August ProgBlog #1: and then one thing led to another and...

WARNING: if you’re an ultraprude there’s a nude character in here but only the breasts are somewhat detailed, while you can see the crotch area due to lack of clothes there isn’t even implied genitalia.

So there I was, just smoothing out Red’s feet and toes and fixing toenails that needed fixing

when I decided that I should draw Zara in a hive hoodie since I’ve drawn her in a steem hoodie previously (and Kurenai in a steem shirt). Hot on the heels of that I figured I may as well use the 3d model of Zara seeing as it’s more or less finished. So of course I had to fix the proportions of the model first. After a lot of glaring and trying to figure out if the legs were too long or the torso too short, I finally decided on the former and ran it past Sprat who helpfully marked up a screenie for me.

July ProgBlog #2: minified progblog

I’m severely out of it. I’m currently struggling (and mostly failing) to not revert to my owlish ways.

I don’t even remember why I didn’t post the progblog on Friday.

Oh yes, I had an extra child (11yo had a friend sleeping over for the weekend).

I also hadn’t finished the tail at the time and I was sick of posting pictures of the unfinished tail.

Then I stayed up way too late last night because I finally finished it.

Family Day

Partly pointless preamable

The title is actually terrible but it’s the working title I gave the files and I can’t think of a better one ^_^;

The following is the same fic from two different points of view. I initially wrote them in breaks from ironing the tail, and was trying to figure out which one to post when I remembered that I had once upon a time wanting to try writing the same situation from the viewpoints of different characters, and must have subconsciously remembered that when doing it.

July ProgBlog #1: guess who's stuck, stuck again

If you are new to 3d, getting stuck and having to rework things using better techniques that you figure out later is perfectly normal (unless you’re a prodigy).

And if you went to some fancy school to learn stuff, experiment anyway because the stuff taught in schools is one way to do things, not the only or necessarily best way to do things.

I originally held off progblog on Friday because I got cool things from @bearone which I wanted to write about instead, but my computer and phone don’t want to interact properly (I can plug the phone in, tell it to trust the computer, the computer can see the phone and see all the photos and videos on the phone, but importing is flakey. Sometimes stuff will go in (including old stuff which it can’t seem to work out is old stuff which then ends up in completely the wrong date folder even though it’s supposed to be sorted by exif date which is shown correctly, at this stage I don’t even know how it’s sorting things but it’s absolutely not doing what it’s supposed to be doing).

June ProgBlog #4: and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids and your darned dog!

And by “gotten away with it” I mean “finished” and by “dog” I mean “dogs and cats” XD

I’ve spent this entire week ironing the tail. Also found this helpful setting

and turned it on after actually reading the tooltip while wondering what it did. I’d been thinking it would be helpful in high poly situations like this if stuff could just be rendered when it was actually in the viewport and smarter people than me obviously thought it would be a good idea too XD

June ProgBlog #3: I don't know either

I decided to go in a different direction and after getting past the face I reduced some polygons down the back and went onto the tail. I’d kind of moved the base part down the back in 3dC so it was pretty much attached to the butt like it would be in a quadruped which looks more awkward in a biped but that’s what they’re all going to be like and their body structures are somewhat unlikely anyway.

June ProgBlog #2: buttery

That’s what Blender sculpt mode feels like at the moment.

I don’t know whether it’s because I found some settings that make me happy or whether I finally got the polycount down to something Blender is happier with (got it down to 3.5M from 3.7M after I decided to reduce the polycount in the wing membranes using super light dabs with the clay brush and it’s been jumping mostly down as I continue reworking things and Blender remeshes everything I touch) or whether something has been going on under the hood as I swear every time Manjaro does a system update there’s a new version of Blender in there somewhere (this may or may not be a slight exaggeration).

June ProgBlog #1: textual feeling

What do you mean that’s reminding you of a song? XD

I’ve been bouncing between working on the sculpt to try to have something interesting and visual for the progblog because people in general seem to prefer pretty pictures (guess it’s much easier to glance, upvote and keep scrolling than actually have to read? XD), but sadly there is still a metric boatload of work nobody is ever going to see or even realise exists to get done as well.

Blue Tanager

I think I did the apple slightly too big, even if it is a little person.

This one is for elviento, who didn’t ask for one but did post some adorable pictures of blue tanagers which I didn’t even know existed. I cowarded out and did a front shot (because I figured the underside of the wings will be plainer than the top because that’s usually how these things seem to roll) because I won’t be able to get the colours of the wings with a sketchy.

May ProgBlog #4: sculpting and scripting

I have no real excuse for the late progblog this time. I just forgot it was Friday yesterday and was merrily sculpting away til late. Fixing sculpts isn’t quite as fun as just making them but I definitely find it more fun than trying to work out retopo or rigging or cloth sim shenanigans.

On the hand the denser bits are the bits I haven’t touched yet, though on the thumb there are just denser bits as I moved in closer (I have both dynatopo and remesh on, controlled by brush detail which seems to be based off however big the brush is). I’m fixing up a lot of shapes (the fingers of both Red and Zara are really spindly) and I’m not looking forward to fixing up Red’s tail (at least I can move it down relatively easily in Blender though it will probably chug). I can get the mesh a lot smoother than I could in 3d-Coat (it’s still unknown why the mesh was persistently lumpy in 3dC, with or without dynatopo/liveclay, and apparently nobody else knows either) which is the main critically important thing for me at the moment as I’m using the sculpt for normal maps as well as shape and I only want some textures appearing in the normal maps, such as scars and the horn patterning. Skin textures are getting done with materials,