COLLAB2021 - Los Habaneros - House Interior Team

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....


The Official/Unofficial Story


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. 

What to do?

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. 

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    vincav81 After simplyfing the mesh and connecting parts I'll try some sculpting for the later texture baking. The lower legs with the claws are probably a candidate for remeshing and retopology since the now consist of six parts each.

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    Ok, here's a new version of Michael with further detailed wings and ears:

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    Michael's got his tail:

    I also added a little Easter egg within the Easter Egg 😉. dostovel Do you find it? Hint: It's not a cat 😉.

  • Omar Domenech(dostovel) replied

    It's a DOG sticker! Very nice. You're thinking Inception a dream within a dream levels now.

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    Absolutely right, dostovel ! And did you know where Michael is from?

  • Vincent (vincav81) replied

    pièce de résistance 👌

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    Thank you very much, Vincent vincav81 😀! I've started posing the wings:

    Maybe, I'll do some sculpting and retopolgize it since it's very stretched now.

  • Vincent (vincav81) replied

    Just some rough concept based off of ullreym's amazing Team Leaders artwork.
    Possible ancestral paintings belonging to Vadimspice (the Spice Vendor).

    Please pardon the second great grandfather Duerer, I forgot to change that last name before compressing the image file.

  • Shawn Blanch(blanchsb) replied

    I approve of this message

  • Omar Domenech(dostovel) replied

    Vincent is full of cool ideas, also seeing myself like that makes me glad I live in 2021. 

  • Omar Domenech(dostovel) replied

    My story approach to The Spice Vendor.


    A traveler by heart.


    There are some people in this world that are perfectly fine with living the same life, day in and day out, happy to wake up in the same bed under the same roof. This is not our spice vendor. Unease the next day he comes home from a trip, feels trapped by the squared geometry of four walls. The world is too big, he thinks to himself, nature too diverse, mountains too breathtaking, that to have a conscious mind miss out on the experience is a tragedy. In defense of people who like to stay at home, chilling, and are perfectly fine doing so, explorers may be the ones that map the terrain, but homestayers are the bedrocks from where civilizations arise. So stay at home, go out, do whatever you want.

    Our vendor probably comes from a long lineage of explorers and travelers, people from thousands of years ago that for some reason kept pushing the horizon, eager to see what was beyond that hill or beyond the oceans. Whatever drive they had hasn't diminished even thousands of generations later, it lives well in the genetics of our spice master. It’s not that he likes to travel, it's that he doesn’t even have a choice, he stops and his mind wanders, the strain creeps in, he gets distracted and off he goes. But even so, he likes the calmness before his inner storm, he does stay a while in every place he visits, and always keeps a souvenir from all his whereabouts.   

    Always moving around means danger, so being ready to defend yourself is crucial if you are going to follow the road. Danger from people, animals, the weather, the world is a dangerous place. All the walking leaves him needing shoes more often than normal. Same for clothing, he has to change them quite often, but for some reason never seems to need to buy them, people everywhere he goes are happy to hand out garments native to their region. His belongings are very few, everything he owns needs to fit on his back, otherwise he doesn’t keep it, since he much rather fills his bags with trinkets and whatnot. 

    The vendor started collecting spices one time he was moving through India. He was on a quest to see if he could walk the shores of every continent on the planet, start at one point, hug the shoreline, keep going forward and see if he could end up in the same place. Some Indian dude called him crazy, that there was no need for such a silly thing but... he said "well since you are already committed to doing it, in every place you stop, please ask for spices, collect them and when you come around this same spot, look for me and I will pay you handsomely for your troubles." He traveled far but walking the shore challenge was not feasible at that time in his life, yet it was not in vain since he discovered the amazing delight in spices.

    He returned to the Indian man after some time on the road, only to find him even healthier than when he met him the first time. Our spice vendor said to him "hey remember me? I have your spices." And the Indian dude was like "Who are you? the guy who what? Ah yes yes yes, that guy... no I have no need for that anymore, I have too much money now, you can keep those, go away I won't pay you." But at least he had his delights in spice now. His travels had more meaning than just walking. 


    He bought Vadimspice Mercantile Homestead with the money he made from collecting rare spices. He enjoys coffee in the mornings, but only in the mornings, after it’s not a.m. if he drinks it wont let him sleep during the night. Even Though he travels a lot and works all day, he likes to keep the house clean, at least he tries. He likes his garden, he tends to his trees, he likes art, likes the cool breeze of the mornings, speaks lots of languages, reads a lot, collects books from all over, history is his favorite subject, is a man of science but has a weak spot for the occult and the possibility of things beyond our comprehension. To the point where he suspects in his property lives a strange creature, but being a man of science he tries to look for a more logical explanation. There's also this girl that lives a mile away from his homestead, but for all his intellectual readings, words always escape him when talking to her.

    And every now and then, the strain creeps in, he gets distracted and he knows what's going to happen next, before his first step, he is off again. 

  • adrian replied

    I look like a pirate, Greybeard

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    vincav81 Wonderful idea with the portraits of the spice vendor ancestors 😀 ! I very much like your version of ullreym 's excellent team leader portraits 😀!

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    dostovel You're an excellent storyteller 😀! I'm curious what the spice vendor will discover next 🕵️‍♂️🌶.

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    Today, I retopologized various body parts and connected them to the torso or the head. I also added an armature:

  • Vincent (vincav81) replied

    👍 Just a thought, but maybe thicken the umbrella handle a little? It looks like it might snap at any moment.

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    vincav81 I'll have to adjust the thickness of the umbrella handle anyway due to the necessary retopology for the wings 😉.

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    I've further detailed the beak:


  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    Ok, umbrella handle is now thickened:

  • Ingmar Franz(duerer) replied

    And the fashion-conscious owl of today needs of course a haircut 😉✂: