Tag Archives: 3d character design

June 27, 2026 · 9:30 am

A Render of Merto from Magebane

A couple weeks ago, I introduced you to Lord Cafrash Menchtoteale, the blacksmith who forged the Wishing Blade.

Today, I’d like you to meet Merto, one of Cafrash’s two sons. Unlike Camir, who makes a grandiose show of impressing those around him and makes favors with anyone he can work into his grasp, Merto tries to stay out of the public eye, careful not to draw to much attention to himself.

For now, Merto remains meek… though he knows and can do far more than he lets on.

Merto makes his first appearance in Magebane, and will continue to make appearances throughout the Wishing Blade series.

Excerpt from Merto’s first appearance (Magebane):

“What are you doing here?” Toranih demanded. The leather hilt felt slick under her clammy fingers.

The light stopped moving. “Father sent me.”

“Father?” She frowned, still not quite able to make out the figure’s features in the low light. “Show yourself.”

The young man opened his hand and a pale turquoise crystal dimly lit his tall frame. He looked about Toranih’s age—she couldn’t tell if he was older or younger—and he was a shadow like the others, his features clear since she was part of his realm. His dull, grayish hair was cut loosely around his ears. His eyes were pale and he had a petite, pointy nose and rounded jaw, both of which looked familiar.

The light weaved back and forth as the young man swayed, unstable on his feet. “My father… Cafrash.”

Though Merto has a fairly small role to play in Magebane, he has his own secrets, and Toranih quickly decides she isn’t sure if she should trust him.

But then, that could be said for everyone in Cafrash’s family, and Merto isn’t the only one with a hidden agenda.

(Huh. I realize now that I haven’t designed Camir’s character in Daz yet. Given his flare for fancier clothes and haughty attidude, I bet his render would be fun. What do you think? Should I take some time to make his render?)

Eventually I want to edit Merto’s backstory novella… which I do have written but needs edits to avoid breaking my plot. Fun times.

* * *

Both brothers have an agenda… but whose plans are more dangerous?

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

An early render of Lord Cafrash Menchtoteale

Since we’ve been looking at a lot of my early Daz renders, let’s now take a look at the renders I have of Lord Cafrash Menchtoteale, one of my characters from the Wishing Blade series. (He starts as an antagonist… then kind of ends up in as the questionable mentor… whether he wants to be a mentor or not).

So a long, long time ago when I was playing around with Daz, I rendered Cafrash, the creator of the Wishing Blade (the series’ namesake). I rendered this image a couple times, since I apparently designed it on my older laptop, whose graphics card that would have made rendering nice went caput before I found Daz. Then I rendered it again once I got my then-new laptop (which now mostly lays in rest because I used it a lot for rendering and that’s… very intensive on a laptop, unfortunately. Renders now happen on a desktop with much better fans and airflow.

That first render took 7 hours, and didn’t have nearly as good as the results of this 2-hour render.

Needless to say, I was quite happy with the capabilities of the then-new laptop. (And I suspect the new desktop would render this much faster… though we’re on a new version of Daz now so the lighting system would probably have to be readjusted).

Anyway, enough about laptop capabilities. Lord Menchtoteale was a blacksmith before getting involved with the trickster god. Long story short, he forges the Wishing Blade, the weapon used to steal magic from Cirena in Magic’s Stealing.

Here’s a render that Isaac put together from a later version of Cafrash’s character design, which I then polished:

A blacksmith hammers a sword with magical blue wisps above it.

But did Cafrash actually want to forge the sword?

Is he really the warlord everyone thinks he is?

Or is there more going on behind the Trickster’s plans than meets the eye?

Cafrash’s backstory is one part of the story I’m having a lot of fun working with, and first started showing up in The Shadow War, and has a much larger role in Magebane.

* * *

Meet Lord Menchtoteale in all his grumpy “I’m going to give you advice whether either of us want to deal with this,” in The Wishing Blade series…

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

Reaching for the Light – Daz Render

Decided to make a for-fun render in Daz Studio yesterday with some new assets I picked up during a sale. (Finally got that mermaid setup I’d been wanting!)

So there isn’t a particularly story behind this one, other than me picturing a mermaid seeing the sun (or moon) shining above the water and reaching out for it. Kind of feels like it might work well for flash fiction inspiration, though, or one of my 1000 word stories.