It's been just over a year since Deltarune chapters 3 & 4 released! I did the 3D work, which mostly means Tenna 📺 I figured it's been long enough to share some "behind the scenes" stuff, starting with a look at the Maya file for his static poses...
I'd individually render the poses to get that early 3D shine ✨ Here's some of them at their original resolutions! I would work from text descriptions from Toby, and sometimes there'd be a Paint sketch to help out. Gigi drew the concept that I modeled from and some poses too!
I had a lot of fun pushing myself to match the dynamic poses Toby had in mind for Tenna - making him so crazy and expressive was something I couldn't have done without his prompts. He'd draw the faces on afterward too, which really brought Tenna to life!
(lots more after the Read More cut...!)
Here are some of the Paint sketches Toby drew to help me with specific Tenna poses! I love seeing his drawings LOL, genuinely really good and evocative 👍
There was a time when I was struggling to capture what he wanted for these specific Tenna poses… Until Toby acted them out himself, and I thought, "Ah, it's like that. I understand." and then I was able to make them just how he pictured them.
When looking through the renders and choosing what to share, I laughed at these two… Remember when Tenna had a gun? Remember when he bent over in a very specific way that might remind you of another, different image? No? Maybe you don't…? Well. Don't worry about it.
These ones are cute… Tenna is pretty cute sometimes! Has anyone ever thought this? Actually, before people knew he was going to be a strange 3D sprite the Whole Time, I was worried people wouldn't like the style and it'd sour people's views on him. I'm glad that didn't happen.
Toby thought it would be funny to have Tenna do some really smooth, mocapped animations sometimes - specifically free to use ones that often pop up in other things. An extra funny part to me is how many frames these take up in the game, and how his tails are stuck to his legs…
Speaking of mocap, Toby wanted Tenna to use custom mocap animations as far back as 2016 - Ten(na) years ago! I got an Xbox Kinect at the time and learnt how to set this up, but then never used it. Here's a look at messing with mocaped stuff again in 2022. So Normal.
Don't bother trying to help him here, he's just being dramatic 🙄
I particularly like these poses - I think I improvised most of these just based off the context they get used in… I always liked posing his tie and coat tails as if they were also parts of his body he could move. Which I guess they are?
After I rendered out the individual poses in high quality, I'd force the color palette to be limited to just a few shades and then I'd shrink the result down to pixel sized sprites. Like these! I'd tidy them up a little, but they'd really get improved on at the pixel scale by Clairvoire.
As well as Tenna's sprites, I also worked on his intro "movie"…! Seeing people be completely overloaded by this on first playthroughs would always make me laugh. In game, there's a ton of extra editing done by Everdraed, but my unedited cut looks like this ⬇️
This was the entire storyboard I had to work from, and I'm realizing now that there's the note "put him in car etc" that I never did and actually don't know what it would mean exactly. Working on this had me listen to the accompanying audio many times, but it's good so it's okay.
Here are a bunch of random clips of the Maya project for Tenna's intro movie. This is how movies get made, I think!! Yeah… Just like this.
Say it with him, folks!!
For the 3D Ralsei clip from the intro, Toby really wanted it to look a certain way, and drew more sketches for guiding me with this part than any other. They genuinely helped.
Remember how Toby's original storyboard has the note "covered in slime and shrinks"? That meant I had to learn how to make 3D slime. You can see my tech advancing here.
I'm really happy with how the final Tenna animation at the end of the intro movie turned out! It wouldn't look as good if it wasn't for some 2D animation to reference from SmallBuStudio, so thank you to them for the help! Tenna is cute… Huh, I already said that…?
Phew!! That's a lot of Tenna. I hope it was fun to look through my posts! Oh, one more thing - the Fangamer Mr. Tenna Figurine just straight up uses the 3D model I made, which I think is really funny and cool and nice. Check it out if you want! Thanks for reading!
sorry the looney tunes movie that got buried by a massive company for corporate purposes is about fighting back against a massive company trying to bury incidents for corporate purposes?
I just realized. They're disgusted by green pippins because
He's green and in be tw . green. be gr. e's. and He's. tween and. Hes. sss. g.g.g.g. een. een. And in. Green. He's green. He's gre. tween. gr. ween. He's.
I am whatever the opposite of a speed runner is. I am a game meanderer. I have to look at literally everything. I am overly cautious in every way. I forget to pause and wander away from the game. I take a minimum 7 hours to get through any given level. If you give me a timer I will cry.
