November Update 1

Hi, today I've an update for you.

I'm sorry I've kept you waiting so long for an update but I through I could work through this. I was wrong.

In the past I've been able to work through depression but this time it hit HARD and combined with the low energy, I just can't.

I've been struggling with this animation I've tried all the tricks I know to get me through this and nothing seems to help. So I'm going to go for the one thing that I've not tried, a rest.

I'm going to take a week and see how I am after that.

I'm including some WIP animation for what I've done so far see the original post I was going to make below for details.

I 'think' the animation is almost done but everything looks bad to me right now. I can't push myself enough to finish it.

I will post another update in a weeks time and see if I've recovered any.

original post I was going to make:

Hi, today I'm showing off WIP that are more WIP than I normally do, this means direct capture from the software showing the polygons and no fur. Like an actual racoon, the headshape of mine is formed with the fur, seeing either without fur is weird (one of the reasons I've avoided showing off WIPs recently is my characters are moving towards fur defining shape and them looking 'off' without it) but it seemed to be getting on in the month and I wanted to show that I'm still here grinding away at animation.

Why is this taking so long? well, a standard loop that I do is like 20-30 frames and I can refine and 'polish' that loop up real good, then roll that out multiple times, alter timings alter poses layer in animation. all the large and small changes that break up the 'loopyness'. The rimming animation has non of that, it's a 300+ frame single strait through chunk of animation that happens to loop at the end. That is the main issue and amplified all other issues I've been having, so when reading through the below, take into account.

The TL;DR is I've had several factors going against me, #1. this is a very long animation that I could not leverage looping to speed up. #2. I'm now dealing with the reality, again, that I have very little energy and #3. the period of depression that 2 brought on is lingering far more than I thought it would. which has hampered the critique/improve feedback cycle I use to animate.

to unpack the above, along with the aforementioned no solid loop foundation, I'm also dealing with very complex 'body mechanics'. The tongue needs to hit a small moving target, and to do so I need to have the raccoon's hips, torso, and head all moving correctly, and look good. Normally I have a lot more freedom in how I pose characters.

I've also been contending with 'artist block'. As I've shown in the past (e.g. robin wip from initial sculpt onward) I work very iteratively, I don't have an solid final idea I'm working towards. I just grind forward. keeping bits that look good, changing bits that don't. There are two drives I use for this, my perpetually enabled critic (sometimes I wish it had an off button). The bit that tells me "this does not look good" and normally accompanying that is a "maybe try this" Because of my current headspace. all I've been getting is the complains about things not looking right and very little in the form of improvement suggestions. I've needed to do a lot more "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" it's been exhausting. Hell I don't even know if what I'm showing off today is any good. it was just stepwise better than what was there before for a very large number of steps.