Saw This Meme, And It Felt So Fitting For Them (might Need To Click For Better Quality)

Saw this meme, and it felt so fitting for them (might need to click for better quality)

something something turntables

Work in progress

I've been working on this model for several months and I finally got it looking almost like what I envisioned after three revisions. There's still a lot to do before I start animating it.

This is the first character I am attempting to model from scratch, and it's definitely both a learning process and slow going. Trying to create a 3D model of a "more realistic" pokemon by including elements of the real life animal as well bringing in a third influence in the form of making the facial structure resemble a specific human character. The current result I think accomplished that reasonably well insofar as the character's identity and species are identifiable.

There are a few hurdles between now and a finished model that is ready to animate.

Mouth: think up how I am going to model the gums, teeth, tongue, and mouth of the character given that the face is in the way.

Accessories: I want to give this character some specific accessories. These need to be modeled.

Hairstyle: although some interpretations of the character feature no kerchief, the authors depiction included it, so I feel it appropriate to do as well.

Rigging: making everything move in a convincing way is probably going to take a lot of work. For the character, I have to convert the existing skeleton to a rigify template, which is relatively straightforward, but there are some tricks I've seen in other models that have to be setup manually and I have to reverse engineer those. Then I have to weight paint the model, which is an artistic talent I don't have much expertise in. Once the characters body is rigged I have to figure out how to rig the hair and accessories. Since the character may equip or remove the accessories, I have to plan for that.

Facial expressions: of particular concern is making the mouth expressive enough to move in a way that resembles speaking. Sure, rigify has some options for it but in my limited experience the rigify facial options are not very streamlined.

Once all that is done, I can call the model ready for action, and then I can make the sets and props, as well as make the other characters, which hopefully will go faster.

Wandering Spirit: the tale of Dawn the Baneful Fox

Full text below ↓

Summary

When Arceus sent Dawn back in time to Hisui, her spirit became separated from her body. To preserve the timeline, Arceus created a simple consciousness in control of Dawn's body capable of completing His tasks. The Galaxy Team named it Akari.

Dawn, a wandering spirit, has nowhere to call her home. In the Icelands she meets Akari for the first time. That's her body, and she will get it back.

Akari

“Who are you?” Dawn asked, her raspy voice echoed against nothing as she circled her prey. Dead eyes followed her around and around.

For months she had wandered the island that was so familiar yet not. Pokemon she had and had never met before called it their home. People she never heard of made it their domain.

No matter where she went, she was reviled. Rejected from the Pearl and Diamond clans as a bad omen. Chased off from the Galaxy Team as a beast. Driven away from the lush river valleys of the West, the vibrant woods of the South, and the verdant shores of the East.

The dreary North is where she stopped running and made her claim on the world.

“This one is called Akari,” the imposter droned. Her voice was as flat as a windless lake. Dawn recognized her voice, despite the even tone.

Dawn first noticed the imposter from afar. People who wander the Icelands are brave or foolhardy. And yet the imposter waded through its mountainous snow drifts as if they were mere diglett mounds. The imposter captured pokémon with nary any effort, throwing balls at the wild pokemon without sending any out to fight. The imposter had an efficiency that hinted of something... extraordinary.

Dawn had some skills in sneaking around. In the earlier months, she was not strong enough to overpower her enemies, so she had to learn to slink around unnoticed. The imposter was not fooled in the slightest. Any time she watched the imposter, the imposter watched her, empty eyes locked with hers. Uncaring. Unnerving.

Unnatural.

The imposter was the only one on the entire island who didn't react to her with revulsion.

It was miraculous how one could adapt to circumstance. When Dawn first awoke after meeting with Arceus, she expected... she didn’t know what she expected. Waking up as a ghost was not what she expected. A free spirit in the truest sense, not tied to anyone or anywhere. Untethered, and yet, incapable of anything.

When she awoke, she saw herself as she was. A Research Partner of five years to Professor Rowan, assisting him in the research of Pokémon evolution, living in Sandgem town, going to Jubilife on the weekends. Pale skin, dark hair, and fair voice. As she moved across the island, this self-image had changed. Changed to something she had never seen before. On her head was a long tuft of white fur, flapping gently in an unfelt breeze. Behind her, a poofy tail tipped in red. In her mouth, many sharp teeth. A Zorua. A perverse one of ghostly constitution.