Relationship(s): Small Mike & Tenna (platonic, but can be interpreted as pre-relationship idc)
Genre(s): Humor/Fluff/Angst/Character Study
Tags/Warnings: Depression, Undressing, Non-Sexual Nudity, Frustration, No Romance
The beginnings of being Mike wasn't all that a seamless of a transition.
Battat should have figured all those barely-hushed exasperated whispers between the pippins grouped around Tenna's feet the night before would have an effect on him. Jeered about the fruitlessness of performing for none, they did. He had brushed off the comments as no big deal, already being so well-acquainted with the unserious ways pippins like to antagonize one another, he often forgets that through an outsider's perspective, they seem more akin to pitiless little boys poking at a dying bug with a stick; their jabs much too sharp for those unable to handle it. Looking back, he should have quelled that behavior down and rounded it out with loud praise to Tenna's dedication to his job. His mistake, but he's still working through the growing pains of this new role that's been placed upon him.
Chemically in scent, the fresh polyurethane foam envelopes his head—obscures his vision for the most part, it takes a minute for his mind to ignore the fuzzy shadows bordering his eyes—but there was no time to get used to the new skin after he was told Tenna had yet to appear on set this morning, and is in fact nowhere to be found.
The darkner who checked his bedroom must have only given it a mere glance inside, though, because it's where Battat ended up finding him after nearly an hour of increasingly hectic power-walking throughout the studio (listen, this suit is too stuffy to go around breaking a sweat). Obscured by blankets that hardly lumped to his shrunken form, Tenna lays small enough to huddle between the legs of one of his teddy bears like some defenseless cub still blind to the world. He almost didn't check the bed, not really taking Tenna's odd abilities into account in his search, but the seeming emptiness of the room tickled an unease into his brain, and his skepticism was rewarded when he decided to yank the blanket back.
"Boss, your alarm not go off?" He tries a lighthearted approach to whatever mood the man has up an put himself in this time. His shadow shields Tenna's back from the ceiling light, but he still flinches, arms wrapping tighter around himself, wrinkling his trademark red suit further than it's already become and—he never changed? No, the suit, gloves, belt, tight pants, and even his shoes greet Battat upon fully registering that fact; too rumpled to mark it as anything but the marrings of yesterdays handiwork. Shaking his head, he amps the energy up, dropping the blanket away and clapping his hands. "We gotta get up! Got a show to run, remember?" Tenna replies with something, but with his screen pressed into his bear, it's completely muffled. Battat leans closer and asks, "What was that?"
"I said 'what's the point!'" Tenna's head whips around to snarl at Battat. The rest of his body follows in-turn, so he's flipped around and facing him proper before he flops back against his bear, clutching at the fabric of its little shirt with a pouty huff. "Nobody's even home right now. Not gonna watch me later, either. The pippins all seemed so comfortable letting that be known. What a joke."
Corner of his mouth threatening to take that sharp turn downward, Battat clenches his jaw through it, not particularly appreciating getting spat at with such vitriol. He clears his throat, rattling away the growing gruffness of frustration. "Don't take what the little guys said to heart, alright? They don't know what they're talking about. What about the pre-recordings you do? You always say it's good to have a backlog of content."
"I have plenty." Is Tenna's immediate reply, his fingers smoothing down the shirt until he reaches the hem, and tangling them between the bear's faux fur as he buries half his screen into its round belly, adding through grit teeth, "Plenty, plenty. Since it's yet to be watched."
"C'mon now." He almost whines it out, his patience already sanding down thinking ahead to just what this will inevitably unfold. "If you—if ya don't do this now, you're just gonna get on everyone's case when they fail to pick up your slack tomorrow! I know how you are."
"Yeah, well," stubbornly—annoyingly—Tenna stands his ground with a contemptuous sniff, "if I shouldn't take my workers' insulting comments to heart, maybe they shouldn't take mine."
"Don't be like this." Blunt and stern, Battat can't stop the warning from coming out, squaring his shoulders and pointedly looking down at his shrunken boss in a way that, if he weren't in disguise right now, Tenna would likely be looking at him in such a way. The mental image of it is enough to kick him into gear a little more to take charge while he still can. "Today could be the day the lightners come back, but they'll think you're broken if you keep seething in here, giving everyone the cold shoulder. You'll forget all about it once you're under the spotlight again. So wipe those crocodile tears, and let's change out of those wrinkly clothes—"
"No."
