In some corner of the Darkworld, there is a small shop that sells candles. It’s owner? A forgotten lava lamp in the Lightworld, but here, she’s a kind, yet clumsy person.
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!
(What's a random fact about Solana you haven't shared yet?)
Her other ability, that being able to make gauntlets from her own wax. If you ever seen Steven Universe, it kinda works like that. Besides the fact her hair gets visibly shorter when she’s battle ready.
You know, every time someone says not to worry about them, they giver her a reason to worry. And that TV is no different. Actually, he might be the strongest case Solana has ever seen of this. She probably should get some lavender scented candles ready, helps calm the mind and all that.
Yeaaah, that’s the worst attempt at lying she’s ever seen. But, that can be said later, no point in kicking a star when he’s down. Or, however the saying goes.
Solana immediately wraps her arms around Tenna as best she can. And it doesn’t seem like she was planning to let go anytime soon.
“It’s alright, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Hey, sorry I haven’t been super active here. Ive just been going through a bit of a writing block as of late so, it’s been a bit hard to get into character.
I’m gonna lay on the floor and listen to playlist if y’all need me.
Send in ✏️ and I’ll use this (improved) incorrect quote generator featuring both our muses!
(please remember to specify how many muses/which muses for multimuses!)
It was such a faint voice, she almost didn’t hear it. But she did, and it immediately made her heart sink into her stomach. Someone was here, someone was hurt. Solana quickly made her way to the door and swung it open. Oh, this poor soul, they looked so hurt…
Right, it’s go time.
Solana quickly got the other Darkner inside the shop, adrenaline flowing through her body.
Everything she did to help happened so fast, bandaging the wounds with speed and precision. Setting up an area for him to rest. There wasn’t a single second wasted on helping.
Now, all she could do was wait and see if her help made any difference…
A loud pop, and the crackle of static cuts through the silence. His screen turns on again.
It takes him a moment to realize where he is--lying out on a cushioned loft with head situated on a humble, yet gloriously plush pillow. He lingers for a moment, enjoying the comfortable haze of half-wakefulness…Ah, it’s all so cozy. The lighting in the room is dim, and he can hear the musical pitter-patter of rain outside, the plip plop as it bounces off the roof.
Truly, he could lie like this forever if it weren’t for the fact that he had such a full schedule to attend to today. Meetings to hold, shows to run...Unfortunately, being the head of TV World means being in pretty high demand. After a full ten minutes, he yawns and finally tries to get up.
“What the heck--?” He can’t move his arms!
Panic overtakes him and he scrambles onto his side. “Woah mama, help me!” He kicks his legs, trying to find his bearings, but can’t. Desperate, he rolls on his back, flops around like a fish on land. It takes all the force he can muster with his abdomen force himself upright.
Oh Angel! It’s worse than he thought. He looks down and sees that it’s not just that his arms aren’t working, they’re completely gone. He's broken! And he’s covered in bandages of duct and electrical tape. What the heck happened??
The room he’s in is no place that he recognizes.
Suddenly, through the adrenaline, he becomes conscious of the sheer amount of pain he’s in too. He starts yelling, “AAAAGH, it burns, it burnsitburns!! Oh, CHRISTMAS! Is anybody here? Somebody, do something!!”
Ok, screaming. That’s bad, really bad. The guy was awake so that was good to know, but the screaming was not. She quickly rushed to the TV’s side, her wax hair shifting from orange to purple as fear took over her mind.
Ugh, if only she had healing magic! It would be so much easier to help him. What can she do? This situation was just awful all around. Well, the only thing Solana could think of was gently placing a hand on the others back.
“Just, try and breathe? I-I got you.”
Her fellow Darkner in such a state, it was just awful. What or who was cruel enough to do something like this? How in the name of everything was she going to fix this?
There’s a hand holding up a candle, trying to make sure that the TV could see it. A glass jar full of wax and a nice little bow on top of the metal lid. Looks like he’s earned a gift from his fan!
“I figured you could do with something that would brighten’ up your day? …that was awful, I’m sorry.”
(Wax-made-light)
📺⭐🟥⭕ Sometimes you did have to get into Tenna's line of sight if he didn't know to look for you-- there's a little spotlight-like arc of his vision projecting from his screen and the rest is a blindspot, namely anything below his waist and especially whatever was right beneath his nose.
So the candle was a pleasant and total surprise entering the screen from below. " O-oh! What do we have here? Did you make this one for me? For free..? " He takes it in his big, gloved hands. A beat of pause passes at their joke but eventually he guffaws, leaning down to smile at her. " You mean when you're not around to do that, right~? " He chuckles. " You're a gem, Solara, a real pal... This is gonna go straight on my dressing mirror, you bet!! I- I really appreciate it! " Its... been a while since he's gotten fan gifts! He used to keep a whole hoard of them in his original dressing room but... he lost it all when his world was closed. This... really feels like starting a new one. Like maybe it isn't too late to do so. " Even when it burns out I'll keep the jar! " He beams. Like the ant with his hoard pile that he is.
His giant nose scrunches and sniffs and snorfs the lid. " So! What's the scent, what's in it? I'm very curious what notes and undertones you see me as~ "
He liked the candle and the joke? Hey, that’s a win if she’s ever seen one! And the compliments? Oh, they were so sweet. Her face (and waxy hair) couldn’t help but turn slightly pink. Hopefully it wasn’t too noticeable, Tenna would definitely tease the lamp over that.
“It’s nothing special, really. It’s the least I could get you.”
After ten years on unknowingly keeping Solana company via radio, and the time they spent together now? It really did feel like the absolute minimum she could do to show her appreciation.
“It’s uh, actually a mix of coffee and vanilla. It seemed like the best scent to make you. But, i got plenty more ideas for later down the line!”
At first, it was going to be more floral. His jacket had a slight orchard smell to it, easy to assume he liked flowers and the smell they had. But, something like this seemed better.
She’s managed to mold bunny ears out of the wax that is her hair. It can beneficial sometimes! Although her outfit is the same, she uh…didn’t really have any other outfits besides her pajamas.
“Happy egg day! I’m doing a discount on certain candle scents. Plus, a little bunny I made myself as a free gift!”
There were, a lot of said wax bunnies. Despite the small size, they actually look pretty detailed.