TRUE ZEPHILIA REFERENCE IMAGES
Have you ever tried to hyper-customize a character in an mmo or rpg? Have you ever spent hours tweaking sliders in an attempt to get their face just perfect, but the more you edit, the uglier they seem to get?
That was always my experience with hyper-customization. I always begin with good intentions, but the more I try, the more distorted the character’s face gets.
So, when I was recently modding the crap out of Skyrim and suddenly had the urge to try to model my tulpa Zephi in the character editor, I thought it was a terrible idea. But luckily, I couldn’t help myself.
The trancelike state I entered while possessedly tweaking sliders accidentally resulted in the most accurate depiction of my tulpa I’ve ever seen.
I made her almost four years ago. When we started, she was supposed to look like this:
That’s a picture of the actress Emily Browning. We chose this particular picture as what Zephilia’s face should look like. But we only needed to refer to this picture for a while. There came a point where her appearance gradually drifted from this, as she became more her own person.
This means that for the bulk of her life, the above picture is the only reference I’ve had for her, and it was only vaguely accurate. The best I could do to describe her to someone else was show them the above picture and say “like this, but different.
Which is why this is such a big deal. I can now show her to people. At least a good bit better than before: [NOTE: the following two images are gifs and are supposed to be animated. Doesn’t look like it’s working] [EDIT: I uploaded it as an HD youtube video. CHECK IT OUT: http://dillionandzephilia.tumblr.com/post/142983963237/guys-but-look-at-my-tulpa-its-zephi-honestly-the ]
It’s not perfect, but it’s her. I can’t describe how exciting this is.
I also tried to model her body proportions correctly, though it was a bit harder to do since there are less body options than face options.
For a screenshot comparison, check out this side-by-side below. On the left is my model of Zephi, and on the right is what it would be if all the body proportion sliders were set to their default value of 1:
Clearly, Zephi is very short. Her model is about a head’s height shorter than the default height, which is accurate: I always try to picture Zephi as one head shorter than my height.
Most of the height loss comes from her legs:
Zephi’s legs are about 256 pixels tall in this screenshot, vs the rest of her body which is 274 pixels tall, for a leg-to-body ratio of 0.934. The default body proportions on the right come in at 333 legs, 302 body, for a leg-to-body ratio of around 1.102. A leg-to-body ratio of around 1.1 is supposed to be the “ideal physically attractive ratio”, hence why it’s the default.
But Zephi is a stumpy liddle fireball :3
I’m definitely going to give this as a reference to any artists I commission to draw her! I can’t believe it came out so accurate to how she is in my head!
The biggest problem with it’s accuracy is the hair. Luckily, I already have a really accurate depiction of what her hair is supposed to look like:
Now I feel like I just need to go on a photoshoot spree xD
AHHHHH Z YOU’RE SO CUTE <3<3<3