"...You're really not in the position to fight me on this." He growls out, planting his hands onto the mattress and leaning his weight on it to loom closer. Oh, his jaw aches, and now he's reaching a threshold where that corner of his mouth is getting a bit disoriented by the strain it's being put under; shaping his mouth from a slightly miffed frown, to a very stressed and irritated grin. His eye twitches, he's not cut out for this, it's no wonder the real Mike left (or quit, or is giving Tenna the silent treatment or something, whatever the hell is going on there) if this is what he had to deal with on the regular...
A cruelty plays in his head—a threat that would make this whole ordeal abundantly easier wants to make itself known, but Battat holds back, deciding to save that for when Tenna is acting more extreme; it's a trump card that should be used sparingly. The man is so small he could pick him up easily, carry him over to the set, and he would have no choice but to grow if he really wants to do something about that. So Battat instead scoffs at the display of the bear tilting to the dip he's put in the mattress, Tenna getting taken with it, but making no sign of acknowledgement, even when he rocks a bit to Battat pushing himself away. "Fine. If you won't put in the work, I will."
But first: the clothes. An unacceptable mess, they are. It would do nothing but make Tenna throw a worse fit if he were put under the spotlight in such disarray. He pinches a bit of the suit jacket, prying Tenna away from the bear and pulling him up to a sitting position. Despite the protesting grunt, he lets himself be manhandled—albeit sluggishly. His head lolls down, shoulders slumped, and he's practically dead weight in Battat's hands, making sliding small arms out of an equally small suit jacket harder than it has any right to be, but Battat isn't about to let the blasé attitude hinder his goal. A few tugs by the end of each sleeve one at a time has it finally coming off, allowing him to move on to the tie.
...Which proves to bean even bigger problem than getting Tenna's limp arms out of a coat. With a thumb under his frame to tilt the CRT head up, Battat scrutinizes the knot for a moment before trying as delicately as he can to pinch at it, get it loose, but his gloves fatten his fingers, making precision tasks near impossible. He tries wiggling it at the base, then digging under the collar of Tenna's button-up to try to get a hook on the loop, but nothing is working, and through it all, his frustrated noises and progressively rough handling doesn't seem to be making Tenna catch on—or care, maybe—about how difficult he's being; proceeding to not do a damn thing to help.
"God dammit, Tenna!" At his wit's end, he releases his hold, slamming his palm onto the sheet next to Tenna's body and shouting out, "WORK with me here—no! Nono, don't—..." He quickly falters as Tenna's blackened screen bows down and he shrinks even more until he's smaller than the length of Battat's hands. Which hover over him tentatively, as he mentally wills the man to stop. "No more! No more. Don't... Ugh."
Neither of them speak. Tenna's screen remains off and he stays slouched in his sitting position while Battat's hands drop to rest on the bed; then his head follows. The foam of his mask thins at his forehead where he rests on cotton sheets, and he takes a deep breath to his slow descent. A patience pippins aren't in any way known for needs to manifested here. Fine. This is fine. Okay. It's fine—
"It's fine. It's—" Head popping back up, he cuts the mantra that began to trickle out of his thoughts. He rights himself, looks back down at Tenna and mutters softly, "You don't have to do anything, I'll take care of it."
He continues his work with greater effort. Tenna being smaller than when they started with is certainly not helping the situation, but Battat will hold his tongue—with his teeth even, in concentration, as he so carefully pinches at the belt—and he won't complain, else he'll have to start searching for tweezers... and a magnifying glass. Battat is a stubborn fool, though, that will refuse to accept loss no matter how much money he's burned, or how many items of clothes he has to shed, until he's as bare as Tenna now lays before him, after minutes of meticulously working through it like he's picking apart the world's smallest ragdoll; his fingers beginning to cramp from their tightly curled position. Nevertheless, he gets it done, and he only popped a few buttons along the way! Tenna has enough awareness in his dull state to shyly cover himself and avoid looking at Battat with a pink screen (it's not like he has anything to hide, but Battat shrugs it off. Whatever eases his mind...).
Flicking an, admittedly, adorably itty-bittyshoe away, Battat nods to himself, satisfied with the minimized pile of clothes he's accumulated. Now to dress him, make him look like the showman he truly is; all sparkles and clean, crisp edges. He spins on his heel and beelines to the wardrobe, swings it open, and—
...Gets about what he should have expected from such a tall piece of furniture. Very long shirts and pants hang neatly organized within—it was too much to expect the clothing Tenna doesn't wear to just synchronize with him, wasn't it? He peers further in, hoping maybe to find some variation, maybe a box, but there's nothing to work with. He glances around the floor, seeing if there's a miniature wardrobe he missed. When that amounts to nothing, he tries the dresser—and distantly, he thinks he might have heard Tenna let out a flustered squawk as he starts pawing through socks, but he pays it no mind. Top drawers prove to be useless. Middle drawers have n—... noses? He slowly closes that one. Bottom drawers have pajamas—all the same absurdly large size, not a single sign that this world's leader can be anything other than ridiculously gigantic.
