Savena Nyght - The Character That Fell Through Almost All The Cracks

Of all my characters Savena has suffered the most misfortune.

I first developed her to tell a story about a post world war 2 altered history type thing, a world where while countries had ceased fighting each other the inhabitants hadn't stopped fighting for power, a story about partisans and children living in the aftermath of the chaos of the second world war and how they learned to fight for survival. The basic idea was to tell a story about a nervous yet brave survivor that was growing up and transitioning from young girl to young woman whilst learning to stand up for herself and become autarkic throughout her story. However two things happened, the first being my switch from Daz to Blender and as I was focused heavily on writing and rendering the images for Sleepy Hollow, Savena got sidelined so that I could get Evelyn. Just as I got things working nicely with Blender and Evelyn, the Russian/Ukrainian war broke out and personally I couldn't bring myself to start telling a story about a theoretical conflict when friends of mine were being killed in an actual war, again Savena got sidelined for the time being.

Privately I did test a few images for the concept and Savena really shone in them, her natural slightly chubby face, readily conveying higher emotional intensity, just as I hoped, some of these were put out as tests and were received quite well but then just as I got some momentum behind Savena, yet another set back occurred when I created Scorpio. Unlike any of my previous characters Scorpio was a directly confrontational character and in effect her arrival condemned the original idea behind Savena's story to an early grave in favour of something much heavier and deeper.

However the arrival of Scorpio also gave me another idea for Savena and one that I will now be pursuing actively, a story where she enters the world of Evelyn and Fae, where she is first encountered having been abandoned at the Davizioso and her story in that world will extend from there.

In the shadows I have continued to work on Savena, she now has three versions to depict various stages of growth, featuring slight revisions to her weight and general shape as she grows but keeping hold of those delightful puffy cheeks that I adore so much.