Hymns of the Needlefreak (& Co.)

Lesdeux

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I said I would, so here goes I suppose. I will use this thread to post the smattering of content I've made over time for various projects--however its main focus will be on Needlefreak.

Needlefreak is the name of a story I've been working towards making on and off for about 8ish years. Now that may seem like a long time, but most of the work I currently have has really been this last year and some change. I "started" work a while ago, but it was mainly concepts I ended up recycling and first iterations of characters that I have since changed so drastically that you could not tell they were supposed to be the same. Let us get into what the story is about, shall we?

A young medical biologist sits alone in her house, aching to feel anything at all after the passing of her partner due to brain cancer. She pours her emotions and feelings into her work, desperate to make a breakthrough so that others may not feel her pain. Over the course of a couple decades, she and the teams she either leads or is on come across various advancements in a large portion of medical fields; cracking open paths that lead into increased longevity of humans, the first waves of transhumanism, and an understanding of human genetics so refined it's as if you could read it to a child and have them understand. Dr. Nia Ohashi--the aforementioned biologist--finally makes tailwind into what she has been working towards: a reagent that ceases the active reproduction of cancerous cells. However, this new discovery is not exactly what she wanted. It only stops current cells from reproducing; it cannot reverse cancer already present in the body. At what she perceives to be the limit she can progress with science, she turns to the esoteric arts her partner was known for: the occult.

See, magic is a known and practiced science in her version of the world, for those who have the benefit of being introduced to the ideas anyway. Dr. Ohashi had been with someone rather deep into that part of society, so she was aware of it by proxy. Every single living organism had a Soul, and latent Soul Energy; better defined as the innate vitality given to one upon being born and taking their first breath, and the concept that their body is a vessel for it. The doctor is limited to the work that was in her home, as her partner would typically not bring back their work with them. With the limited resources available to her, and the help of both her colleagues in the lab plus one very dedicated ex-mage friend of her partner, the doctor acquired organs from deceased donors that were receptive to magic and prime candidates for experimentation on her cancer research. She quickly came to know that without a solid understanding of the magic system, she would only be able to attempt what was in the books around her house.

To try and get something to work, she attempted to bring back to life a few of the organs--fine-tuning the chemical compounds/methods she learned in her career to take to the arcane text. Dozens of retrials later, she succeeds. However, a heart beating with no blood to pump eventually breaks down and stops again, especially without a brain to tell it not to. She makes a rudimentary humanoid shape out of burlap and stitching, so that she could have an enclosed system. It wasn't pretty, that humanoid thing the doctor stitched up. It had a lot less organs and meat than the average person, but it was just supposed to be a test, no need wasting an entire body on a test, she thought. She ran the numbers tens of times, tens of tens even. A lever is pulled, an incantation inscribed is set to activate, fluids are pumped, a heart is pounding, two hearts now, a daughter is born. This one action has set forth a chain of events that cannot be reversed.


Now, all of you are most likely thinking: "Hey wait a second, this is the art board! Where's the art, art maker?"

Sorry, it's coming in a sec, I just thought it was important to give context. The above is the events that happen before the start of the story, and the start of the story isn't present day in it either. I'll get to that later. Here are the first concepts and also latest pieces of both Dr. Nia Ohashi and Rhine.


Old NiaNew Nia
DocConceptArt1.webpDoc1.webp
Old RhineNew Rhine
RhineFirstConcept.webp1769403283585.webp

As you can see, my style changed a lot. I plan on redrawing Nia, it's not my best work and it's almost a year old now. I've kinda been putting it off because I was designing other characters to get the baseline concepts ironed out. Talking about those first drawings though; Nia used to be named Alice and Rhine used to be named Lucy. I think I first drew the old drawings in the same year, 2018 I believe. Initially, they weren't even part of the same story together! Alice was going to be a scientist that slowly replaced her body parts with robotics and the idea was she cease to be human in all but mind. I don't actually recall what Lucy's deal was other than being a mutated human. Anyway, I got some other stuff to show.

image2.webp image3.webp

I plan on redoing these models cause I've gotten so much better at 3D since I've made these. I've also designed and modeled the house in which the story takes place but it's not all textured yet, so you guys will get to see it in a different post here later! As you can see, these models look a little bit different than the current drawings. The idea is that what you will see when I actually get around to making a video or two won't be present day and it's going to skip around the timeline as I see fit. Judging by the response I got from animating a certain video on a yet to be fully public discord, I have a lot more confidence I can do something like this (shoutout brawler, if you are reading this, thanks buddy). First and foremost, I'll be creating for myself, but I can't lie. It will be cool if people like what I have to offer.

