First sculpt done

And as I said “done” and took and saved the screenshot, I went and made the knees less prominent. Roughly a month (~4 weeks) rather than one year which is much more betterer.

And now to Blender to retopo, add the tail blade (well kind of a paddle in his case) and the wing membranes, and texture and rig. This might be the first one I do in Blender as I haven’t done any more work on Twilight since finishing the subdivision. I don’t think it will mind too much. I am being optimistic thinking everything will just fall into place nicely and work, but I am really glad I can fall back to Lightwave if things get too maddening.

One 3d App to rule them all

I had Quadrapop over earlier today and she was looking over my shoulder and critting the work I’d done on Red’s hands so far. I am aware the hand is the wrong shape and was planning on fixing that in Lightwave where I have poly modelling tools but after receiving the second degree I got motivated enough to attempt it in Sculptris (after firing up Lightwave and fixing the hands on the base models and putting the legs in Da Vinci pose while I was about it).

Torso and arms

I had thought maybe I shouldn’t post any more 3d stuff til I got to render stage, but then I optimistically decided that some people might like seeing the build in progress, and those that don’t can just ignore them til there’s something pretty.

So here’s a shot of the mostly completed face with the wireframe turned on so show off how well Sculptris retopos the mesh and the dynamic topography (the dense spots on the arms are accidental touches).

You know how I said those horns were done...?

Well, the mesh borked so terribly that I figured I would probably spend about as much time fixing it as I would starting over, so I started over.

Well I was wrong.

The last version of the horns took me about 8 months all up. I don’t want to know how long I would have taken to eventually fix the mesh as I know I spent a good week or so experimenting. Starting over this version took me…

AR notes: conscript to go with the conlang

Once upon a time I decided to pick Lojban as AR’s international auxiliary language because it was not Euro-specific and hadn’t been created for someone else’s work of fiction (not that there’s anything wrong with those things, I just wanted something international that was actually “international” and I didn’t want to poach someone else’s conlang that had been done for their thing, but one that was constructed just for fun/to use was okay :P). I was also rather lazy had lots of stuff to think about and Lojban had the easiest alphabet to deal with (ascii which is not exactly “neutral” but is a standard).

Calling horns done

Though I’m sure I’ll find more things to clean up and refine while I’m doing the rest of the body.

Anyway I tried to reflect nature somewhat with some horizontal bands like what’s found in kudu (what I based Red’s horns off):

After spending a ridiculous 6 months on the horns (lots of chaos and confusion with the guides and my general ineptitude) this really wasn’t looking twisty enough for my liking. I couldn’t work out how to sharpen the corners to make it look ike it was twisting and also discovered issues with how the horns connected to the horn crest (seeing as my Dragonkin have a horn crest instead of the horns just poking out the top of their skulls like normal horned animals.

Sculpty goodness and pipeline change

While sculpting horns I was quite sure I was going to use Blender for all the sculpty goodness seeing as it had actually imported the mesh to begin with. I think I’m going to have to accept the fact that my brain is never going to play nicely with Blender because even though I have been doing so much better than I ever have, I still don’t understand it.

AR notes: sculpting horns

I got stuck in “after I finish this bit” loop again when I thought about taking screenshots.

Repairing the twists in the horns (following the spline guides mostly worked though near the top some of the twist is wrong and is being corrected) and rounding out some bits that are too thin (and that I couldn’t see as a problem when I was doing the spline guides because there were a billion guides, and only noticed as I was edging upwards). Also making the ridges and whatnot more prominent and varied so it looks more organic (hopefully) and less plastic. I was originally intending on making the horn ridges bump maps rather than geometry, and will have to see how I go on the other characters but I have a feeling it’s going to look better as geometry so will just bite the render time seeing as I’m not making a game :)

Working the torso

So I’m hideously slow on WiP shots. Part of it is because I’m feeling a distinct pointlessness in them (there are many characters and whatnot to come) and most of it is simply because I keep putting off taking the screenshot when I think about it, and then eventually forget.

Every now and again though I need to remind myself I’m making progress. Here I’ve hidden the wing membranes so I can see what I’m doing, and left a point highlighted so that the close up pane makes some semblance of sense. Done some work on the arms but not a lot, none on the legs, focusing on the torso and pretty much making up the anatomy where the wings are attached as I go.

Studio fyn

My loving husband has told me on many occasions that I’m certifiably insane. While not exclusively so a lot of it has to do with the whole trying to be a studio around homeschooling, webmonkeying, being the one at home so having to manage the house and all the associated miscellany.

Recently I decided to muck around with something or other (precisely what escapes me now) and while doing so I inadvertantly discovered that the rig I had built in Lightwave 8 or 9 and dragged through 10 to 11 had blown up. Not sure what happened but it’s no longer working. I was a little peeved, but happy to discover after a bit of mucking around to find out how it works, it should only take me a few hours or at least under a week with Genoma, hopefully (allowing for numerous crashes as Genoma on Mac is buggy or at least memory leaky).