Welcome! Welcome!
This here be Los Habanero House. Put on your sorting hat and be assigned to your seat.
Our Mission, should you choose to have any choice since you have already accepted it, is to make the interior of the Spice Vendor House.
It's a passion thing, for us who want to keep making cool stuff and get this project to the next level and get your skills to the next next next level or continue perfecting your skills if they already are in the next next level. We are just a bunch of guys and gals wanting to see those doors open and reveal an interior that feels like someone really lives in it.
So the official story is grounded in reality. The Spice Vendor goes out on adventures and comes back with rare spices which he prepares in his house. It is set in the real world. Yet we in the forums continuously joked around and kept making a ridiculous background story which people grew attached to. Sadly that story is not the focus of the Spice Vendor project.
But that doesn't mean we have to discard them, our crazy talks can appear on the house as easter eggs. For example statues or lamps on a counter can take the form of some of the things we've been creating through conversation. So it all goes as follows....
Melvin lives in this house or at least the house is his responsibility.
It's not his house, he has no money to own such a big place and money and ownership is for earthly people anyways. The house is the spice vendor's house, things inside are made for regular people, plus you look at Melvin and he looks more like he likes living in a cave.
The name of the busyness is Vadimspice Merchantile Homestead “Delights in Spice”
He is to the spice vendor what Alfred is to Bruce Wayne, a loyal faithful helper that very much likes to keep things tidy up. He is a master of spices and keeps the property functioning to its fullest potential, makes all sorts of arrangements, knows all and has immense talents in spices and its mixtures, everyone in town knows him and likes him, the owner of the house trusts him very much, he travels a lot so Melvin is the primary caretaker of the property.
Legend has it that the spice vendor ordered a package on Amazon and when it arrived they charged him a fortune in shipping weight, and he was like what is this heavy box? this isn't what I ordered, and when he opened it Melvin was inside and that's how he came to live in the house. How did he ended up in there? no one knows.
We kinda know where he comes from since somewhere in the house there is secret entrance that goes to his world, you exit the same house but in a different place for sure..
Turns out Melvin is secretly is a Wizard, with his wizard robes and everything, when he feels like wearing them. Kinda of like Batman, when its called for.
In his world he can grow the most exotics of spices, that is where he gets them and baffles his spice vendor master.
Melvin has a pet whale is his world...
The whale lives free and swims up river to the house when called for. Its name is Willem Alfred Whalfred DaWhale. Melvin sets up all his bags on the back and off they go, traveling to all towns, trading in spice. The whale may or may not have her own room in the spice vendor's house.
In the woods not far from the house there lives an owl.
The owl rolls around in an unicycle and carries a cement umbrella. He rides the unicycle because he can't fly and he doesn't realize he can't fly because the cement umbrella is too heavy. The cement umbrella was given to him by someone very dear to him and he doesn't want to let it go not even for a second. Plus he doesn't understand the physics of mass and gravity and you know he gets confuse, it happens to the best of us. He tries to fly but he can't do it anymore, "what in the world is happening?" he thinks to himself. His past is hindering his future.
So Melvin has a life here, he likes it. Though his noble heart sometimes gets him in trouble.
Melvin has a record for "Illegal Potions and Spells Lab Underground Operation".
But it was not his fault, he was tricked by No Mouth, All Action Red Nelb.
Melvin had no idea Red Nelb wasn't just ordering potions for his dying grandmother, Melvin thought he was saving a life, Mr. Nelb here was re-selling them and making a huge profit, cornering the market and Nelb blamed it all on poor Melvin. And now Melvin is trying to put his life back together, using his potions for the betterment of all creatures. But since people have two grandma's, Nelb tricked using his other grandma as an excuse and Melvin fell for it again. Luckily people don't have more than two grandma's.
But that is not the only life challenge.
Melvin has a bunch of merry friends, they are all good, each with their own personalities, except for the blue last one, he is totally a bully. Every protagonist has an antagonist, he even has the W, like Mario and Wario, Melvin and Welvin. More there of, blue is even the opposite of orange in the color wheel, destined to turn to the darkside.
Welvin liked to put some magical extra something something on the spices and got in trouble. Melvin was like "We are not that kind of store Welvin! No Mouth, All Action Red Nelb tricked me with his grandma, twice!" A fight like in the tower with Gandalf and Saruman broke between them on the third floor of the house. It was not pretty.
Just what we already have been doing on the collab. It's the chance to make your own stuff with the skills we already learned. For now we don't have a direction of how the interior is going to be. Kent is working with Vadim to give is a north to follow. We'll wait for that but in the mean time we can start working on generic things that will be in a house no matter what. Pick an asset and say you want to do it and have a go at it.
I think if it will be powered by the water mill, it should be made of chains, so it can go on the teeth of the gears. With a rope, you would have a pulley system set up, and Melvin would have to pull himself up... unless he uses his magic to get in-between floors. Leviosa!
