Council Lord Kemadrel

Kemadrel is one of the three Council Lords of Sha Rephart. Like the other two Lords, they are an immortal native to the Voidplane. They are also known as the most personable of the Lords, and are often found visiting with citizens as they wander Sha Rephart island on their free time. They also act as a leader of the Sha Rephart military force, though in an unofficial capacity.

Kemadrel is a member of the Voidplane native race called the Tanteru. One trait of this race is that they are quadrupeds. Kemadrel has to wear special leg and back braces in order to stand upright, and has mechanical gloves to overcome the limitation of their paws, most importantly the lack of opposable thumbs. They decided to go through the trouble and discomfort of using these prosthetics to better fit in with the majority of mortal immigrant races.

So… apparently the image above is the last version previously posted of the character, quite likely around the time when I set this website up over ten years ago. Oh boy, the Sharpheart page is in dire need of a major revision.

I wound up removing the fangs, mainly because… why would an immortal being that does not eat need teeth? Another shared feature being applied to the Voidplane natives is they do not have noses or nostrils. They do have mouths though they do not need to breathe. They can inhale and exhale for the purpose of speaking and have a sense of smell (though not taste) in their mouth. Kemadrel’s eyes are also now shaped to be more like those of the Lurin such as Council Lord Lunark.

Eventually I have to update the third Council Lord’s look. They are of a dragon-like race that needs a Voidplane native makeover.

Obmunjalae: Bathing Pools

It just didn’t seem right for this luxurious vessel to lack a place to bathe in style. However, the placement of pools was tricky. It would not have been structurally sound to place heavy bodies of water in the suspended upper floors alongside the guest rooms. The pools are placed within the hangar along the wall by the elevators. It’s a little awkward for them to be in the hangar, but it was the only place that worked. Along with the privacy curtained pool (left in the picture), there are two shower stalls, two changing stalls, and a restroom.

Of course, to maintain symmetry, there are four pool sets, two on the obverse side and two on the reverse. The two pools on top of each other have slots in the bottom so they actually share the same mass of water, which naturally distributes itself evenly between the two sides.

There is also some new wall/ceiling decorations, the arches of purple slats that resemble the roof of the Obmunjalae’s home base.

A view of the inside of the pool. The person in the water is Tisi, a member of a new and as of yet unnamed race of immortal Voidplane natives with an aquatic affinity, hence the placement here.

Obmunjalae: Machine Room

The machine room is at the back of the Obmunjalae vessel. The two prominent machines found in here are the crystal core assembly and the primary air propulsion engine. The central tower that reaches to the ceiling is the air inlet for the engine, connecting via the horizontal tubes to the pair of nacelles on the outside that provide the vehicle’s forward thrust. Two smaller towers draw power from the crystal core for distribution to the various pieces of magically powered equipment and lights throughout the Obmunjalae.

On the right of the picture, behind the cabinets, is a redundant set of the pilot’s controls. In case of maintenance or emergency, the ship can be controlled from within the machine room.

New to this iteration of the room are the aforementioned power distribution towers and pilot’s controls, more details in the crystal core, a second floor deck, grated flooring, and some adjustment to the two bridges that cross over the horizontal tubing. Here’s an image of that sparser room from earlier on:

Obmunjalae: dining and hanging out

The area that was previously designated as a sort of lounge in the back section of the vessel has annexed more territory and upgraded to a dining room.

A wall that separated a small lobby and the lounge area was removed. There are pillars remaining from that wall, which you can see in the middle of the picture. Two side rooms that are now off of the dining room instead of off the main hallways have been designated as kitchens.

Due to the sloping ceiling in the dining room section, a dividing wall has been added (the violet line with the two bumps) so people won’t bump their head. Two kitchen storage spaces fill in the awkward corner spaces.

The hangar now now has a lower ceiling. Instead of having a full floor filling in the space above, there is an open framework.

Included in this space are catwalks and a ‘hidden room’ which is above the large circular logo and light ring. These are accessed by what used to be a 4th floor balcony overlooking the hangar.

Obmunjalae pilot’s deck and ‘flippers’

There’s not really much that one could call weather on the Voidplane, but the pilot’s deck of the Obmunjalae did not feel complete without a roof over it, so I created one.

This is the dock door at the center of the big window on either side of the hangar. There is now a control station (on the right) that includes the lever to open the door, an intercom for communicating with the pilot’s deck or machine room, and a four-color dial that can be used to communicate a basic status to those same central stations. Typically the pilot’s deck is the center of command for the vessel, but a fully redundant control and communication system is located in the machine room for emergencies or maintenance.

The contraption to the left of the door is a “flipper”. The voidplane presents a unique challenge when movement from either side of the plane is required. As an object passes through the plane, the part that has crossed effectively experiences reversed gravity. How does one conveniently and safely transfer themselves? The flipper is one such device that facilities moving from the obverse side to the reverse and vice versa. It is a rectangular four-walled box with two moving floor panels. The video below shows how the transfer process works.

