Skip to main content
Apr
03
2023

April ProgBlog #1: the insidious GAPS!

That's not an acronym, just me screaming in annoyance.

The underside of the wing was the absolute worst thing ever as no matter how I moved the feathers, gaps kept appearing.

image 250

Sunday was a super slow day to begin with as the bigs and I were recovering from doing a show on the Saturday (they were more tired than me as they were the ones actually flipping out and stuff, I was just kind of trying to help direct as I'd been unexpectedly thrust into that role as the coach who had been supposed to be doing that job had unfortunately come down with something the night before).

Mar
27
2023

March ProgBlog #3: just ugh

That feeling when you're the only one that knows that you did stuff because it doesn't look like much changed at all.

That was a big part of why I decided to just let the streak break than try and push a late progblog.  The other reason was that all the other stuff was a huge fight (some of it physically fights, or at least shouting matches, but mostly just the usual struggle trying to keep on top of things).

image 266

Stupidly I missed a whole row in that screenshot, this is what happens when your naming system is descriptive enough but you forgot what you were doing.

I think the layering is somewhat working out better, and I managed to resolve some issues I was having on the hands.

Mar
15
2023

March ProgBlog #2: not enough prog

Another day another not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

Sunday was just a hard slog of realising that I'd completely munted everything and that the feathers are actually on stalks before going into the skin.  I versioned the model to see if doing that would solve some layering problems I'm having.

image 265

And also making the shafts thicker while I'm about it.

minds out of the gutter @meesterboom and @galenkp

I didn't start over, the other feathers are currently hidden so I can see what I'm doing.

Mar
06
2023

March ProgBlog #1

At some point when I was rethinging my schedules, I decided that first Sundays were going to be mopping and windows days. Then promptly missed February.

The first weekend of March was a bit intense as J was in charge of scheduling the excursions and decided to schedule them both on the same weekend for whatever reason. We went to an Aboriginal Astronomy event at the Gravity Discovery Centre on the Saturday night and then went shooting at Topshot the following morning. I'll write a tiny bit more about them with the metric boatload oh photos in March Homeschool Miscellany.

Mar
02
2023

February ProgBlog #4: another day another row

And another late blog without much prog.

The wing underside is a pain in the system to work on as the double shoulders and the location means I routinely end up inside the mesh even when I'm aware of where I am and even expecting it to happen and thus trying to avoid it.  I think this is a minor downside to having cursor depth active but then again at least I remain in the area as the other option is ending up somewhere in space and having to press the home key and hope something is selected to home in on (or select something from the outliner if nothing is selected).  I find close in quicker to reorient.

image 251

Feb
22
2023

February ProgBlog #3: feathering

Sibling dearest and I are trying to initiate our project chats again.  The project chats were a video call where we'd talk about what we were working on and it would kind of be like the good old days where we'd actually be sitting next to each other and would chat and occasionally look over to see what the other one was doing.

We've had to replace looking over with screenies (screen sharing would be a complicated setup as while she uses the same machine for the video call and work, I don't, and that would probably cause her connection to drop and people in my house to complain about me nomming all the bandwidth) but it's definitely better than nothing.

We also switched to doing it during the day as I once more designated entire days to working on things and as it's on a weekend it's convenient for her too.

I'm still placing millions upon millions of feathers.

Feb
14
2023

February ProgBlog #2: it'll all be worth it in the end...right? Right?!

At least that's what I keep telling myself as I'm internally screaming my way through laying out polygon feathers and thinking about how the curve/particle feathers were easier (even if I couldn't get them to look nice) and there will be more experienced people than me out there facepalming and headdesking or both like why the bloody hell did you go and overcomplicate it like that for when you could have just done {some technique I don't know about that does the same amount of work in less time with better results}.

This malarky is purely because I wanted to be able to assign materials per feather.

image 244

Jan
31
2023

January ProgBlog #4: when the other work takes over

I missed posting last night as I was up til 1am finishing off lesson plans.

I like to joke about how it's taken me three days to write the lesson plans. Most of the time taken was actually refining a few things with my Obsidian lesson plan templates once I actually started using them, and then having to work out a format for my notebook when I transcribed them.

the notebook is partly an excuse to buy cute notebooks and mostly because I'm intending on taking it home over the weekend to transcribe the week's lesson plans and leaving it there during the week in the unlikely event that I can't make it or am running late, then whoever is subbing can just grab the notebook out of the cupboard and use the lesson plan

Jan
16
2023

January Progblog #2

I am going to do the down in two systems and I am most likely going to regret it.  The big downy feathers (which aren't called that but I can't remember what they're called) were finished not long ago, they are topside and underside but they look pretty much the same.

image 223

The render actually isn't terrible at a distance.

image 222

Different story up close x_x I need to fiddle with the strand thickness and number.

Jan
10
2023

January Progblog #1: first one for the year

And I very nearly missed it (okay technically I did miss it coz it's now after midnight but shhh x_x) because I'm trying to get used to a modified schedule and there was a bit of stuff on today and also the usual not being sure if I should bother postinng because I don't feel like I've made enough progress.

But first one of the year and I am trying to get back into the habit of weekly progblogs.

I actually didn't get to do much art last week as I spent most of it rejigging schedules and the Obsidian vault I use as a journal/organiser/thing (I'm still in the middle of modifications, it's a work in progress and changes whenever I discover a new process or shiny or they put in something new) and trying to sort out and organise things for this year, or at least first term.