.
“Twelve Redbeard’s thugs without the man himself. Such confidence, knowing that these grunts will very much likely deal with Spider in the process. I wonder if he’ll still be as cocky as to not showing up if he knew I will come too?” she muttered. The brunette with two pistols got her attention. Her low ponytail and side bangs swayed with the wind and her movements. “Hmm, looks like Little Princess Ponytail over there is the one he put in charge of these idiots.”
An epiphany manifested in her mind when she saw the girl ordered the group to hide along the treeline, while she went inside the inn. “Oh… I see what you’re up to, you dirty, dirty girl.”
Armed to the teeth, their number was quite the threat for the caravan, but not for her. Not for The Owl. She’d seen enough. She put the payments on the table and got up before the waitress came, moving towards the railing that kept visitors from the cliff. "What a perfect day you must ruin," she sighed, climbing onto the railing.
“Excuse me—miss. P-please, get down from there,” the waitress that served her earlier came up to her with stuttering voice.
Ghostly wings materialized out of thin air on her back, sending a powerless yet palpable shock wave which sent the waitress and some people who had noticed fall into a strangely mesmerizing reverie, a sort of tranced stupor. It didn’t silence the place, but the atmosphere felt somewhat calmer.
“Don’t you worry, my dear. I’ve done this before,” she said before jumping off the cliff. The only thing that was seen after was a small, grey owl which flew up from the cliff, away from that place with the hypnotizing effect.
Slowly, the waitress recovered from her numbed state, which transitioned into confusion when she noticed the money on the table in front of her. "Eveberry Strudel with extra cream, it seems? Hm... strange. If that lady who came here often was here I would have noticed her beauty the moment she stepped in from the front door," she thought out loud, becoming more confused when she saw the check paper on her tray. A man’s voice called out to her before she took the money and approached the caller with a bright smile like she always did. “Yes? What can I get you, sir?”
The crossroads boiled with screams and gunshots. Her swirling thought negated the chaos below, allowing her gunshots to be the only sound that crept into her ears. None of the bandits' shots hit the mark as long as her wings cast an illusion to those who laid eyes on them.
This wisdom was not present when she witnessed heartless robbery for the first time, one that brought her parents to their graves, and her childhood to seemingly inescapable misery.
“Nothing personal, chum," the words that had always haunted her mind, along with the memory of a group of people plundering her house while her father’s lifeless body laid on the floor, surrounded by evil laughter echoing in her house. "We simply don’t need you anymore.”
That tragedy had prepared her for The Wisdom of The Owl, the power which the legendary owl spirit had granted her. That tragedy was her reminder to rid her world of scumbags like these.
Here I am, your consequence.
One after the other, they were caught by the sight of her scope, and in that instant fell to the ground like ragdolls. With the echo of her last shot, the place fell into silence. Not even a single chirp was heard. She turned the barrel upward, resting her rifle on her right shoulder.
Through one window on the upper floor in the abandoned inn, The Spider waved her hand to her, standing between two corpses before vanishing from view. “Catch you later, Spider,” she mumbled, waving back at her.
The crystal on her chest started glowing the same teal light as her eyes. She stood there, but her spirit was somewhere else. She stepped closer to the ponytailed girl’s dead body, appearing before her spirit next to it in the same astral form. The girl noticed her approach with eyes wide open.
"'If Spider falls for your trap and blown to pieces along with your buddies there, is it worth it?'” stated The Owl. Her mask gave off a cold stare. “I have a strong feeling that was a question you had in mind at some point. Whether or not it troubled your conscience, that’s a different matter.”
The silence through the girl’s trembled lips and the dread on her face was her answer.
"To be honest, I don’t know what your answer was. As extraordinary as I may be, I can't read people's mind, no matter how simpleminded they are. But, I know it was a wrong one. Hence where you are now,” she continued, looking at the girl’s dead body then back to her fading spirit. “Now go, lament your grim fate in the afterlife.”
The girl stared into her slowly vanishing arms as if she was a cloud of smoke blown by the wind. Her parted lips showed as if she wanted to speak, but couldn’t as much as mutter anything through the fear, confusion, and denial of her state until she was completely faded away. At the same time, The Owl was back to where she stood.
