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Apr
12
2017

Red WIP - very slowly getting there

3d Coat screenie - sculpt nearly done

Felt like posting a quick screenie as I haven't done a public wip for a while (there's a couple on Patreon that are well before this stage).  Still have to do his wings, hands, feet and tail but am pretty happy with how he turned out.

Because I'm nearing completion I'm getting that post-completion anxiety of IS IT GOOD ENOUGH? HAVE I MISSED ANYTHING? AM I GOING TO HATE IT AS SOON AS I CALL IT DONE?

On the bright side the last thing hasn't happened for a very long time, and as I'm at the point where I haven't felt the need to completely redo all my bases I am reasonably certain that if I find anything I'm unahppy with I should be able to just fix it.

Mar
12
2017

Za'haran sketchies

Red sketchies

Sunday streaming was a bit messy today and will probably be messy over the next couple of Sundays as I continue struggling with logistics, and then will stop completely because I'm going home for a month!

Then it got cut short because there was a few too many heavy thundercracks that sounded on top of my house so I shut the computer down.

 In  my continued attempts to try for a sketch every day I decided to do  reference/study style shots (I find those hard going as well but easier  than pinups, at least they serve some kind of purpose, I am slightly  addicted to storytelling I guess).  It worked out pretty well for this  one, got done pretty quickly.

Then I decided to colour it.

Oh well, I can call it a colour reference or something now I guess.

Dec
15
2013

First sculpt done

First character done finally I think

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.

Currently sitting on 348 972 tris.

Nov
19
2013

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). 

Sculptris wireframe example

It'll be pretty awful for rigging and animating but it's awesome for what I'm using it for, especially when I finally learned to mostly ignore the mesh and got comfortable with the process.

Started work on torso in Sculptris

Oct
27
2013

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...

...wait for it...

...3 days (or the equivalent thereof as long blocks of work are hard to come by).

Starting the horns from sculpt

Sep
18
2013

Calling the 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):

Kudu style twisty horns

Horizontal banding - can't make it look twisty enough!

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.

Aug
20
2013

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.

Blender sculpt

Very roughly positioned front, side and three-quarter view of the character in a window on the 21" monitor.  The actual work was being done on the Cintiq at close range.  The multiscreening is one seriously cool thing about Blender and I do miss it a little bit in Sculptris

Jul
29
2013

AR notes: sculpting horns

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

Twisty horns sculpting in Blender

Jun
06
2013

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.

3d torso work in progress

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.

I should also resize these things properly and not let the blog do it as it doesn't do it very well.

Apr
28
2013

Ear wip

3d ear work in progress screenshot

Good enough for now, I'm sure I'll fiddle with it more as I go.  Was going to post a much earlier wip and of course it was "after I fix this, and do this bit, and what the hell is that, and..." now it's mostly done.

I'm not sure if the model in my anatomy book has tiny ears, but if Red's ears look massive it's intentional, the Dragonkin inherited large pointy bat-reminiscent ears from the Chiropterans who went extinct a thousand or so years before the timeblock I'm currently working in.