July ProgBlog #1: when you're not as far as you think you are

• AEfter Ragnarok

I was so happy when I made the female Dragonkin model as I thought I was finally done. I went to make a new file to start (re)making Red when I suddenly realised…forgot the retractable claws.

Ergh.

And then I realised I’d put the tail too high up the back and that the base was too thin.

More ergh.

I spent a few good hours sulking.

Then got back into it. On the bright side there’s always dodgy looking things that crop up when modelling.

This time I’m modelling them retracted and will just do the shape keys for the ones that use them at any point.

And cameos.

The most annoying thing about this was how regularly the symmetry got completely and utterly confused and would symmetrise the wrong vertices into a pair which led to the side I wasn’t working on to be just straight up wrong for the most part. So what I ended up having to do four the last three fingers was finish what I was doing and hope it worked, get mad because it refused to work correctly, cut the fingertip off, select the correct one on the other side and symmetrise.

I don’t remember how I did the tail the last time or if I had the same problems of getting it to look “right” but this is probably as good as I’m going to get it for now.

I’ll adjust whatever I need to adjust if there’s problems rigging I guess.

Next session I’m going to fix up the uv maps and then jump straight into making Red to see if there’s anything else missing out of this one before I make the female one I think.

In only vaguely related news I still think it’s hilarious that I thought I’d have more time during the school holidays to get more stuff done. The opposite has been the case. I’m working on some “murals” (term used very loosely, they’re just silhouettes) at work and I need to get them done before term goes back in. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry (working around workshops and trying not to be in the way as well as just trying to crank it out as fast as possible as I literally just have the workshop time plus gaps to work in) I would have taken photos of some of the ridiculous setups I’ve had to do to get the projector in the right place at the right angle (usually involves multiple blocks stacked up, beanbags for fine tuning when the little build in adjustable legs just don’t cut it, and at one stage I had my spare carpenter pencil wedged in between two blocks the projector was sitting on and was twisting it very slowly to get the fine angling just so). Getting the positioning right takes 30-60min and the actual outline takes 5-10min.

Masking the first one also took the better part of forever along with a whole roll of cloth tape. Oops. I told the boss that if I could find my small brush I would just be extremely careful around the outlines, I was mostly masking hoping to get nice clean lines but given how porous the bricks are I’m a bit worried about that. The boss assured me that I would get more tape.

I have two wall sections left to clean (they were left to last as I need a ladder and I’m hoping to rope gangly eldest in to help), then the two more drawings on them to do and I’ll work my way through painting and masking over the next week I guess and hope I finish in time.

This work by ryivhnn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License