She noticed a little owl sitting on the rock next to her, staring at her as if it had a witty remark to make. “What?” she asked, staring back, “Yes, I just rubbed salt to the wound of a dead person. I never asked for this power, okay?” she shrugged, rolling her eyes behind her mask.
“The caravans should be fine by now. I’m ready to head home, or more like teleport home,” her crystal glowed one last time for the day.
I hope the story was worth the bazillion times of remaking because holy shit, isn’t it difficult to write at least an ok👌 fiction. This story may confuse you if you haven't read the previous part here.
Anyway, I hope you’re still alive there, and here’s the character from the story, The Owl:
There she was, a figure dressed in purple with a mask that resembled an owl's face, standing confidently with one foot rested on a rock. She cocked her rifle and took aim towards the treeline below.She’s a sharpshooter with the ability to summon ghostly wings that can create powerful wind slash, cast illusion, and of course, help her fly. She can also telepathically ‘connect’ with owls across the land and see things from their perspectives. Since she can control their movements as well, she’s pretty much possessing them, you could say. She can then switch place with said owl she connects with if need be.
But, connect-and-switch-places sounds rather mouthful, which is why she simply refer it as "teleport".
Relaxed poseAnyway, pretty much like other 3D artists, I find sculpting stylized fur difficult to do. Achievable, yes, but difficult. That’s what I thought when I created The Wolf, which was the second character of this “Gratitude” project. I even heard it from Mike Morton who was a senior 3D artist at Lionhead Studio which was known for the Fable series.
That was until I started making The Owl’s crisscrossing outfit. It can be a bit tricky to make which layer of cloth is on top and which one should be beneath, which makes the mirror function can be destructive. Respect for artists who create real-life sculpture without the help of CTRL+Z button or mirror feature. You people are amazing. 👍
Front and back viewsSo I spent quite a while making it look convincing and meet the shape that I imagined without ‘downgrading’ it to some degree. The process was difficult, the result is worth it, if I may say so myself.
If only I can animate. I’d love to see my characters in action. Of course, I can learn animation just like I do 3D modelling. There are a ton of guides, tutorials, and people who are willing to help out there. My motivated self screams “YES”, but my laptop says “Nein!”.
Close upThank you @ryivhnn the writing advice, as usual, my laptop for staying strong, and Blender 2.82 for... existing, I guess? And thank you for visiting my post! Artists and writers on Hive, I'm open for criticism.
Character Portrait | 3D Print-Ready Model
Gosh, Rainey, you are just so full with GREAT INCREDIBLENESS * ___ *
Love this so much! The story, the design for the character, and the 3D sculpt are all super gorgeous * ___ *
I've been loving the series so much and I'm sad that you are now data capped and wont be able to post for a long while... :( It is always such a great happiness to see rainey posting for me aaaaaaah
... AAAH THE OWL IS SO COOL * ___ * !!!!!!!!
Thank you, Spidey. ^^
Your very spiderness is also the thing I'd love to encounter whenever I'm active, not just your very spidery artworks, which are already so cool in itself no matter what style you're drawing in. Also, I'm no longer data capped, yay!
I thought the character was going to turn out pretty epic from the preview you chucked in artbees ages ago but DAMN totally worth the wait XD
And I want her coat. Would cosplay if I could find all the items. Except maybe the leggings, I just don't look good in leggings XD The amount of time you spent on it was totally worth it.
This is my favourite bit XD I burst out laughing and then had to share with J as he wanted to know what I was laughing at.
That "teleport" power must be confusing for the poor owls? :D I'm imagining her switching places with an owl and then the owl finding its way back home to her and telling her off XD
Do you use smooth shading or the subdivide modifier?
