Coming soon(-ish): The Book That Made a Roar of a Whimper · 7:25pm Mar 6th, 2015
Okay, little personal update: rejoice! Today I marked yet another rite of passage into adulthood. I can now safely say that I have passed the threshold and am a normal, average, modern-world adult.
Basically, what I'm saying is: I got my first job application denial.
Kinda bummed out about that, but hey: it's always the last job you apply for that you get, right?
Anyway, so I hear new pony things are coming out April 4th. Good, hope y'all enjoy that, because I will not be watching, for reasons I've explained in an earlier blog. I may go back and edit that for clarity's sake. If you haven't read it, it's on my front page.
If you have, then you'll know that I said I'd be kicking off my radio silence with a fanfic, and preferably one that's kind of upbeat and not likely to cause much drama. Unfortunately, that's likely to mean not a lot of people will read it, but hey, I'm sure once the more contentious fics come out (if any), people will get the message and be constructive about it.
Anyway, I've decided on my next published fic and it is going to be a Whimper fic. It'll take place in between Passiflora's Plight and Flight Camp, and detail some of the roadbumps Whimper encountered on his way to becoming a cute little bullhead. It also takes place before the Applecross Games mentioned in Plight, so it's still during his growing stage.
Normally, I'd throw out some mysterious spoilers for you, but since this is a prequel, you already know how things will end: Whimper gets kinda huge. What you don't know is the bit of backstory Passiflora gets. So, keeping in mind it's still only at concept and outline stage now, here's the basic story:
Doldrum Whimper finds he's hit a plateau in terms of growing muscle. He's tried the simple '100 push-ups' thing, and it's not working as fast as he'd like, or at all. Sure, he can do more reps of anything now, but he's not growing. Down in the dumps, he's on the verge of giving up on the whole thing when his mom suggests they go to the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange.
Whimper is given one thing to trade and one thing only: a copy of his mom's latest book, signed. All he has to do is find a pony with a book on muscle training and trade for it.
The good news is: Whimper finds what he likes. The bad news is: he finds what he likes. Now Whimper must choose between the teachings of two of the old strong stallions of legend: the Spring Dynamics Method by Chuck Boulders, or the... well, I haven't thought of the second one yet. I'm tempted to call it Dynamic Spring by Hurly Rocks. That, or the Toughen Up Method by Royal Guard Captain Fairweather.
It's a dilemma that leaves poor Whimper torn, and as he ponders his decision, he learns a thing or two about both his mom's past, and the future he's chosen for himself.
Keep in mind that's not going to be the actual story description, but more of a synopsis of the story. For those who wanted to play at home: yes, Chuck Boulders, Hurly Rocks, and Major Fairweather are ponified versions of real people. As a rule, I try not to ponify anyone that I haven't read any works of, which is why I take these names and not the ones of better known but less accessible authors (read: not the stuff I couldn't download for free or buy at a convention). To be fair, the Major is based on someone known for military exploits, not physical prowess, but I looked it up and the original is on wikipedia, so feel free to try and find the original. The names are subject to change, the inspiration remains the same.
But that's gonna be the story. Whimper goes looking for the best way to get ripped, and finds himself wanting to avoid getting ripped off. And when he raises the innocent but very valid question of why these two salesponies (these are modern-day fitness ponies, not the legends who wrote the books, mind) are so interested in a signed copy of his mom's book, he finds out how Passiflora got her fame in certain circles, and what big horseshoes he's got to fill.
As for the Warrior Meet fic? Coming a long a little smoother now. The problem's been that I'm introducing ninja teachings to pony culture, which is... a lot harder than it sounded in my head. And the Cutie Mark Crusaders take ninja lessons along with Spike and Rumble, and their teacher is a Shadowbolt. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that, after all. Especially when there's a kid in alicorn armour running around, and Scoots is suddenly very jumpy whenever anyone mentions Wimpy.
Gosh, I'm teasing again, aren't I? Well... coming close to the last chance to comment, so what if I abuse it a little?
As for the Quorum Sensing sequels... today I laid the last, and I do mean very last, hands of editing on Blue Moon Bloom. Keep on Truckin', I don't know if I want to rename (again), but I probably will. Something like Bugs and Bat Wings, or Cultural Exchange. I dunno, something that says 'Ponies and bats clashing together, mass hysteria! Oh, and a changeling in the middle'. Yeah, it's gonna be a right mess when it comes out, I just know it. At least the rousette characters are fun. You're gonna love Luna's heir.
