July ProgBlog #1

It's been an insane month and I didn't get much art done for most of it, hence the larger than usual dearth of progblogs. For the last few months Sprat and I have been closing down our business (which for me means doing all the techy stuff of moving or helping move websites, and at some stage I have more stuffing around to do with the server and more services to cancel), went to Melbourne for a quick getaway, my car was broken into and the house hunting has not stopped (except for this weekend where there were no house inspections except for a house we'd already viewed and JJ didn't organise any other ones).

I'm still not quite done with shifting sites around but am trying to catch up with the arty stuff again (I have yet to actually achieve that).

On the 3d front, the last time (so very long ago now) I tried doing the mouth cavity separate from the rest of the body mesh, it flew off into the stratosphere whenever I rotated the head. I never knew how to fix that specific issue, as the "fix" I ended up employing was just making the mouth cavity part of the body mesh. This was fine when I was only in one app, but now that I've actually got this teeny tiny little pipeline happening it led to freaking nightmare when retopologising characters because I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE retopo at the best of times and mouth cavities are the absolute WORST.

And then I had the slowly decreasing thing where I observed something I was unhappy with and had to fix it. In this case it was being unsure if the anime teeth I do for sketchies and even my proper 2d pieces really fit with my 3d style. After bouncing ideas off Sprat and asking the 3d artists on steemartists for advice on how to rig separate mouth cavities, and liking the idea of never having to retopo another bloody mouth cavity EVER AGAIN, I embarked on the mission of making some chompers that would better fit my 3d style.

The teeth themselves didn't take that long to build. Getting them into the right position and a convincing proportion on the other hand! There's a lot of toggling the base model visibility so I can see what I'm doing and make sure stuff is in the right spot. Then I have to do the tongues and the gummy bits. Once they're done I'll chuck it into 3dC for painting and then attach it to the model of Red (which I hopefully haven't completely broken with all of this experimentation) and then with some luck I may actually be able to get further into the expression test!

Also managed to do the flats for @f3nix's avatar.

@gorc commented that it looked like he was fixing some spy pocketwatch item thing in one of his games and "that's very nice of him" XD

Got a few upgoats to do and I still have exactly no idea what I'm doing with the symphonyofechoes header. Currently my only consolation is the account has been inactive for a couple of months and I'm pretty sure it wasn't because I was taking so long! After this one I'm not doing any more headers, I take too long.

This post also appears on my blog.

Stuff to do

• @symphonyofechoes header [aaargh!]
• avatar for @f3nix
• upgoats for @superoo7
• @anzub upgoats
• modifications to @lordnigel's upgoats

Want a crowd character? If you interact frequently with me here (either on my posts or your posts or better yet both!) or on one of the linked Discord channels, all you have to do is let me know and tell me what you'd like :) It can be one of your characters (including ones you make up on the spot for this XD) or a self insert. There's a bunch of different human types to choose from, and pets/other animals are also welcome.

Thanks for looking! ^_^

If you want to natter I usually haunt both the #teamaustralia channels (yes there's two, the PAL one and one for Aus/NZ), Be Awesome, and hang with the @steemartists on the server with the same name on Discord with a bunch of awesome people :D

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_{The steemaroo divider is free to use. Ask me nicely if you want an upgoat/cute critter footer.}