UPDATE! 10.17.2018

Hello hello hello! Been a while. In fact it's been exactly enough time that I felt I needed to make an update even when I don't have new content ready (in a sense). I'm sure a lot of you were starting to wonder what's going on.

I've been working on the animation on Laurene Reads Erotica (more information about that at the end), but in fact I got really carried away working on a lot of other things.

Katie

I would say modeling Katie has been a success, and I feel she's my best model yet. There's a delicious "introduction" shot that I'm working on of her.

I'm gonna create the facial expression controls next since I believe this will be the final model for the moment. She went through a lot of iterations and I kinda lost her look at some point before circling back around.

I always have tried to make the models look similar to their original TK17 ones, but I find that I just don't find a lot of the parts in the originals that appealing and end up changing a lot. Plus I clearly have developed my own style of face. 

I gave her a rockin' tight butt and the obvious ginormous dick, and have been working on the boobs a lot - she's supposed to be one of my least busty models (but her breasts are still large) which I like because it gives her a more unique appearance. 

Since it was a new model and I was in no hurry I took on a few new things and fixed some things about the rig all my characters share, and retopologized her body a bit. 

I will probably still work on the dick more - it's not up to standards anymore as it's missing a few things it should definitely have. Making it stylized is a challenge so I have to be generous about how many details I wanna add. 

Physics

I've been dipping my toes into physics and let me say... it's very complicated! No, it doesn't involve me doing complex equations, but my rigs are having a very hard time working the way I want them to. 

Making breast physics for large breasts is next level difficult. You can 'fake' bounce with smaller ones as they don't need to hang off the body as much, but with bigger ones it's a whole different ball game. 

But I finally managed to make solid hair physics for Laurene. Her ponytail & little front strand give her so much personality that it was cruel I had to shoddily try to animate them with my bare hands. The only thing left is collision physics - right now they clip through everything if angled right, and as always the first 18 ideas didn't work, so now I'm just scrambling for the answers.

Laurene Reads Erotica

The colors and mood of the scene has shifted, hasn't it! 

I added things behind the window so it doesn't look like  they're doing it in the abyss. In general I worked on the textures of the room since it was missing a lot. 

I added an animated TV screen (it has Friends playing on it but tell no-one) opposite of the couch in hopes that it would softly flicker on the characters, adding more life to the scene. I made a test render and it was really not visible, so I'll have to work on that.

I've got a pretty good grasp of the mouth controls now which is great. I'm sure I'll make better versions at some point but for now they seem solid.

This might not mean much to you but I noticed I messed up the window shaders, so light wasn't actually coming in from the outside properly. That was a good discovery!

Other, random things I've worked on:

- Iris textures

- General rig upgrades - the hand controls are WIP, they're pretty terrible but I've been lazy and not doing anything about it

- Teeth (will be relevant one day)

- Textures textures textures! I have a better SSS map, the normal & roughness maps work together and it looks much better, I added detail to Laurene's face as well as fixed some spots on her & Ashley's make up

- went on a research craze and have been studying a lot on how I could improve my work

- other things I can't... recall... because I don't really document my work until I start writing these updates. That's bad practice, isn't it?

ANIMATION?

So. Why have I got so much done but this single animation is still on it's way? Well it's simple.

I haven't learned enough.

I know visually speaking how to make an animation as good as it can get. That's something I've been doing for almost 3 years. But where to start, where to go, what to animate, in what order, how to keep a handle on a hundred different pieces per character that require motion?

I've been missing the workflow. This is something I might have mentioned already, but it's definitely a real detriment to my speed and motivation. I'm very aimless because I keep being guilty of starting animations without any clue as to what I'm going to animate.

I just started watching tutorials on animating. Yes, I've never actually studied it - I had this lone wolf mentality going on and got a bit too prideful about needing help with animation. This was of course very silly of me, but we all make mistakes.

Things I need to do in order to animate better & be more motivated:

BLOCKING! This is a technique in animating in which you make the key poses first and then start working on the details in between. A ridiculously useful tool in order to figure out timing, the major pose changes, and structure. 

This is something I've never done! And I've been paying for it every time by loosing my way.

PLANNING

This is something I did at the start of the Laurene Reads Erotica project, and it worked out. I wrote down the flow of the animation and what I wanted to animate - it's essentially the first step towards blocking, so I suppose I already have evidence it's helpful!

PRIORITIZING

Deciding in which order you want to animate is great. Do I start with the hip movements? When do I make facial expressions? Finger gestures? I would benefit greatly from only working on one of these parts.

Starting off with the basic motions (blocking) and step by step working towards more intricate animation (simple, complex, finished) will help in seeing the progress.

So those are 3 good things that I will need to integrate right now or else I will be taking a month per animation forever. Wish me luck! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this, I've got a lot done this month. :)