It’s been a long time since I made an update on this location. I decided having the dragon head faucet vomit out the water was a bit much, so I added on to it to have it holding a pot where the water now flows from. The new wings also act as the levers to turn on the water and to open the drain. Some definite improvement to materials since last time I posted an update of the bath back in… 2012, wow.
The last image:
It’s not a complete list of characters from my stories, but these are the characters that have an “official” 3D model at this time.
Unaffiliated Characters:
Kethil – An aquatic race intended for Elehura but as of yet not officially part of the story.
Serii – An early Agwilika Rhe character, back when they had vestigial wings.
“Forest” Gwil – Just a character made on a whim.
Yoseka – A pritar character from an old project called “Seraphelines”. May become a character elsewhere.
From “Sharpheart”:
Tatyakori – A Council Lord of Sha Repart. Of the dragons, a Voidplane native race.
Tisi – A member of a race of Voidplane natives. A being of the water, despite large bodies of water being rare on the Voidplane.
Lukaud – The “Voidplane Master”, a member of the shape-shifting lurin race. Famously possesses the largest known Voidplane craft in use at the time.
Lukaud-Suyen – One of Lukaud’s aspects, resembling the suyen race.
Lady Jalae – Lukaud’s favorite aspect.
Yezukh’ay – A suyen that grew up on an impoverished island, but escaped to become Lukaud’s adopted child.
Kemadrel – A Council Lord of Sha Repart. Of the tanteru, a four-legged Voidplane native race. They wear special gear to walk upright.
Lunark – A Council Lord of Sha Repart. Of the lurin, a shape-shifting Voidplane native race. The ball is their nest sphere which they enter to change form.
From “Elehura”:
Tatyakori (top middle) – The Divine Dragon and steward of the world of Elehura.
Hessai Prime (top right) – The original form of the Unliving Evil, ancient enemy of Tatyakori.
Threpel Hessai – The most common manifestation of the Unliving Evil of many.
Salus Mudrah – The Emperor of the nation of nations; Tatyakori’s regret.
Pagol – A gwil healer from the distant past of Elehura’s world.
Seros – A red-skinned gwil and member of the Order of the Eclipse.
Slyvette – A pritar fighter and member of the Order of the Eclipse.
From “Sheshai the Purifier” (in the same universe as Elehura):
Sheshai-Ajoh – Healer of the House of the Hand who wanted to become a purifier.
Sheshai-Ket – Sheshai’s shadow…
Miryin – Felcae leader of a House of the Hand crew. On a special mission to fight a hessai disaster on the island of Lukaudalin.
Adri (high up) – An avian grepir, who scouts for the House of the Shield.
Besuri – Second commander of Miryin’s House of the Shield crew.
Ulrae – One of Sheshai’s mentors of the House of the Hand.
Saydah – An exile from the island of Lukaudalin that was destroyed by the hessai.
Woklah – A felcae specialist warrior in the House of the Shield.
Azel – A pritar member of Miryin’s crew.
From “Agwilika Rhe”:
Raeja – A Syrsi, elite guardian of the agwilikan Seven-Star Nation.
Anjil – Sorcerer of the Ayra Katrin organization. An akelikan in the agwilikan-dominated Seven-Star Nation.
Crinos – A member of the Kylal family who lead the Seven-Star Nation.
Ky – One of the naryyd, a near-immortal humanoid race who helped create the agwilikan and akelikan races with the help of the agwils (dragons) and prerarts.
Prerart – Relatives to the agwils, though much smaller, lacking in wings, but not lacking in cuteness.
Other Characters:
Dark Spark – Some manifestation of cosmic creative energy with an eclipse motif.
The Robolds – robot kobolds.
Shekki – Another gwil character made on a whim.
Biri, Baku, and Bayzil – The Red Triplets. Technically not sisters. Beings of a magical origin that run a restaurant, among other things.
Rider’s Dragon and Dragon’s Rider – Characters planned to be in the same story as the Red Triplets. Haven’t settled on names for them yet.
Creative Spark Dragon, aka Sparky – My persona.
An as of yet unnamed Prerart is hanging out with Anjil at Tatur’s Eatery. The stretchy move the Prerart is performing is a common greeting gesture. They are probably quite excited to meet a sorcerer of the Ayra Katrin.
Prerarts have a reptilian look, but they also have a lot of feline traits. The structure of their limbs are certainly more cat-like than lizard-like.
The library at night. Made some improvements to the dragon statues and added some lighting to the center tower. Also slapped some stars into the background.
Anjil from Agwilika Rhe is one of my longest-existing characters. My earliest drawing of him is over 20 years old.
Recently I was thinking over how I haven’t modeled or drawn many gray skinned Gwil/Akelikan characters. As I thought over who I could work on next, I got the idea to change Anjil from a green Agwilikan to a gray Akelikan.
This would add a new dynamic to the story. During the time it takes place, there is a strong split between the Agwilikan and Akelikan populations, with most of the latter living in the downriver cities controlled by the Army King. Few Akelikans live in Agwilcress, and they have to live with a lot of distrust from their Agwilikan neighbors. Despite this, he became an adept and respected sorcerer of the Ayra Katrin.
I guess some new symbolism can be had with the two protagonists (him and Reija) working together.
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:
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
It’s been a long while since I made a proper architectural update. Back to the Ayra Katrin Library, which is called “che keh-ah-bek-oh se ayra katrin le agwilcress” in ANP Kahwan (Agwil-Naryyd-Prerart language).
The two lower main floors of the library were constructed to artificially appear as being under ground and are enclosed by the perimeter road that forms the “tail tip” of Agwilcress. I’ve been building out these floor layouts to more thoroughly fill in the space. The main library and south tower are the only sections that rise above the third floor. The north underground section includes a first floor entrance and the kitchen. The south underground section includes a first floor entry into the south tower and bathing pools. Both sections also have restrooms, showers, and general gathering space. The are four residential sections, each with sixteen rooms accessed from a triangular atrium. The west and east sections are now officially dubbed the library’s wings. That’s where the latest major changes have taken place.
In this picture you can see the new layout for the wing, with bookcases that wrap around the buttresses and circular bookcase clusters to fill in the spaces between. The hexagonal space underneath the gazebo is now an enclosed reading room. New additions also include side passages that connect the wings to the underground sections. The wings initially only had one exit which went to the main library, but now they have three. There was also enough room to add a little alcove to each residence room that accommodates a private toilet and sink.
You can see in the first image of this post that there’s some unclaimed territory around the south tower, so I might be expanding its lower two floors. I’m not sure there is enough space to make something out of the slivers of space on each side of the underground sections.
Today is the tenth anniversary of criticalsystemsdigital.com and its existence as a WordPress site. It is not, however, the anniversary of CSD or the existence of a CSD website. Prior to this current and long lasting iteration, the site was hand-coded in HTML, with some interactive pieces made in Macromedia Flash (rest in peace). I didn’t keep a full copy of the previous website, but I did keep a copy of the content text, and the first “post” was dated in October 2006. But that wasn’t even the first version… I have an early CSD logo image from 1999, so CSD being the name representing my creative output is over twenty years old at this point. I vaguely recall using “Critical Systems Inc.” as a name in a BASIC program I wrote waaaay long ago… so yeah, I’ve been doing this a long time.
But back to this particular milestone. In recognition of it, I remade the first image I ever posted on this site iteration:
The original was a 2D vector image made in Flash, before I went full open source and moved to Inkscape. At that time I already had started 3D modeling and had one made of Reija, but never modeled out this particular dress.