Late-Night Study Session

I've said it before and I'll say it like a bunch more times: Boob grabs are a PAIN IN THE ASS.

Sorry, I wanna convey my feelings on this more accurately: Boob grabs are a FUCKING PAIN IN THE ASS.

They're a pain in the ass.

But, I think this is arguably the best-looking one I've ever done, and it wasn't nearly as huge a pain as all the past ones, because I went ahead and expanded my workflow!

The reason boob grabs are such a massive pain is largely related to topology, which is a 3D modeling term that pertains to the arrangement and distribution of vertices and edges across the surface of a model. Let's take a look. Here's an example of one of the past boob grab images I've done:

This is a lighter example, but you see how the fingers look like they're digging into the skin a bit? LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT THE BLENDER FILE.

Do you see why it's such a huge pain yet? No? Let's try looking at this shit from another angle:

Do you see?! I have to make that shit zig and zag back and forth for the outline rendering to come out right, both for the boob against the fingers and the fingers against the boob. In order for that to be possible, I need an entire edge loop (basically a line of "connect-the-dots" that radiates out on the boob there) to align with each finger AND each space between each finger. And then there's still no guarantee I'll have enough vertices there to give me the control I need to make good-looking curves.

So if the hand is grabbing from a certain angle, the entire breast may need to "twist" to allow the topology to line up right to create this sort of pattern. It sucks.

Which is why yesterday, I decided to try my hand at a new approach! I've always avoided trying to draw outlines in Gimp, because Blender renders them all perfect and clean, while the outlines I draw in Gimp look clearly different.

This time, I sat down for a while and just fucked with the brush dynamics until I actually came very close to simulating the same outline style as what my settings render in Blender. Then I used the curve path tool to make strokes for those curves, allowing me to take things WAY easier in Blender.

To demonstrate a little, here's the raw render out of Blender (plus a nighttime filter):

As you can see, I did a LITTLE bit of the same bullshit as above, for the index finger and thumb areas. But for the rest of it, I didn't worry about topology lining up at all. Instead, I drew over it:

Those new curves were drawn in Gimp! Don't they look like they just fit in perfectly? There's some exciting potential here.

Anyway, hopefully this means I'll be much less scared of doing more boob grab images, because THAT SHIT IS HOT. Still gonna be a pain in the ass though.