csleko

[csleko]

IT'S THE FINAL PLUurmp....

Got a better handle on the fur tools. Also found out a big part of why the first version looked so off was that it was technically 9 feet tall in Blender measurements because I never pay attention to the scale while modeling anything.

I think I've mentioned it before, but Blender's scaling and units are kind of weird and can have a huge effect on simulations and particle systems if you're not paying attention and make everything too big. Like I frequently do. It does make sense, though, since I told Blender to put hair on the polygons, so smaller faces means a tighter distribution and better looking fur when the model is scaled appropriately. Could probably even get away with dialing back the overall amount and maybe reduce the strain on my hardware.

BECAUSE YEAH RENDERING THAT CLOSEUP OVERHEATED MY CPU AND CRASHED BLENDER WHEN I TRIED TO OPEN THE FILE. I thought it was a memory problem or something at first, so I tried restarting my PC to see if that cleared it out, but I got an error screen saying my CPU temperature was too high.

So suffice to say my plans for animating the "Plurmp meets Sonic" bit with movie style characters is probably not going to happen unless I can figure out how to improve the render efficiency or keep my PC reasonably cool while it works.

Also here's the solid and wireframe just for the hell of it.

[csleko]

CONFIRMED FOR SONIC 4

It's Sonic's best friend in the whole world, Plurmp Dankenstein McFlurnten The Cat Esq.

Yeah so it turns out Sonic characters are actually kind of easy to model, and I'll let YOU decide whether that's a good thing or not.

Making decent looking fur? A COMPLETE PAIN IN THE ENTIRE ASS. But I think I've got an okay grasp of how Blender does it, so maybe I'll play around with it some more and see if I can hate it less.

[csleko]

Tailii 3D Model (Complete)

Yep! It's done! Rig still needs some fine tuning, but she's fully poseable and animate-able.

Took way longer than it probably should have because I kept getting sidetracked trying to figure out how to make the cloth simulations cooperate.

QUIT TRYING TO DISTRACT ME. YOU ARE PUTTING ON SOME GODDAMN PANTS!

ANYWAY. I think I said pretty much everything I wanted to say in my previous post. Humanoid bodies have always been relatively easy for me to model. It's just been the head and face I had trouble with.

Let's do a comparison! Those are always fun!

God damn, I can't believe she's actually going to be her canon age of 20-something soon.

And yes, the model is anatomically correct. Not that you'll ever see any of that on this Tumblr.

[csleko]

Tailii 3D Model (WIP)

In all the years I've been posting 3D models and renders, have you ever noticed there's one very specific thing I NEVER make?

Humans.

Okay, that's not *technically* true. I've done a few low-poly human characters, and sculpted one or two, but I haven't made an actual decent quality animation model since my college animation classes. And even those weren't very good.

This is actually a big factor in why I prefer making objects and scenes rather than characters, and why when I *do* make a character, it's usually a robot or weird creature. Stuff I can model or sculpt without a care in the world for how the topology turns out. If I'm sculpting it, there's a good chance it's probably something I want to 3D print, so any rigging is bare bones just to pose the model. Assuming I don't just sculpt it in the pose to begin with.

Low-poly modeling still requires a bit of attention to topology, but it's mostly making sure the joints work properly. (Knees and elbows bend the right way without distorting the rest of the model too much.)

But this? A smooth, subdivided model capable of facial expressions and mouth movement? Was a pain in the ass for me, and I couldn't figure out why for the longest time.

But then last year I started getting back into drawing again. Just random stuff for the sake of practice. Not even saving 90% of what I draw, and not even posting half of the 10% I liked enough to save. I was paying closer attention to how I drew faces, and tried to develop my style by nudging the needle just a bit closer to realistic and consistent.

And at some point something clicked. I had watched a few Blender tutorials on how to model faces with good topology, but when I tried following along something wasn't sticking. But it all suddenly made sense when I realized I could model faces by breaking them down in almost exactly the same way I was drawing them.