He sighs when the nose drawer turns out to have not been a hallucination after opening and closing it a few times, finally giving up. "Boss, where do you keep your small clothes?"
Tenna doesn't answer right away, and so Battat has to veer his brain activity away from wondering about the potential of other body part drawers (a blessing, really) to turn and inquire further with a pointed look.
But Tenna just sits at his bed, tiny as ever, on knees pressed tightly together and his arms covering breasts that don't exist. Staring back at Battat in bafflement, before shrugging, and speaking in a tone that says it should be obvious to anyone, "...I don't."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T—" Battat is ashamed to admit it was the sharp twinge in his wrist that stopped him in his rush across the room to try and throttle the man, his hands halting mere inches away from that little corded neck before he snatched them back, digging his thumb into the pained spot. He hopes his bared teeth make up for the lack of eyes on his mask. Eyes that are currently glaring holes through the foam and hoping to manifest a molten puddle of metal and plastic coincidentally where Tenna sits. "Why didn't you tell me that before I just spent minutes of our time speeding my way to a carpal tunnel diagnosis?!"
Tenna has the audacity to look offended after shaking off the shock. Seeming to have gotten over (or forgotten) his modesty, he puts his hands on his hips and scoffs, "I didn't ask you to undress me."
"Well you definitely didn't stop me!" He hisses back, before shaking his head, halting anymore angry outbursts from coming out. Another deep breath, and a closed fist pressed hard to his forehead—since pinching the bridge of his nose is out of the question—he exhales out a long groan. "Look, you've got a role to play! Everyone's wondering where you are! You can't go out there naked, so either put the old clothes back on, or grow and get dressed already!"
"No! I can't." It's a whine fit for a childish foot stomp to accentuate, if Tenna were standing. His antennae droop, screen darkening again as he wraps his arms around himself. "I'm—I'm too... glooby..."
What the hell is he missing here? A few snarks form some pippins shouldn't be as debilitating to Tenna as it is right now, unless Battat has been underestimating his tolerance, and it usually doesn't take him this long to bounce back after a few nudges from Mike. He was so placid in Battat's hands, letting him shed the layers of clothes away without any fight, so he has to want Battat to take charge in some way, right? Maybe he wants to be pampered. Fine, he can play along with that. "O-okay. Alright. So you need to be happy to get bigger then, right? What do you need, Boss? Just name it, and it's yours!"
Shoulders slumping, Tenna only sighs. "...I don't really want anything right now."
...Never before has Battat spoken to someone so bad at communicating, the lack of follow-up takes him back to witnessing how Toriel would struggle to get a straightforward answer out of Kris for just about anything; back in those very early days with the kids before he was lost to the couch. Silent shrugs, and half-answers that provide no clarity and lead to a constant back-and-forth going nowhere, until Toriel would give up, or guess, only for Kris to get upset because that wasn't what they wanted.
He wants something, he has to want something, else he wouldn't be like this right now! Battat knows if he leaves the room, Tenna is just going to throw a fit and call him back in, and continue to put him through a gauntlet of twenty questions. The thought of it is enough to make him a flailing, sputtering, mess, "That—but—that's not how this works! You get upset, or the 'gloobs'—or, whatever—a-and so Mike—er, me—er... I—" his hands slap to his chest, and he gives himself a few more light jabs for emphasis— "I'm supposed to do something about it! So let me help you! You want jokes? A snack? We—we can get a slice of pie on our way to the—"
Tenna recoils. "Stop."
Vigorously, Battat shakes his head. His stubborn nature has him at a death grip, his pippins instinct at ends with this new Mike role, urging him to win, win, win. It gives his mouth a mind of its own, making him embellish more and more, bluff as much as he can to compensate for his flubs; for Tenna's unwillingness to fold. "No! No I won't stop! Mike doesn't stop! Mike's here for ya! And Mike won't stop bein' here for ya as your buddy, your pal, your ol' reliable, to turn that frown upside down! But M—but I can't make ya happy if you don't let me! Anything ya want, anything ya need, I've got ya covered! Ya haven't told me to leave, so ya must want me ta do somethin'! If not now, then maybe in a few minutes! Maybe a little bit now, and a lotta bit later! All of me, none of me, some of me—an arm and a leg—if that's what'll make ya—"
"Stop, stop!" Tiny hands shake and flap in front of him, Tenna's face is contorted in discomfort, with his voice holding a desperate edge. "I'm just—I don't want to be—..." He cuts himself of, and clutches his frame. A frustrated noise trickles out of him, its volume increasing as his hands slide up to his antennae, where the sound peaks as he yanks them down hard enough make them creak. "Ugh, I don't wanna think about the stage! I don't wanna be around my employees right now! I don't even wanna think about my lightners! I don't wanna eat or play or laugh or talk! I just wanna turn my brain off for a while and not feel so sad and lonely and scared, and not have to try so hard, while everyone keeps leaving no matter what I do, because I'm just. So. Tired!"