She lost her midnight blue hair. She lost her dainty nose and small lips. She lost her height. She lost her clothes. She hardly noticed the change until it was over.

The imposter, though. The imposter had her face. The imposter had her voice. The imposter had her body.

“Tell me who you are, Akari,” she asked again, spitting out the imposter’s name like a curse.

“This one is a six star surveyor in the Galaxy Team,” the imposter answered. It didn’t tell Dawn anything she didn't know. She had seen enough of their clan to know how their uniforms worked.

It was in the Coronet Highlands that Dawn stood upright for the first time in months. She knew that Spear Pillar was associated with Arceus. It was a faint hope that she would find Him there. For all the anguish of being rejected by human and pokémon alike, nothing hurt as much as the barrier surrounding Mt. Coronet's summit.

The betrayal of it all was far sharper than the sting of touching the barrier. Of all the misery she had endured, the rejection by Arceus was the most heartbreaking. She agreed to his quest, and He spurned her. It was there, on the top of the mountain, throwing herself against the barrier over and over, that she changed again.

“When did you join?” She prodded.

“This one joined the Galaxy Team in spring,” was the imposter's dull response. 

Dawn narrowed her eyes. That's when she awoke, separated from her physical form. She stood up straight. Her large mane of hair twisted and coiled as if suspended in water, and wrapped itself around the imposter. She leaned in and put her paws on the imposters shoulders, claws digging in slightly. “You took my body,” she whispered, her teeth snapping centimeters from the imposters face. “Why?”

The imposter was not cowed.

Dawn pushed in closer to the imposter, their eyes millimeters apart. “I will have it back. That is a promise.”

“Promises are for the gods and the dead.” The imposter said. Oh the irony.

Adaman

“We were warned of you,” the Diamond Clan leader said.

The imposter's pokémon had defeated the goddess of death twice over. An incontestable outcome. The barrier around Spear Pillar, the one sure sign of Arceus's indifference, fell with Her. It hardly mattered that Dawn blamed the wrong god. The pain had ossified long ago.

With the fall of the barrier so too did the imposter, onto the stone floor of Spear Pillar. Dawn ran to her body, to find the imposter had fled. What lay before her was a pile of flesh and bone without spirit. Free for the taking. Dawn screamed and laughed and sobbed at the cruelty and irony of the world. She clutched her limp body to her chest like a doll, mindful of her sharp claws. Finally, she had her body back.

“Oh?” Dawn had the smallest of hopes in her voice. An inflection the imposter never had. She fiddled with her sleeve. A nervous tick the imposter never did.

Dawn learned many things as a ghost, all in service of a single goal: take back what was hers.

Dawn learned to craft illusions. To disguise one's entire self as something other. To perceive it so resolutely that reality itself believes it. She imagined how she would utilize it on the imposter.

Dawn learned to summon the chill of death. The humans called it ‘bitter malice.’ It matched how she felt. She envisioned how she would unleash it on the imposter.

Dawn learned to manipulate the spirit. The intangible consciousness that empowered human and pokémon. She couldn't wait to oust the imposter.

Power isn't free. To call forth the Beyond was to embrace the Beyond. It changed you irreversibly.

In the end, it was power she didn’t need. The imposter had abandoned her body before she could force the imposter out. Her plans and sacrifices were moot.

“‘The one wearing Akari's face,’” the leader quoted. “‘Her visage is only skin-deep.’”

Dawn had heard this before.

When her emotions had run their course on Spear Pillar, Dawn finally entered her body. She could experience the world as she never could as a ghost. The chill of the air, she had not felt in a long time. The breath she drew in her lungs, she had not needed in a long time.

Finally she had her body. Finally she was more than a lonesome spirit. It was a long time since she had felt happiness. She had joy at last. She ran all the way to Jubilife Village. A roof, a bed, a warm fire, a tasty meal. These were just over the hill. Her days in the Icelands were over.

Dawn never felt more alive.

