ART FIGHT is freaking fun!! As much as I love mushrooms, I decided to side with Team Bloom this year just because I was in the mood for some pretty flowers. I figured Team Wither might have slighter spookier characters for me to work with as well, so it seemed like the right pick. (Even though I mostly ended up modeling cute characters...?) My lineup of characters was the same as last year, but with the very special additions of Professor Tuckamore and my design of Rainer.

Aside from Professor Tuckamore, I hadn't really modeled many other characters prior to this year's Art Fight... It ended up being amazing practice for me! I experimented with a bunch of different ideas, learned a lot of new things, and made a lot of pieces I'm still pretty happy with. Here are my favorites!

ATTACK #2: YOUR OWN OFFICE ASSISTANT!

Listen. I don't care what anyone says. Clippy is great, and this design by SUPERBELLSUBWAY does nothing but prove my point. I adore this paperclip of a man.

This was my second attack of the fight, and I did almost all of it in a single afternoon because... I don't know, actually. I think something overtook me. And the design is adorable enough that I didn't even mind having my soul stared into by a sentient paperclip for like, six hours straight!

Getting this to fit Art Fight's file size limit was a miracle I don't know how I pulled off. But I'm proud of it! Though after that struggle, I realized that designing all future attacks with that limit in mind was probably a good idea...

ATTACK #3: CIRCUITBEND

Out of every attack I made this year, this is definitely my favorite. ARCHAEOCETE's design of Rainer from Petscop continues to haunt my mind all the time because of how ridiculously good it is; it just encapsulates so much about him so well. Trying to translate such an amorphous design into 3D was was definitely a challenge, but I wanted to take advantage of some of the more malleable elements of the medium. I tried my best to compromise between the two, and ended up creating probably the coolest shader I've ever made in the process.

It's a simple shader that fluctuates between two ends of a gradient depending on the location of the camera object, which I'm really happy I was able to make considering its importance to the design. Their skin is two-toned: whichever half of Rainer's face is furthest away from the viewer always the "blue" side.

One slight issue: I didn't realize it wouldn't affect Rainer's own movement until I rigged the the model and started moving it around. Basically, if Rainer turns their head and the camera doesn't move along with it, the effect doesn't work. Frankly I have no idea how I'd even resolve that issue... so I just sorta went along with it. Even though they appear to be averting their eyes from it, Rainer is following the camera the entire time. 3D is so fun because of how strictly it follows the rules you set for it, and how that can lead to it implementing them exactly opposite from how you intended.

ATTACK #6: SPELL & SPEAK

THIS GUY IS ADORABLE!! I tried to channel every children's museum I've been to while modelling this, hence the colorful gears which I think just sorta spawn into existence in literally every science museum ever. I tried to make it look like a sort of advertisement for them/the company.

Their face is an animated texture made in After Effects, though I ended up doing all the final compositing in Blender! I subsequently learned how much I prefer using Blender's compositing options to After Effects', and now only use the latter when absolutely necessary.

ATTACK #7: SHOCKING!

My final attack of the year! (Seven attacks might not seem like much, unless you decide to fully model and animate literally all but one. Like some kind of weirdo.)

I actually saw TEAMANGO's Nimda sometime before Art Fight started, and I was already pretty captivated then! I don't care who you are, if you make literally any computer virus-based character I've already automatically fallen in love with them. Plus, I thought it would be fun to animate a four armed character—and I was right, it was super fun. >=)

There were so many moving parts to keep track of here: 6 limbs, a tail, the electricity effect... It was worth it, though!

I'm immeasurably excited for next year's fight, especially with all the new techniques I've learned in tow. I'm definitely going keep 3D attacks as my main method of art-based murder, because it is absolutely worth seeing how people react to them. NONE OF YOU WILL STAND A CHANCE AGAINST ME!!! NONE!!!!!!