The right side of the video shows the reverse side of the same flipper.

The box is sized for a person and has a button on the inside of the box that triggers the transfer. The user lies on their back and presses the button. The floor panel they are lying on moves away from them, lowering them into the plane and leaving them to float in it as the panel rotates out of the way. The second floor panel swings in and moves towards the user, pushing them through the plane. Once the machine halts, the user can then transition to their hands and knees, then to their feet. They then can exit the flipper, now technically upside down from when they entered it.

Voidskimmer Vessel

Click for larger image

The Voidskimmer is a standard craft design of Sha Rephart which is primarily utilized for scouting, small scale shipping, and short-range passenger travel. It normally has a minimum two-person crew, and has enough beds and amenities to comfortably support those two on longer journeys.

The last image posted of this vessel… in February 2012, wow.

Well, ten years and I finally came back and made some significant updates to the Voidskimmer. A major change is the placement of the propulsion. The old design had vents along the edge of the vessel’s outer “ring”. It came to my attention that placing air inlets right on the plane of the void was a bad idea, as all solid materials settle along that plane and would then easily get sucked into the engines. Instead, there are eight curved funnels on the sides, redirecting the flow off of the plane. The funnels are divided into left and right sets. By independently changing the direction and output on either side, the pilot can steer the vessel.

The boarding planks now rotate from an upright stowed position to the deployed position, instead of awkwardly sliding into place. There is also a box on each side for mooring supplies, including bumpers and ropes. The railings are built a bit better now, going off of things I learned designing the Obmunjalae. It’s not apparent in the images, but there is a cargo hold below the front deck; the hexagon visible in the images is the door to access it. The height of the front deck was increased to allow more vertical space in the hold.

The Obmunjalae Vessel

I made some considerations and decided to remove balconies from the back end of the ship. The main engine intakes are placed on the top of the machine room and it likely would be an unpleasant place to stand within relatively close distance to those. Also, the view was dominated by the machine room anyway, so it was not as nice a view as the forward facing balconies. In its place I put a decorative element to the frame, enclosed the section, and turned that section into what may be a lounge type area:

It is in an odd curved space of the vessel, so I’m not exactly sure how to arrange the furniture in there. Have to figure in the height of the ceiling and all that. For now, it’s arranged a bit like a bar and grill, I guess.

Click to see the full size view.

I made up a little sort of x-ray view of the vessel as it exists now. In it, you can see that I added shelves to the storage rooms and tall tanks to store liquids in the last section of the storage rooms. You can also see the location of the new lounges and the current shape of the decorative frame elements right next to them. They… have a Earth 1950s vibe to them.

Ayra Katrin Library – Construction

I’ve made various updates to the library recently. In the shot above you can see there are sets of skylights in front of the front hexagon, the seven-pointed star symbol in the middle of the main tower is now a window, and the gazebos to the sides of the library have glass tops now. I removed a decorative tower piece from the south tower, as being able to see the big sculpture (upper right) from the back area would make for a better view.

My posting of an update has been delayed because I’ve been doing more than just designing the building. I’ve also been imagining the process how the building was actually constructed by the Ayra Katrin Engineers. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can make a little video showing off the construction process concept:

Yet More Sheshai the Purifier

Hey, I got it to where I can pose her limbs a bit better!

I reached another milestone for the novel – I read the entire thing out loud to my wife, partly as a way to entertain her and partly to hunt down any remaining typos or other structural issues, which I have come to believe make themselves more apparent when spoken out. I only made a few additions or alterations here or there; no new plots or characters. I may be ready to call its current state my final draft. I guess the next step would be to find some ‘beta testers’ to go through it and get some feedback from outside parties. Where exactly do you go to find willing readers for a not-for-kids fantasy adventure starring anthropomorphic characters? Well, where I won’t regret going…

I also added a new page for Sheshai the Purifier to the site to go along with Agwilika Rhe, Elehura, and Sharpheart, so check that out. In there I added an image of another character, Besuri, and I’ll go ahead and post it here too:

Still needs some work on the fur, like figuring out how to handle the matted and uneven areas better.

Ah why not, another character model – Adri of the Grepir:

My first attempt at an avian character model. I’m going for a gigantic songbird vibe for the Grepir race. I debated a long time on what colors to give Adri, but settled on blue highlights because no other character has that hue in their natural colors.

Ayra Katrin Library Floor Maps

While working the recent changes to the library’s structure, I got the inspiration to create maps of each floor.
Yellow: interior floors
Gray: exterior floors (except the two diamond shapes on floor 1, those are bathing pools, too lazy to adjust that)
Tan: natural ground
Blue: areas open to floors below

The first and second, or “lower” floors.

On the left, the third or “ground” floor of the library. On the right is the “fourth floor”, though it only amounts to a bookcase walkway in the main library. The south tower has six floors, with the top three floors depicted at the lower right.