She was hopeful. It was this that alerted the Galaxy Team. She would not mimic the imposter. The imposter’s mannerisms were too strange. Too robotic. Too dead. The leaders were suspicious of her immediately. Missives were drawn up to alert the clans.

Dawn ran before the messengers could depart. She ran straight to the Diamond Clan. She didn't run fast enough.

She had the tiniest of hopes that, by seeking out the Diamond Clan, she might receive an audience with Dialga. That she might convince Him to send her to her own time. Her desires were simple. To return to her loving family, to return to her pokémon friends, to return to her important research. It would be nice to do so while she drew breath.

“This is my face,” Dawn hissed, offended at the mistake. An emotion the imposter never felt. “It was stolen and now it is returned.”

"Begone, Fox. You aren't welcome here." The point of a sword said the rest.

The imposter’s eyes never turned a sickly yellow in rage, and the imposter's hands never formed wicked claws of anger.

How naïve she was to think that returning to her body was what she really wanted. How foolish she was to think that carrying through on her promise would complete her. Life is more than flesh and blood.

The Diamond Clan's reaction was disappointing, but only a small setback. She was a free spirit after all. Not tied to anyone or anything or any body. She could get back to her family the long way. For now, she would return to the Icelands. She would not seek out the Pearl clan. She had enough of hoping for one lifetime.

As Dawn Walked away from the Diamond clan camp, she never felt less alive.

Carolina

“You’re beautiful,” Carolina said as she worked the brush through Dawn's soft fur.

“It’s a sign that our time together will soon end,” Dawn cautioned.

A baneful fox’s life is a life of torment. Cursed to keep walking the earth in search of what they missed in life. Dawn was unique amongst them. Her life in limbo preceded her mortal death by several years. It did not matter in the slightest.

When Dawn’s body died alone in her shelter, it was sad in the way finishing a meal was sad. Mortality was simply a habit she was now free of. She reacclimatized to her zoroark form quickly.

“Why?” Carolina asked.

“Eventually all things must end,” Dawn said, cryptically.

As a being between both life and death, a baneful fox consumes both flesh and spirit. The Icelands made an ideal hunting grounds. It was easy finding a creature caught out in the elements. All she had to do was bide her time and it would perish on its own. Sometimes she amused herself with illusions, pretending to be a meal, or a shelter, or a lover. The cold and desperate fell for it every time, be they pokémon or human. Sometimes she had to defend her prize from other hungry beasts. She didn’t mind; she would eat double those nights.

Her compassion had burned out long ago.

“But why?” Carolina's youthful curiosity was insatiable. Dawn laughed.

A ghostly zoroark is a harrowing sight. Matted white fur on graying skin stretched tight over exposed muscle. Claws cracked and gray, and hair dull and faded. Face a perpetual snarl of agony and rage. A walking corpse.

It was this figure that greeted Carolina's parents a year ago. A horrifying beast with a small child in its arms.

Dawn was south of her normal hunting grounds when she met young Carolina for the first time. It was near one of the mountain villages that sprang up in the past century. Pokémon attracted to the promise of food and warmth, and livestock stuck outside of their stables, they made for a quick meal.

“A baneful fox like myself has a hole deep in their heart. It’s what makes us look so ghoulish,” Dawn explained.

“But you don't look ghoulish,” Carolina protested. Dawn held up a smooth black claw for silence.

Maybe the child couldn't see properly. It was the simplest explanation for why it would ask for Dawn’s help.

She pretended she didn't hear it. Nobody asked her for help, not even the most desperate. They saw her for what she was, a hungry pokémon that had spotted its next meal.

The child asked again. Dawn chose to act.

“When we find what's missing,” Dawn continued, “and it fills that hole, that’s when we heal.”

Dawn had to hurry to save the child. Her body made no heat, so she could not warm it, and the falling snow would soon cover its tracks. She was racing against time.

She prepared herself for the worst. A rifle in her face. The slam of the door. The call for a hunting party. She had seen it all before. If that was repayment for her good deed, it would smother the last embers of her humanity. But she would persevere. Even if doing so only brought more pain, she would save the child.

The child was lucky it hadn’t wandered far. It was lucky that the snowfall had abated. Dawn was lucky too. She knew that, should her charge expire, she would only hesitate briefly before consuming the dead child and its spirit. She knew it would break her.