Taking ages to get the shape you wanted was definitely worth it I think, it looks fantastic. Did I mention I want to steal it? XD
If you can ever be bothered putting the wireframe on, would love to see wireframes of your models :) Don't need to if you can't be bothered or it's too much work though, only weird people like me would be interested in silly things like that :D
Working on this was fun, but since this character was a promise, you specifically liking it so much is one of the main aims for completing this one. So, I'm glad ^^
I only realized I made girl characters in leggings a lot when I finished The Owl. XD Maybe I should try one of those long, elegant victorian skirts next time. But, still, go ahead and steal it, Ry, and cosplay as the version of you in a fictional world! XD
I thought her connect-and-switch-place teleport power would have that effect on the owl as well, but I decided that in the untold narrative the owl she connected with won't have that problem. Problem solved XD
I don't use subdivision modifier on her. She's perfectly production-ready. Except for her wings, which are still in high-poly because I don't want to delay this post any longer. It's been way too long already 😆 I'll show you the wireframe on Discord.
Skin tight clothing is convenient as you can just use shrinkwrap+weightmap and it should work without clipping XD (I don't know if you remember my tantrum from a few weeks ago when this finally entered by idiot head, the worst thing was it was a technique I already knew as well so not like I had to discover it like a lot of the cloth sim stuff I'm learning atm).
I'm glad you didn't long elegant Victorian skirt this one, I could not pull that off and would also probably die because I'd trip over it and fall down some stairs I wasn't anywhere near because that's how klutz I can be XD
Production ready for what, are you aiming for game models?
Clipping is a common problem actually. I observed game models closely while in-game before, clipping is always there to some degree. So, don't worry too much about it, Ry. It's okay to clip sometimes. (Quite the contradiction to what I said to myself when I worked on this, but still) XD
And yes, I'm perfecting my 3D skill to create animation/game-ready models. So low-poly, good topology, and good uv mapping + texturing.
You can have high poly models in animation (which is mostly why I do that because I like insane amounts of detail, see my particle hair XD). Games yeh probably want to be as low as possible but even then game engines seem to be allowing for higher levels of detail these days (or so I've heard anyway as I stopped paying attention to game dev stuff centuries ago x_x).
My over the top perfectionism won't allow clipping x_x My current workaround for my skin tight stuff is an offset XD
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Yep, I tried multiple times, and gave up every time XD. Though I'm glad there's people out there, like you, who can write some incredible stories! I'll stick to factual stuff for now, personally. But reading this, and delving deep into the lore and character, has definitely made my day. Cheers, and I hope we can muster enough strength to convince you for another one :-)
Aww, I wish I can say 'maybe I can help with your writing' but I'm also not so good myself XD I get help from some cool peeps in learning how to write fiction in English. Thank you anyway, I'm glad you like it. :)
I do have another ones (and keep making), but not sure when will I post it here...
No worries! Great work takes time, so post it whenever you fell that it's ready! No one's perfect, but your fiction is close enough to it :-)
Cheers, and have a great day ❤️
"My motivated self screams “YES”, but my laptop says “Nein!”."
SAME! It's one of the reasons I don't make animations that much because laptop dying from it takes up more time than it already does and kinda a drive killer
But holy heck Rain you made another amazing piece!
Thank you Thilah! ^^
Perhaps your laptop is more dying than mine then, because I can still manage to make turntable... barely, but still, it's always a torture. Gadget cruelty! XD
Pure badassery! Didn't read the story cuz I'm sleepin, but now I have something interesting to do tomorrow friday night.
I think you could use for learning to animate, a place holder low poly humanoid model. Without rendering - just to learn the tricks. Dunno, one of the reasons I stop doing 3D sculptures is cuz laptop chokes itself when too much details and polys... So I understand those shortcomings. Last piece I did took me forever to test lighting and adjust camera, and that's not fun at all, :(
BTW you sculpt first and then retopo the whole thing? Retopo is something I always neglected, but honestly I was more interested in doing 3D concepts than actual models 4 production.
Thank you! ^^
^This has always been in front of me, how did I not see that wtf XD
Yeah having to work with less polycount does come with a good side, which is the need to be more creative with the limitation. But still, it's not so fun! lol.
Yes, I sculpted using my own humanoid base mesh first (gotta learn how to work faster and more efficient), then retopo. Retopo and weight painting are the least stages that I like as well, especially the bs that is weight painting. But I feel like I'm growing to like them...
...my masochistic tendency is getting out of control, send help! XD
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Good post!! 🐻🎮