I always took it for granted that a background in 2D art was obviously helpful in developing 3D designs, but I finally UNDERSTAND it now.

And yeah, this is the model I spent all day yesterday working on. I am DAMN proud of it. Ignore the cloth simulation and anything else you think you see in these renders. I just wanted to show off how good her face turned out.

[csleko]

[csleko]

Well.

I guess that concludes this experiment.

I've wanted to draw Leko beating someone with his own head for a long time, and I'm so happy I finally found an opportunity to use that idea.

On that note, I think I did a little too good a job making Hollywood Leko "appealing and relatable," because I while I was altering and taking apart the model to make him look more damaged and beaten up I actually started feeling genuinely uncomfortable with the brutality it was implying. I got flashbacks to the scene in Short Circuit 2 where the lovable, friendly robot Johnny 5 gets beaten almost to death by some gangsters. (Really glad I wasn't particularly young when I first saw it, because that part probably would've traumatized me.)

That second panel is far and away the most violent image I've ever put to pixel or paper, and I wasn't sure how comfortable I was playing it for laughs. But I think the absurdity of Leko's reaction, using his own head as a bludgeoning weapon, and the running joke of his eyes staying in place brings it back over the line a bit. I hope.

[csleko]

Hollywood Leko

WHAT IF...

THERE WAS A COMIC SHORTS MOVIE...

AND THE STUDIO...

DIDN'T GIVE A SINGLE FUCK ABOUT ADAPTING IT?

That was a random idea I had way back in 2009 as Michael Bay's Transformers movies were rolling out. I've never been a particularly massive fan or anything. Just always "kind of liked" the franchise, so the redesigns for the characters didn't really bother me as much as they probably did certain others. (But I did generally agree with many of the other reasons the movies weren't very good.)

I actually really liked the more realistic designs. The mechanical complexity really sold the idea that these were giant *alien* robots that could turn into vehicles. I was just starting to get into CG animation myself at the time, so the behind the scenes stuff was particularly fascinating. Especially hearing that rendering the enormous Devastator scenes supposedly melted one of the studio's PCs.

But knowing there was a lot of understandable hate for the character designs, I got to thinking about how a similar approach would turn out applied to Leko. More realistic and complex, but less like the original. Like the studio prioritized making it look technically impressive and appealing to a wider audience, rather than making it actually look like the character it's supposed to be.

This was what I came up with in 2009. Just a fun little exercise. You can see a fair few elements made it into the new model. At least from the head and face.

"Good start! Looks a lot like mine, just more detailed. As I would expect!"

"Oh...those are...uh...choices..."

Honestly, though? As cursed as I tried to make this model, I actually really like more of it than I hate. I tested out a render with some slight adjustments to the eyes, and that alone made me almost like it. A few more minor tweaks, and I think I would actually approve it if it were up to me and not a hypothetical corporate producer.

Speaking of that, I posted some WIP renders to Discord while I was working on it, and with them posed the question of who would be the most cursed choice of voice actor for this version of Leko.

After some brief discussion, we concluded that Hollywood Leko would be voiced by Seth Rogan.

[csleko]

"Leko Visits the AI Data Center"

I sure hope nobody is inspired to attempt this by my fun little animation project here.

Seriously, this is a bad idea and could cause a lot of serious problems if you get caught.

So don't.

(For legal reasons this is a joke and nothing in this post should be interpreted as a genuine attempt to incite a crime.)

[csleko]

Low-Poly Leko (Version 2)

The original was partially an experiment to see how little detail I could get away with by having the texture interpolation and CRT effects cover it up. I think it worked pretty well, but I had another idea for a quick animation that I didn't think "version 1" was quite right for.

So I remade the model and put actual work into the texture this time. Interestingly, the new model actually had a lower poly count than the original at first. But then I did that thing to make the eyes better and it ended up surpassing the original by exactly TWO triangles.

