July ProgBlog #3: distractions aplenty

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.

July ProgBlog #2: shiny froof

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.

July Progblog #1: strengthening shadows

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.

June ProgBlog #4: downward spiral

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.

June ProgBlog #3: I have leeeeeeeeeeeegs!

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).

June ProgBlog #2: in the green

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.

June ProgBlog #1

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!

I’ve tested replacing the outline with a flat multiply layer and it didn’t look good and I also managed to lose some vibrancy (I’m actually using the same colours in each section, just the flats have no glossiness or metalness and the glossy bits do) so that idea went flying out the window. My next experiment will be just doing shadow on a multiply layer. If that fails too then I’ll just have to leave the scale outline on because currently it looks a hell of a lot better with than without (and I don’t want to leave the outline on because reasons).

May ProgBlog #3

Fallen back into old habits of stressing out about how much I’m not getting done art-wise because I’m spending so much time on the rest of life and taking those extra hours out of sleep time which is totally healthy especially given how long it takes me to go to sleep and according to my Fitbit I wake up really frequently during the night (not that I remember ever doing so, apparently I usually wake up instead of going into REM and all those minutes “awake” usually average an hour) so I either need to go to bed earlier or wake up later and neither of those things are going to happen.

May ProgBlog #2: I am STILL FALLING!

No progblog last week because I caught a “flu-like virus” and got a bonus chest infection. Not recommended.

On the bright side, the first day I was finally able to work, it took only a couple of goes for my hand to suddenly decide it had finally figured out how to draw the scales and they got done relatively quickly compared to my previous struggles. The last bit of the tail took the longest as the scales obviously had to shrink with the body. Also, it seems to be a given that the last 20% of anything takes up 80% of the total time spent on it.

May ProgBlog #1: one step forward

Any given number of steps backwards.

Even though I’d repeatedly told 10yo not to start the quest in Habitica til 12yo and I were back from our respective jaunts, apparently he couldn’t resist pressing the button. So after we’d died a few times (mostly thanks to me as I have the biggest lists) I finally managed to scrape some stuff together enough to start working through my todo list (which I haven’t updated outside of Trello but probably should). If I can get it properly together I’ll start jumping the quick stuff like I used to but currently my brain seems incapable so just plodding along in order it is.