Oh, which reminds me, have I introduced you guys to Edward yet?
He's a bit messy, but he's finished. I can do some cleanup work here and there, and have, for that matter, but... this is him, basically. Oh, and in case you are wondering: yes, his base colour is a light shade of black, and his pattern colour is a dark shade of red. He is, as it stands, a red and black Gargoyle Filly. My OC, do not steal.
I might even make a new profile picture with him on it, actually.
"Cracker be trippin'."
You darn tease... I thought we'd get a publish date for the printed edition of Flight Camp!
As for the warriors' meet... If there's one think I'm good at it's fight scenes and plot-hole filling. In case you need either of it.
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I might just take you up on that sometime, actually. As to the printed version of Flight Camp, my novel editing takes precedence. First that, then Flight Camp in TeXMaker, and I will need pony models or Flash puppets or whatever they call it in Synfig to make illustrations. And considering how long it took to learn Blender, that might take a while.
So it's probably going to be pony 3D models ^^
Well, at least it was a job rejection and not just never hearing back from them. Keep trying, and I'm sure eventually you'll find one.
I was pleased by the date and the new trailer with more spoilerific material. Looks like so far I'm right about the first two episodes, and finding out that a certain character will be in another episode of season five makes me interested to see what they do with them.
I'm looking forward to the Whimper fanfic.
Scootaloo as a ninja, with her fur color, always seems to make me think of Naruto.
Edward looks like he's coming along nicely. As an artist, here are the main things I notice:
First, I'd suggest more contrast on his colors, though I suspect that background color might not be helping. Everything's tending towards the same shades and fairly dark, and that tends to be a bit bland. I did that deliberately on a picture of a filly, in fact, because she was supposed to be unmemorable. You might lighten up the crown to make it stand out more, and some sort of necklace with a contrasting color would help, or some clothes. Possibly a bit of a reddish tinge to the lighter areas of his coat, too. It's worth playing with a bit with some variations, in any case.
As far as the eyes go, my instincts are telling me you should be going from dark green at the top of the eye to light green at the bottom. I'd usually add two highlight lines in the colored section as well, with the bottom color being a even lighter shade of green, and the top one being sort of halfway between the shade of the first highlight and the darker shade at the top, but that's mlp, and it doesn't look like they do that in filly funtasia. Here's a reference shot.
i.ytimg.com/vi/E_sWMQM4f_U/maxresdefault.jpg
Based on that, dark green and light green (looks yellowish at one point) changing fairly abruptly in the middle, and it looks like they have a green outline around them. It looks like a smaller pupil, though that's going to be dependant on lighting conditions anyways.
I do think he's looking good; those are just my suggestions for improvement. Keep in mind that I'm not familiar with 3d modeling at all, just coloring pictures of ponies from mlp...
--arcum42
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Heheh, I'll keep the remarks on his coat colour in mind, but with regards to his eyes...
I wrote the article on the Filly wiki on how those are made. I'll probably end up doing one on the hair as well. Edward actually does have show-accurate eyes that go from darker to lighter... if they're lit properly. You might note from other screenshots that the lighter and darker areas in Filly eyes change place depending on the lighting. Those light and dark areas aren't painted that way, that's just how they look in the light. It does that because real eyes work similarly: the curve inward makes it so light from above casts a shadow on the top parts while lighting up the bottom parts. Filly eyes are cheats in that they use baked normals: it's not curving inward, but the light treats it like it. In Edward's picture, there's only one area lamp, which casts light as if it were an infinite surface. Usually they only use those for lessening contrasts, as the fill light in three-point lightning. The shadows only depend on the angle of the light itself, so there's no shade being thrown inside the eye. The size of the iris and pupil are easy to change with shapekeys, even animateable. So it's mostly lighting that I need to figure out, and maybe alter the coat colours.
Or maybe I forgot to turn on the normal maps for the eyes. I'm gonna have to check if I switched those on, actually...
