December 2022 Update

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!! I hope you have been enjoying the holidays and the end of 2022 and beginnings of 2023!

For this month the update will be text only. December was quite a busy month and I got started a bit late so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked!

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For Tekki I've mostly been cleaning up the weight painting around the mouth, editing the animations of the face and also re-organizing and re-applying the action constraints [I wanted to separate left and right sides from some of the animations, and removing and re-applying the constraints was less confusing.]

In the previous update I mentioned an issue where moving the jaw bone above it's default position [closed mouth] would make the upper lips rise and reveal the teeth. The issue was caused by a constraint that... I'm not super sure if it's currently serving a purpose, so I'm planning on not removing it but just disabling it, and seeing if anything breaks. I am confused because I think it might be a leftover from the mechanism from the course, but I thought I had already removed the unnecessary mechanisms.

[[to explain how the mechanism works, it's 3 bones: bone #1 follows the jaw 100%. bone #2 follows the head (which means it stays put/won't move separate to the head). And bone #3 is the bone that actually moves the lip, it's mostly influenced by the head (stays in place) but because it has a small influence from #1 through a modifier, it always follows the jaw slightly, so when the jaw moved up past the rest position, the upper lip would follow a little and reveal the teeth! ]]

I don't have anything that shows a big difference, only that I've added the "side bones" to the lips so that each side can be moved individually.

The controls make it a bit hard to see but for the pics a the top I've just moved the lip controls up. And for the pic at the bottom I "rolled in" the upper right lip bone and the lower left lip bone [our right and left]. The brows also deform better after editing the weights a bit, but changes like that are pretty subtle.

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I've also added pics from some 3D detours! 

The Cerebella [Skullgirls] base shapes is something I've been thinking about and wanted to try this month. I was wondering if I could make something that follows the original art style. I am still curious about taking it further, at least finishing the base shapes, but I'll probably leave it like that for now.

The other two were from November, I just forgot to add them that month.

I really REALLY want to make a Marik Ishtar [YuGiOh] 3D model at some point, since he's been one of my favorite characters for so long. And the big question in my head has always been "which art style?".
I don't know if it'd be best to keep it as close to canon as possible or my own style and risk the character not being as recognizable. And then... If I make just Malik, that's one thing, but what if I also wanted to make Bakura and Yugi... Bakura isn't as difficult to picture in my style but what about Yugi's hair, that is tricky to translate even in drawing, let alone 3D.

So I wanted to make a little test, just a rough sculpt of his head and see what I could come up with! 

And then there is the Fantroll [Homestuck] base shapes! This is another thing I am very conflicted about and why I was curious to make a little test. I already know I want to make models of some of my fantrolls eventually, but what style would be best?
I draw them in different ways and each has it's advantages, from more detailed to a simpler style similar to the webcomic.
More detailed would be very pretty, but presents a lot of challenges.
Simple bypasses so many of the challenges, for example I've given very silly hairstyles to my characters that will be difficult to translate to 3D, but if the style is more simple and more low-poly, then it stops being that difficult.

Examples: 

So I would like to make tests both for a simpler style as well as for a more detailed style. 

I don't plan on taking these little detours further. I mostly wanted to scratch that itch to try something else for a bit. Although I daydream about making so many models, finishing Tekki comes first, and I'd also like to make some animations with her before starting a new project. When the time comes to start a new model I'll show you guys some of my candidates and ask for thoughts and suggestions!

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This year I am definitely going to finish Tekki. I am also going to continue following the "Alive" course, maybe in February, to continue learning how to animate. And I'd also like to build a little environment and props so I have somewhere to place Tekki!

I am really looking forward to this year!

Thank you guys so much for your support, I hope 2023 will treat you well and offer many great things and lovely memories!