I would like to point out we are doing it sorta wrong.
The place to hash out such ideas and riff on this sorts of things is in the pre-production concept art phase, where you can try things out and move stuff around before actually going into modeling and such. But since we don't have a concept artist and it's a free all out build it as we go crazy experiment we have going here, there's no harm in skipping a step or two.
I think it'll all probably settle into something once we reach the first livestream with Kent and he gets to make the choice of what sticks. But yeah, the creative process is a messy and wasteful one.
Well you do have a concept artist now. But I've decided against my initial idea to help you and will just watch all this madness unfold. I'm enjoying it beyond words.
On a serious note, if you actually do need any sort of info regarding my initial ideas (which you pretty much all got right already and even more), I'll be more than happy to share. Or I can do some concepts based on your ongoing ideas, which I like quite a lot more, if you need that kind of stuff.
Wait.... aren't you the good old chap that made the initial concept art? Dude this is awesome, you're the creator. Oh my god, this is like if Jesus himself suddenly appeared in the middle of New York and it's like, hey my sons whatsup? how's creation going? Do you want me to bring back dinosaurs?
So good you're here man, if you can do the interior we will be your humble servants and just model whatever you decide the interior is. But, can we keep the room where the whale lives? there's like a whale now who's captain of his own boat that sails through that river you made... and can the third floor be a dog/dragon pet room? and can we have a secret underground lab were Melvin might be or might not be up to no good? And can Melvin live here?
Haha, yep, that would be me.
And yes to pretty much everything else. Also since you already have a pet dragon in there, I won't even have to make dinosaurs for you :)
So my initial idea was that the guy, who lives there, goes on an adventure and buys various raw spices in all kinds of exotic places (hence the cart). Then he comes back home, mills them with water mill, mixes and sells them (that tent with jars is where he sells). And so he could bring back with him a pet dragon from one of his adventures. Also there should be a stable behind the house for his good old loyal horse companion. I'm not sure about Melvin, but I guess he could help mixing the spices.
I'll have to think a bit about all this stuff and will try to find some time to make first rough sketches for you guys asap.
Also I really like all the stuff you already have going on so far, so I'll try to play around it and keep as much as possible in the final concept.
Awesome, for the first time I feel we have a northern star to follow.
So I guess this settles it then:
Melvin is the Spice Vendor loyal helper, a magical creature that works all around, keeps the house in order, makes all sorts of arrangements, knows all and has immense talents in spices and its mixtures, everyone in town knows him and likes him, the owner of the house trusts him very much, he travels a lot so Melvin is the primary caretaker of the property... basically he's like what Alfred is to Batman, like Wozniak was to Steve Jobs, like Hagrid is to Hogwarts.
Melvin Merigold, Magician in Orange Robes, Spice Master, House Master with his band of merry friends. Some say he has a secret laboratory somewhere, may or may not be true. One of his old pals betrayed him by managing illegal operations, Welvin Cerulean, always jealous of Melvin talents.
Yet Melvin remains compassionate, always true and assistant to his master's profession.
Nice. Is that functional for real? like if a rigger rigs it, could it function properly?
Not yet ._.
But now that you mention it, I'm going to rig it.
This tutorial will help :P
Ah but that means it will. You're like modeling it like with proper mechanisms and stuff. Very cool.
I hope we can make the water mill or waterwheel mechanisms legit, like rig them and it properly works like it would in real life. That would be so dope. I think we can do it.
harbinger_ua gives a Cameo even before the production Airs Live on the Cookie. Man this is just cool!
@theluthier Can I put the things I model for that project to download free in sketchfab?
I just though that now we can also leave everything regular human size and not try to fit everything into wider Melvin dimensions. And it's even cooler since I can see him fumbling around stuff that isn't fit for him. His secret lab though can be all Melvin proportions.
By the way Melvin is not the Spice Vendor slave, remember he is more what Alfred is to Bruce Wayne, not a butler but a faithful confidant. Melvin probably arrived at the house when one day The Master Vendor bought some travelling equipment with Amazon Prime delivery and when the package arrived he somehow had to pay a fortune in shipping weight, he was like what the hell, and when he opened the box, well, no travelling equipment there, somehow Melvin got delivered instead.
I never had something this complete. Feels great! I just keep thinking, "It looks like a fish. It really looks like a fish!"
My skill have improved dramatically since joining CG Cookie. I think I can call myself intermediate in low poly now. Maybe even inching towards advanced. I love this community!
Good to hear that Dough. @theluthier Kent will probably be really happy to read such words. It means his Collab is already starting to fulfill its purpose. I'm confident this is just the beginning for you, since you'll be producing much more stuffs for the Collab. A minute of silent for the fish that gave his life for a wall in our house.
