August ProgBlog #4: Rollin rollin rollin

I needed a break from technical stuff, so I started sculpting Zara.  I don't know why I always start with eyebrows, I just do, so I did the eyebrows, but then deviated from my usual of going down the nose and doing the face and bounced over to doing the ears.  Probably because hers are a bit pointy.

The point is tricky as the Avians have an obvious point but their ears aren't nearly as big as the Dragonkin ears.  She doesn't look like anyone yet but we'll get there, hopefully in less time than it took to do Red as she's got the standard amount of limbs and I don't completely suck at retopo and uv unwrapping anymore (even though I still don't like either of them XD).

Also trying a thing suggested on the 3d Coat forums of changing 3d Coat's unit measurement to 1m (default is 1mm) and SceneScale to 100 to make it match with Blender better.  If that works out I'll have to make some new workflow notes.  Currently I have a major issue with Red's mesh actually being enormous (it's currently the right size because it's parented to the armature which is the right size, if I unparent the mesh returns to its excessive size, and I can't change the size now that I've done all the hairs which I don't feel like redoing).  However I may end up having to make the meshes big anyway as Blender's auto weight mapping is incapable of dealing with a lot of vertices (not sure what construes as "a lot") unless they're further apart.

On the technical front, I'm doing the claw retractions as shape keys.  Not bothering with bone drivers unless I get really annoyed while animating, which could happen at a later stage though currently I don't foresee that being a problem as there are three scenes in the entire series that I can immediately call to mind in the entire series where I specifically mentioned claw extensions for whatever reason.

Did not finish the highlight layer on @f3nix's avatar but I'm not far off.

Bananafish needs more detailing. 

Didn't get anything done on the upgoat front either mostly because I'm rewriting schedules at the moment.  Scheduling is not my strong point.