The antennae are released, making them spring up violently, and bounce a few times before going back to lowering again to the momentum of Tenna's continued pathetic crumpling; his back hunching over while he supports himself with his hands, only for his arms to buckle when a sob to wracks him. Battat chokes on his words, a lump stopping the visceral retaliation of you don't let the rest of us have a break, why should you get one, from coming out. A familiar habit that's becoming, having to swallow down guilts for decisions that make him so deceptively use a man's trust against him. He's Mike, which means he can keep hammering down urgencies Tenna himself made up without consequence, until he sees if there's a lower point someone can be than naked and crying on the sheets...
"We can do a nap." He blurts, deciding that he too, would like to not have to think too hard about things right now. "If—if that's what ya want... If—... yeah."
He reaches for Tenna's clothes, before remembering he wasn't all that delicate with them. Some buttons lay scattered about the pile, the pants have a small tear where the zipper ends—he swallows. Tenna is likely in a state where he doesn't care about clothing at the moment, but Battat would really rather give his boss some glimmer of dignity before picking him up. Could he just wrap him in a clean sock? God, no that sounds worse, actually.
After his eyes dart around in increasingly frantic thought, they catch the abandoned (more like forcefully torn from its beloved's arms, you prick, Battat's conscience chides)—... abandoned bear. Tenna perks up to Battat's shadow covering him in his reach for it, his tears having calmed to sniffles. In his peripheral, he can see Tenna's screen pointed to him as he examines the little red and white striped shirt, pinching it by the hem, and he looks back down to the tiny CRT, mentally calculating the measurements until he decides it's better than nothing, and he turns the bear around to tear the shirt off it by its velcro fasten. That screen tilts with cautious intrigue when Battat holds the opened shirt in front of him, inviting him to slip his arms in if he so desires.
"Look I'd rather you have something, alright?" His face heats up the longer Tenna stares. "But you don't have to if you don't—oh, okay... Good."
The last part has him muttering sheepishly from Tenna unexpectedly slipping his arms through holes more fit for chunky, fluff-stuffed limbs, and when Battat finishes sticking the velcro back together, he takes a moment to look at over his boss dressed in a teddy bear's shirt big enough to be a short nightgown at best—his cheeks rapidly glowing pinker by the second as he himself examines the thing—and Battat is left wondering if this is in any way more dignifying than putting him in a sock. Probably...?
Climbing onto the bed, he offers his hands only after he's picked a good spot to comfortably sit up for a long period of time—which, to be fair, is just about anywhere on the bed, with how many pillows and plushies Tenna owns; there's less mattress surface that's actually visible with this huge collection. Battat finds himself wedged between two of the bigger ones, making him look like a toy in comparison from their sheer size, but Tenna seems satisfied with everything happening now, having no complaints as he lets himself be carried and held close. God, he really feels like a small child clutching their baby doll, holding Tenna to his chest like this, lying in a bed surrounded by any cuddlebug's dream come true.
...Oddly comforting, though. He can see why Tenna is such a hoarder. Feels nice to have nothing but the presence of things built for love fill the space; to hold and pretend to be held. It makes the eyelids grow heavy with ease, a sense of security blanketing over him—makes not thinking about things effortless—and he makes sure Tenna is fully comfortable in his arms before he sinks further and fully succumbs to this fluffy sea of whimsy.
"I miss everyone, Mike." Tenna mumbles when Battat adjusts him in his arms, keeping one of his hands on Tenna's back for support while his boxy head rests on one of the loops of Battat's bowtie like a pillow.
Stifling a yawn, Battat replies, "I know."
"I miss you the most."
A jolt he manages to dilute in a split second, Battat's fingers twitch, the fabric of his glove snagging on a bit of the exposed velcro on Tenna's back. He pinches the threads away, rightens the fasten, swallows, and doesn't think about it. "...Yeah. Yeah, I know."
