āAnd if youāll give me 40% of the MOST POPULAR VOTE, Iāll give you my SPECIAL REWARD... A yearās supply of NON-GLOOBY SLIME!!! Never or BARELY used!!!ā Tenna concluded his speech with a huge smile, jetting his hands up in double peace signs.
The crowd roared in confused enthusiasm as Tenna gave a gracious flurry of low-FPS bows, pausing only for the occasional stink-nose at his audience plants who werenāt throwing enough 3D roses.
Eventually, the room fell silent. It was Senshiās turn to speak.
He puffed out his chest, took a long, sweeping look over the audience⦠and shook his head.
āI can see not all of you are eating properly.ā
The crowd murmured with embarrassment.
āI donāt know who needs to hear this, but itās time to take the turkey out of your icebox. I have seen the ingenious technology with which your people store food... and I have also seen the waste which results from such convenience.
āThe food you take had a life. Beasts grew fat on the grass of the field, plants grew from the sunās rays, and mushrooms grew from minerals in the cracks of caves. And yet, it sits in your iceboxes, collecting moisture until it perishes.
āEat what is given to you. Because its life will make you stronger, too.ā
Without another word, Senshi left his podium and stepped away from the stage. The crowd murmured in confusion. āIs he really like that?ā somebody said. āI only remember reblogging the photosets of him tripping and showing ass.ā
--
Back in the Green Room, Tenna wrung his antennas nervously.
āY-y-you think they liked me!? They HAD to!! I mean, I donāt know what Asgore was thinking, getting that weird haircut and running that food waste campaign, but⦠YOU thought I did good, didnāt you, Kris?ā
Laios nodded aggressively, a streak of blue face paint peeling from his forehead.
āYou did AMAZING, Tenna! By the way, now that weāve seen all your insider campaign secrets, do you have any more videos of Susie? Especially her tail... If I could get a look at that, I could finally tell if sheās a dinosaur or --ā
THWACK. Fake antlers butted Laiosās head.
āLAIOS?? Werenāt we dressed up to help SENSHI???ā Marcille hissed, gesturing awkwardly with her hooves.
Suddenly, Tenna turned to the two adventurers.
āHey, WAIT a second. SOMETHINGās not right here...ā
Laios and Marcille held their breath.
āWhere the heck are my POINTS!?ā
Just then, the door opened. Chilchuck took one step into the room, whistling and holding a large bag.
Everyone turned to him.
Chilchuck paused, took a step backwards, and closed the door.
āCHILCHUCK!!!ā yelled Tenna.
āHow come Chilchuck got to stay Chilchuck!?ā yelled Marcille at the same time.
--
Meanwhile, in outer space somewhere, some guy was making out with a rock.
caine does the slideshow for all the abstracted people and gangle screams "KAUFMO WAS ARIN HANSON?????" so loud that jax un-abstracts and climbs out of the fort shouting "HE WAS WHAT"
It's been just over a year since Deltarune chapters 3 & 4 released! I did the 3D work, which mostly means Tenna šŗ 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 š
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 legsā¦
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 š
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"ā¦! 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 ā¬ļø
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!
The #1 inspiration for General Skarr was Starscream. I mean... what kind of commander keeps a lieutenant who keeps trying to kill them under permanent employ? Keep your enemies close, I guess...
I get a lot of questions about Herr Star from Preacher. I still haven't read the comics, and the show came out long after I was done on B&M. There IS some DNA from Bullwinkle's Fearless Leader.
Other than that, he was just designed to be a sort of generic fascist who was always so embroiled in his own machinations that he couldn't possibly succeed.
My casting director Kris Zimmerman Salter was the one who came to me with Armin Shimerman. And since I loved him as Quark on Deep Space Nine and could see an analog between Quark and Skarr, he seemed like a natural fit.
Armin is an actor's actor, and even though I think he sometimes felt out of his element in the booth, it was so fun to watch him step in and just absolutely chew scenery. The Evil Con Carne ensemble records were generally a blast.
Skarr did get a blip of a redemption arc in Underfist, but if it had continued he would have continued to ride the line as the most anti of the team's antiheroes.
Man, I dunno how many of you read My Brother Is A Superhero as a kid because they were definitely popular in my area but like, thinking back, that series is SO much funnier post-GCSEs oh my god.
Tl/dr for anyone who didnāt read it, the narrator is the little brother of a guy who got a load of superhero powers to save the world from an asteroid. Also itās set in Bromley (South London). Iām also pretty sure at some point in the books his older brother is like fifteen or sixteen and crucially the main character is all āOoh look at my stupid neek of a brother whoās more worried about exams than the fact he has telekinesis.ā the entire time.
So like. What got me thinking. If an alien appeared to me 4 months ago before my exams and was like āHey Iām gonna give you magic cos the apocalypse is coming lol.ā my first response would also be āBut I have GCSEs :(ā
Like yeah Luke Parker your Year 7 ass might think that developing the ability to fly is more important than your grades but you have not been subjected to the absolute nightmare that is being chronically GCSE-brained. I was totally on his side as a kid but now Iām 16 Iām like āNo thatās just the GCSE student response to everything.ā
When I was a kid I read Zack Parker going āI have to put my school uniform on to get me to do my homework because it puts me in the right frame of mind.ā as chronic neek behaviour. NOW IāM 16 IāM LIKE OH BABE. OH BABE. I UNDERSTAND. WEāVE ALL BEEN THERE. WHATEVER WORKS. YOU GET THROUGH THIS HOWEVER YOU NEED TO MY COMRADE IN ARMS š«”š«”š«”
Zack Parker the ten year olds were not ready for your GCSE student behaviour. I understand you now I am 16. Oh god.
Why is the funniest and ngl most accurate GCSE student rep in a book aimed at 9 year olds. That all just hit me like a punch to the skull.
Sorry for the utter incoherency you just experienced but I fear I am a man ruined (British education system strikes again š).
For too long have we skulked in shadows while lesser characters basked in the spotlight. Living like rats in the margins of this fandom we went unnoticed. Now we're not staying hidden anymore.
If the problem with the fandom is factions endlessly fighting, endlessly at war, then what is the solution but to get rid of the factions? To make the fandom us, only ours to shape.