It's also rigged slightly differently. I wasn't sure I'd be able to "hard" rig some parts and "soft" rig others on the same skeleton in Blender, but apparently I can! So his hands and waist are flexible while all the other parts are rigid.

And I tried the CRT effect again on the renders here, and I REALLY like how it turned out. It actually works WITH the texture instead of trying to cover up the lack of detail, and it actually makes the metal parts look shinier.

[csleko]

WOAH.

Bet you never thought you'd see Old BIONICLE Leko again eh?

Probably because you've never heard of him, and thus had no reason until just now to think anything about him at all. BUT THAT IS BESIDE POINT I AM MAKING.

WHICH IS...

Uh...

RIGHT.

I am going ahead with that idea I had a million years ago to make another blog to act as an archive for all my old stuff that got wiped out when DeviantART died.

(Yes, DeviantART IS in fact dead. Its corpse may still be moving around, but it's an empty and lifeless husk.)

SO. With that in mind, feel free to check out

Leko's Library!

Like I said, I'm just gonna dig through all my old crap, post something here every once in a while and talk a bit about what was going through my head while making it.

And I made this render of Old BIONICLE Leko because I needed a unique avatar for the blog, and thought it would be fun to use my old face for it. I'm actually quite happy with how it came out considering it was pretty much a rush job.

[csleko]

If I can ever get my ADHD under control long enough animate a Game Grumps bit, this is the one I'm going to do.

Also hey, I draw'd again.

[csleko]

"Mini Moon" 2024

Managed to get a picture of that "mini moon" everyone was talking about!

Gotta say, it's a LOT bigger than I expected.

And it...uh...seems to be looking at me...

[csleko]

When I was 15 I made this lightsaber out of a bunch of random parts. Specifically, an old scooter handle, a hose nozzle, a flashlight reflector, and some electrical tape.

Then today I got bored and made it in Blender. But like....*slightly* better. Basically just made the grip look more like an actual part than just being wrapped around it.

[csleko]

Bloodborne Crossing: Rom

Remember this little project from a few years ago?

Yeah. I felt like revisiting it.

That's all.

[csleko]

Mini Collection Update!

The Acolyte characters join the lineup, and Kyle and Mara were looking lonely so I made more of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight folks. (They were actually among the first sprites I ever made alongside the other Star Wars characters, so it was fun getting to finally redo them all.)

It's kind of interesting how Star Wars characters have largely taken over the whole V2 collection when the V1 collection literally had just one in it. (It was Thrawn for some reason.)

The V1 collection also had a lot more movies/shows/games represented, but generally had fewer characters from each different one. The standouts in V1 were Bleach (24 sprites including alternate versions of characters), FF7 (16), Comic Shorts OCs (13), Doctor Who (12)., and Kingdom Hearts (9).

Still thinking about going through and just remaking ALL the V1 sprites. We'll see.

[csleko]

The Acolyte was a good show and I wish people who didn't like it could just be normal about it instead of feeling the need to be horrid little twats to everyone who did.

Anyway, I made more pixel minis. Enjoy, and keep bugging Disney until we get a second season.

[csleko]

So apparently The Acolyte got canceled, and Disney is learning the wrong lessons AGAIN. Namely: THE LOUD, WHINY ASSHOLES ON THE INTERNET ARE NOT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. THE LAST TIME YOU PULLED THIS SHIT WE GOT THE RISE OF SKYWALKER.

So, you want to be a shithead about the new popular thing that just happens to have women, POC, and/or LGBTQ+ in it, and you don't want to get called out for it?

Just bitch about "how bad the writing is!" Nobody can call you a bigoted piece of shit if you specify that the writing is the problem! Never mind that you can't actually come up with any specific examples of said "bad writing," or offer genuine critique that might help fix what you allegedly believe to be the problem.

It's just another screen to hide your bigotry behind since everyone saw through the "DEI" bullshit, and the "CRT" bullshit before that, and the "woke" bullshit before that.

Crawl back under your slimy rocks, you fucks, and let the real fans enjoy our fucking shows.