In the spirit of failing to do more in the same amount of time, I ended up having to clean out the art cupboard (a job I’ve been studiously avoiding for the last 5 years, I also bought a cube shelf for it that fits a bit more perfectly than I thought it would) and will over the next week or so probably have to sort out the rest of the crap that I’ve been putting off and should have probably done during covid except that I took the opportunity to go hard on this thing instead.

The last week has been more about trying to fit more stuff in, so work hours keep getting cut more and more and more (because apparently I shouldn’t be cutting sleep for some reason). And then on Friday my problem shoulder exploded (either pinched a nerve or it decided to become a frozen shoulder, I will find out which presently I guess) because I had the audacity to…stretch (literally all I did was stretch upwards). By evening I was popping painkillers (I don’t take painkillers because I have an irrational aversion to them) so I could run kids to places they needed to be, yesterday it was less bad and today it’s less bad again but still there and still occasionally annoying.

Those twisty horns from hell are so-called because they gave me a hard time when I was sculpting, a hard time the first time I was retopologising and a hard time this time round too but I got there eventually. I started off using speedretopo.

It’s the little things. I keep getting told not to worry about the tiny little details, because no one will ever notice them. I do sometimes (depending on how long I’m staring at something that I didn’t make). I’m reasonably certain that people might not notice the little details when they’re there, but will definitely notice them or at least pick up something “wrong” when they’re not. Depending on the style of the artwork of course. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself when I’m obsessing about all those little details.

Finally got done with the hands (or at least as done as I can be/am prepared to do). I really hope I don’t regret the decision to try and fix some of the more finicky things in the normal map later x_x This is actually the right hand. I usually work on the left side because I manage to get in my own way less on that side. I am showing off the right hand because I had to hide the right arm so I could start working on the wings.

There has been some hilarity with some of my previous progblogs as I’ve shared the dodgy looking things that usually end up happening whenever I’m building (at least characters, I haven’t done much else recently x_x) The above screenie is not that dodgy, it’s just highlighting those irritating bumps. All I want is a perfectly smooth mesh but pparently there are vertices that just jut out for no apparent reason regardless of what I’m doing with autosmooth and the smooth brush settings. I have wasted so much time on this that it’s well beyond ridiculous.

This is a really boring phase where things are super slow going but they need to be done to keep me happy. Other people obsess about mesh smoothness and stuff in obscure places like the soles of feet right?

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.

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).

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