Needlefreak was initially going to be a comic I was going to draw, but I wanted to incorporate every medium I could, so it's changed to being multimedia. I do have more stuff to show off, but I'm gonna slow roll the thread so I don't burn out on sharing too soon. However, I'll answer any questions people might have for me so long as it doesn't contain major spoilers. If you got to this point in my silly little thread that no one asked for, I sincerely thank you. You didn't have to care about any of my ramblings, but you chose to see it through. Hopefully I can create something that keeps you interested going forward, be it Needlefreak or another project of mine once I delve into sharing it. I'll be back within the week to share some more stuff so be on the lookout!
 
Late night post, fuck it we ball.

Apologies for not sticking to "within the week" like I previously said. I've been going through both "we're so back" and "it's never been more over" in my brain for a while now. Had an unexpected breakup with my long-term partner in late November so I'm still getting over it. Enough about my life though, let us get into what you came here for: looking at my shitty old art and getting some information about Rhine's shenanigans.


Rhine's got a little traveling companion in a bird named Arlo. I first thought about paring a bird with Rhine back when I was still learning digital art and Lucy was around. As seen in an example here:
lucyrose3.webp
He was more a cardinal back then in early 2019. Late 2024 I downloaded blender and tried to make a 3D model of a bird. No donut tutorial or nothing. I had former schooling using Maya when I was in college in 2018 so I thought it was like riding a bike and it would come back to me, and while yeah, it's not that bad for a "first" model with no actual tutorial to follow, it's still sucks compared to what I can do now:
Arlo1.webpArlo2.webp

I mean seriously, what was I thinking? I was on some other shit back then I guess. There was no way I'd create something worth the time I put in without, y'know, learning the program first at least. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to show for a "modern" Arlo. Haven't tried to make another model yet. He doesn't come into the story for a sec anyway.

Wanna see what a burlap girl's room looks like? I see you saying no, c'mon don't be shy:

RhineRoom.webp

Dr. Ohashi had a custom lab room installed after she kinda became a recluse. After Rhine got made, Dr. Ohashi tried to convert it to somewhat of a place for Rhine to call hers. If you are curious, that is an autopsy table with a mattress on it, yes. Rhine actually loves to eat, so the medical cabinets and fridge now have food in them instead of equipment and supplies.

What about the good doctor herself? What does her room look like you may be wondering? Wonder no longer, viewer:

DocRoom1.webp

These renders are both pretty old now, both made within the same few weeks of each other in late 2024. I've modeled pretty much an entire house after these were made and I need to update them both after I finish texturing shit, but for now I'll leave the post at this. If anyone wants to see a specific part of the rooms, let me know, I'll post some close-up shots.

Next time I'm in here, you'll get to meet some of the other characters in the story! So, if you're interested in the actual lore, stay tuned. Oh, and I plan to make the first few videos within a couple months from this point. Any video I make will be deskGen exclusive for at least a week, so I hope you guys enjoy the early access. Hopefully they come out good! The first one deals with Rhine's awakening, spoilers.
 
Hello people in my computer. I come bearing updates. I was hoping to have more than just one additional character having an updated drawing, but my toilet exploded so I had to deal with that. Lotta water everywhere.

Anyway, I'm here to give you some drawings of Iné and tell you a bit more about some information in the story so she makes sense.

Iné - Full Character Page.webp

Here she is! So, I imagine some words on this page got people confused so let me info-dump a bit. Perhaps a few of you noticed I specified Dr. Ohashi's species as a 'Human' as opposed to anything else, and now you partially know why! Iné is the second 'Variant' that the story has. 'Variants' are repurposed deceased created from Dr. Ohashi's research. They can be made from humans, but are not considered them. A few years after Rhine was made, an incident caused her to be noticed by the presiding Mage authority and she gets taken. The doctor, Nia, was so distraught at her daughter being stolen from her that she made another one, this time sourcing a recently deceased, mostly intact, body. After Nia performed surgery to fix the body parts that needed it (mainly the spine and lungs), she recreated the process that resulted in Rhine being born. During the most critical point in the ritual, Iné's specialized ability (called an Immanent Factor) kicked in and disrupted the last 10% of her being reincarnated. She awoke, but at a price. The ritual inherently causes the deceased to forget their previous life, however in Iné's case, her past memories were constantly flooding her brain while she was experiencing new ones. She freaked out, broke stuff, and ran.

If you're curious about what 'Rank Equivalent' might mean, in the Mage society, your position gets denoted by rankings. It goes: Acolyte, Adept, and Sovereign. Within those named ranks lay the sub-tiers of Low, High, and Master rank. Examples of this would be a High Adept or a Low Acolyte. Iné would be considered strong enough to be the highest ranking of Master Sovereign. Maybe if I keep with this long enough, you'll get to see some action of what that really means.

I'll explain Soul Erosions and Immanent Factors another time, given I still have characters to show! As always, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask them! Also seriously, if you recognize the guitar, let me know (It's not a perfect 1:1).

I leave you with one more thing, what Iné first looked like.

1771228385893.webp


This was before I even considered her to be in a band.
 
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