technonaturalist

Didn’t take too long to get my hand in, so once I figured out what I was doing it happened reasonably quick (but not as quick as I would have liked partly because it’s been a week and mostly because I have unrealistic and generally unachievable expectations of myself).

Decided to do the tail feathers by colour instead of individually and the barby bits are kind of painstaking because the brush is tinier than 3dC wants to deal with, but we’re glacially getting there.

So problem shoulder is acting up again. It all started when I decided to have a shower with the extractor fan on (I’m aware it needs to be on but my need to be warm is infinitely more important than the need to avoid mould growth). There was problems with the hot water system (we replaced the old one which finally died after possibly 40+ years with a cheap crappy new one instead of a good one because we thought we were going to be moving) or maybe it’s a problem with plumbing, I don’t know. Anyway, I got too cold, I felt something twang while shivering (I’m aware it doesn’t actually get that cold where I am but I have no cold tolerance. None.), woke up the next day feeling sick (which I got over pretty quick) and getting dizzy spells when looking right regardless of what orientation I’m in (standing, sitting, lying, doesn’t make a difference) which eventually fades but can recur randomly during the day which is tonnes of fun when I’m driving. It’s done wonders for my concentration.

Sprat is up for a couple of weeks, so I’ve been a bit distracted.

On Friday when I was supposed to have been writing this, we played Minecraft for most of the day. I used to play survival mode with the kids, but these days I just mindlessly build things in random locations (usually with plenty of supplies inside) for Sprat and the kids to find (they’re all in survival mode), and laugh at the hilarious sound effects that happen when they encounter the hostile mobs.

Finally finished the gloss map for the scales! The belly scales were fairly boring and straightforwrd but I was still glad to be done with them XD Currently lighting the froof and am much happier as I like doing hair. Quite pleased with how it’s turning out so far too.

A little bit blurry up this close and I don’t think it should be. I’m currently writing myself some pipeline notes (not as I type obviously because I’m kind of typing this XD) including just making the model a lot bigger (as much as I really, really don’t want to) because for whatever reason the SceneScale either doesn’t work in the paint room or doesn’t work at all.

Finally finished the tiny tail scales! My hands!

As I mentioned in the shenanigans comic (where this image first appeared), the pink was so glossy that I had to switch to the gloss map to finish up the tail as it was in a bit of an awkward spot in the light and using the uniform lighting made it too glossy and the pbr lighting couldn’t pick up the glossiness because the mesh was in the way.

It’s actually an upward spiral (dragon is pointing upwards) but I’m working from the head down therefore it’s a downward spiral :D

Scales here are shown with the pbr lighting that I switched to as I’m now in the pink section (last section yay!) and the uniform lighting made the glossiness blinding. I’ve had to switch depending on the colour or where I was, needed the uniform lighting for under the arm for example.

I was kind of referring to a scene in *Ponyo *but it’s been so long I can’t even remember if that’s what she actually says, I have a feeling that it may have been “I want legs” and in true fyn style I am much too lazy busy to see if there’s a clip on Youtube.

Anyway, I do have legs. Well, about 3.5 legs.

Made some pretty decent progress this week mostly because I’ve set two half-days of work (when I have to pick up 12yo from school so she gets to the early after school stuff on time) and also switched to hacking on AER stuff during the day and doing other work at night as I can usually steal some time during the day if we don’t go out for whatever reason and we’ve been home quite a bit recently. I also paused working on Witchies for a couple of days while I try to “catch up” on AER stuff (I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to catch up as this thing doesn’t have a deadline, I think I’ve been working on it for so long I just desperately want to be much, much further along than I am).

Finally got into the green section!

The one and only downside to this is that the next section is the blue section and with it more legs.

Everything has been all over the place lately mostly due to insomnia which is partially caused by the cold making my problem side hurt forever. Only in winter do I occasionally regret not moving up to the tropics like JJ kept saying we should. I need to hang around here for a while more though. I’ve also been plagued by guilt procrastination which is quite possibly one of the stupidest mental states to ever exist and should not be a thing due to the sheer illogical mind blowing stupidity of it. There’s probably a technical term for it that I should learn. Basically it involves needing to do something (in my case, some chores) but absolutely not wanting to so badly that I not only give myself excruciating headaches with how desperately I don’t want to do it (I described to JJ in a text that I would just about prefer taking a bullet to the head than be forced to do something no amount of money could make me care about), but because I then feel like the most worthless and terrible human being ever for not doing these things that need to be done, I then punish myself by not doing the thing that I just as desperately wanted to be doing instead of the stupid things I didn’t care about. End result as one can imagine, exactly nothing gets done at all.

By necessity we ended term 1 pretty quietly with the Scitech homeschooling lessons. Occasionally one or both boys missed some lessons due to colds, which I didn’t realise at the time was a taste of things to come.

After one of the lessons both of them got to, 10yo decided to blow some pocket money at the Scitech shop on some compound eye glasses. There was some hilarity when both of them had a go with it the first time.

Those tiny little leg scales are very fiddly and I have three and a half more legs and then pretty much the entire tail section still to go x_x

The body scales are a lot easier!