I should point out, though, that I spent a lot of time setting up his materials just to make him easy to colourshift, and not a lot in painting his textures as a result. I can adjust his base colour and his pattern colour, as well as his hoof colour, just by fiddling with the buttons. Basically, if he wasn't so messy, I'd have a baseline for the entire cast right now. As it stands, I'll have to start over and fix the arms (the pony model will hopefully have the
reinvented wheelarms that work properly). The eyes and wings are painted like that, though, so those take more work to redo. Backtracking on painting sucks up a lot of time, so I cheated, what can I say. He could do with more of a pattern, I agree. I was thinking of maybe slapping a silver chaostar on his chest. Keep with the theme and all (his crown is modeled after that of King Terenas, and an eight-pointed star, as well).And Scootaloo as Neighruto... yup, that image is gonna come back to haunt me.
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Hmm, alright. I'm mainly familiar with how to draw 2d pony eyes, though I've gotten pretty good at that. (At this point, I probably could write up some sort of how-to thing, really.) It probably is the lighting that's doing it, then. I suspect half my issues would go away if I saw him properly lighted, with a much lighter background color, and possibly standing on a solid surface. The eyes caught my attention because they looked mostly the same color all over with very little variation.
The sad thing is I went to look at my brown filly picture I mentioned, and I'm just as critical of that picture. I'm getting to be very perfectionistic as far as pictures go, it seems.
Sounds like your next project might be setting up a more generic model with everything you've learned. Of course, that'd probably lead to redoing Edward to be based off of the new model... (I've had several times now where I've done to look at something I started vectoring and coloring months ago, and then spent a lot of time just going through and redoing everything because I know how to do it better now...)
And believe me, I'm in full agreement with cheating on things when doing them properly takes a lot of effort. You can always redo them later, after all. A silver chaos star on his chest might look pretty good, actually, as long as it's a light silver shade.
Come to think of it, his mane shape's bugging me a bit too, now that I think about it. I think it's largely that there should be more hair in front. Of course, this is a 3d model, so his hair might just be bunched up under the crown.
Of course, having gotten this far, a video of him walking would be interesting, or showing him from a few different angles. Modelling a mirror for him so that you can have him doing magic with it might be a good step as far as accessories, too...
--arcum42
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Next project is a pony model, then after that... we'll see. The main problem is the arms: I want a pony model that can spread its arms and stand on its hind legs without looking off, one of my main objections to using SFM ponies. Definitely keeping Edward as a practice model for animation, though. I was going for sort of a horror theme with him, so I tried to give him a Cthulhu hairdo. You should've seen the old version: it looked like a face-hugger when seen from above.
As for mirrors... funny you should mention that, actually. His original concept was a fanfic character whose race is responsible for making magic mirrors. They live near a source of particular water/mercury stuff that can carry information as well as spread it evenly, basically making them the guardians of the Filly equivalent of Internet. Edward would be the sort of 'addicted to his computer' artist when he shows up at the Academy, and eventually see that while he is making art, he's doing it with a screen in between him and the final product. It'd kind of reference how there's a generation gap between kids who were raised on TV and kids who were raised on tablets. Sort of, I never got around to putting a villain in. Bottom line: his mirror would have to be something special.
And of course it'd be Bella who'd get shipped with him. Because, come on, too obvious.
I'll definitely keep it in mind when I revisit him, maybe add some colours, actually paint a pattern for his fur (right now it's a computer-generated one). Thanks for the feedback!
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Manes are always tricky, anyways. And, yeah, I bet having it where they can stand upright and also walk on all four legs would be difficult. I'd almost expect two different models for that. Here's a filly that was sitting around my hard drive, incidentally. I seem to recall that I was just playing with doing a red and black filly with a base body I'd traced from elsewhere, and this came out.
i.imgur.com/V61gXl0.png
That backstory would mean that he'd need a special one. That or several mirrors, since I doubt he'd only have created one for his own use. Maybe a black obsidian-ish mirror with another chaos star on the back?
No problem on the feedback. I figure giving suggestions for improvement is probably better than just saying "Nice model" or the like, and I'm feeling good enough about my own skills to do so now. (Though, honestly, if I tried to model anything 3d right now, it'd look way worse than that, since I have little to no experience with 3d software. Paint Tool Sai and 2d pictures is another matter, and it'd still look bad if I started entirely from scratch.)
--arcum42