the bitter end

salem | he/him - they/them | check pinned post for info | pfp by ivan stan on artstation

[mesopelagos]

WELCOME TO THE MESOPELAGIC ZONE

my name is SALEM

he/him or they/them, the Robots Guy

my art blog is @apatheticrobots​ though I post art here too under #sal art. chatter tag/original posts are under #beep boop

other socials

Archive of Our Own

Artfight

[pixelatedcrown]

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!

[animentality]

[bobcatmoran]

I absolutely blame Facebook for this shift. Words cannot describe how freaking WEIRD it was in the mid-00s when there was suddenly this popular website where you were required to use your real, brickspace name and encouraged to post photos of yourself. Every single bit of Standard Internet Safety prior to then said that you should never ever ever do either of those.

[destitutebaron]

HAPPY TADC WEEKEND!!

first art post in FOREVER... i watched the movie last night, i really liked it :)) gonna miss this silly insane show

[officialspec]

whatever go my krusies

[eviscerray]

sighting

[ooliecat]

doesn't matter if you're glooby, gay, or dumb. youmatter.

original tweet

[disabled-dyke]

i feel like we dont talk enough about how distressing and disturbing memory loss issues are. forgetting what you were talking about halfway through a sentence, putting something down and instantly forgetting where you put it. having to reread one paragraph over and over again because by the time youve moved onto the next sentence you dont remember what the one before it said. always doubting if your memories of things are real, not being able to remember important life events.

its so incredibly scary, it feels like your mind is constantly playing tricks on you and you start to doubt whats real and what isnt.

“i forgot” is treated like a lazy excuse when it’s genuinely such a big issue for so many people.

[reactionimagesdaily]

[asurrogateblog]

I can see people’s auras but I don’t believe in that stuff so I just ignore it

[asurrogateblog]

I can see people’s auras but I don’t believe in that stuff so I just ignore it

[asurrogateblog]

I can see people’s auras but I don’t believe in that stuff so I just ignore it

[asurrogateblog]

I can see people’s auras but I don’t believe in that stuff so I just ignore it

[trying-trying2lyk]

i love writing out numbers and then putting them in parentheses like "one (1)" even when i dont need to i think its funny

[ivfhnyfubpx]

this scene is so fucking funny the english dub of this show is so good

[laughconfetti]

loud warning

[notajerusalemcricketd-deactivat]

[nunnatheinsanegerbil]

[dumgumgum]

* right, this is where we draw pictures, and don’t kill each other!

[twinsfawn]

baby i could treat you so good you just have to get past my strange and off-putting demeanor and my kubrick stare and my inability to behave like a human and the 40 layers of icy fortress walls i have up and answer my riddles three