“When we’re all healed, that’s when we move on.”

When Dawn found the house, the child's parents had just stepped outside to begin searching. They were initially shocked at her appearance, but with the child held outstretched for them to take, with the assurance their child was still alive, they understood.

Nobody thanked her freely. It was... nice. Nobody gave her food willingly. It was nice.

“You, your mom, and your dad have healed me a lot.” Dawn smiled softly. Her pristine coat glowed in the afternoon sun. White fur glistened like fresh powder snow, shifting to the rich red of haban berries. With Carolina's persistent love and care, Dawn looked and felt regal.

Dawn met little Carolina after she woke. The spark of recognition she had was impossible. She was dying. She could not remember Dawn.

Nobody hugged her lovingly. It was more than nice.

“Thank you,” Dawn whispered. She caressed Carolina's hand tenderly. 

Her time was coming. She wouldn’t get to see Lucas or her mom or dad or Rowan, at least, not in this life. In some ways, she regret that it was over so soon. In others, she couldn’t care at all. She yearned for this, and she finally had it.

The call of the Beyond was growing stronger. White light filled her vision, beckoning her. The time for regret was over. “Goodbye, Carolina. I'm glad I met you.”

“You’re not gone forever. I will see you again. That’s a promise,” Carolina said as resolutely and solemnly as a child could.

A tear of happiness slipped free, splashing quietly on the ground, and Dawn entered the Beyond for the final time.

This was an interesting side project to work on. I saw this post by @halfling-myth-lady and I had to write about it. I originally intended it to be a single scene, but I tagged the reblog as "snippet" instead of the "one-shot" I was looking for. I wasn't backing down though, and I had an idea for the second chapter. Then I had an idea for the third chapter. There's a lot to be explored still, in the framework of the original post and the framework of this story, but I think this is an ideal stopping point for this story. If you liked it or hated it, please comment. Thank you for reading.

Goron Ruby is found under the slopes of Death Mountain. Thanks to the specific geologic processes they endured during formation, the cracks that lace the stone seem to glow like Earth's molten core.

This earring has four stones in a special setting that allows light to pass through, making them glow spectacularly in the sunlight.

This is the last of the four installments of interpreting @anartweirdosworld's earring designs as 3D models. This one I agonized over a lot. The original shows the two side jewels connected by string, but the static analysis doesn't hold up (har har har). The entire time I was making the others, I was trying to come up with a suitable way to connect them to the middle. The simple bars it ended up with I think match the style of the rest of the design relatively well and feel "Goron" enough.

I have been taking notes and having ideas, so this may not be the last of the loz crest-inspired models I make, extrapolating from the original designs by @anartweirdosworld. Stay tuned for more!

The soul of the hero as...

Ganondorf: the charismatic leader. Gathers an army to watch for the enemy and ensnare it with unrelenting pressure. The enemy is captured and brought to him for their ultimate defeat.

Link: the lone warrior. Train with and gather trustworthy tools and defeat the enemy in a final battle.

Zelda: the elusive trickster. Sneaks around and lays traps to encumber and defang the enemy. When the enemy is incapacitated, she strikes with the knowledge she can't be struck back.

Imagine a legend of Zelda au where Demises hatred/reincarnation/soul doesn’t just stick with Ganon, but rotates between all three of them through the generations. And when Demises hatred is in Zelda, Hylias reincarnation/soul has to go to Link or Ganon

OR

Both Demises soul/hatred and Hylias Soul rotate between Ganon, Link, and Zelda every generation, the souls being bare souls not having a “favorite”

I love the idea of a corrupt Queen Zelda.

I also love the idea of a Link fallen to corruption. And between the three of them, I think Demises hatred would have to force it more. Link is usually so kind hearted and self sacrificing. It would have to twist his usual nature into something more “the road to hell is paved in good intentions”

Although that’s if you want to be more canonical with his personality. I love the idea of a cocky shit head Link. Like “Excuse me Princess!” Link but make him a snarky smirking cartoon physics villain. Link but chaotic neutral to evil.

Okay now Imagine Demise Link trying to woo Hylia Zelda