Nyeng!

For the past month or two, I’ve been getting myself in gear.  I’m determined to build up an audience to a point where I’ve got a better shot at crowdfunding a short film within a year or two.  Getting started on some comics or even animations will help, but for now I’m pushing myself to draw more frequently, and I’m posting those images to more sites.

Most of my art gets posted on my DeviantArt account.  I have a modest following there, and I especially like having an age wall restricting access to my nude images.  Plus, my audience there ‘gets’ Daisy – at least, I hope they do – so I don’t have to explain or defend her as much.

More recently, I set up a Facebook page for my work.  I only post SFW images there, partly because I don’t think Facebook has a way of setting up age-restrictions, but also because I have family watching my page.

Tumblr is another one I’ve been posting to recently.  With news of it being acquired by Yahoo, I’m wondering if I got in too late, and will need to find something else.  Time will tell, I guess.   Yahoo already said they’re going to clean up the site, to make it more family-friendly…  maybe then my Daisy images won’t be reblogged on hardcore porn pages.

I’ve a new Youtube channel which, aside from my demo reel and the occasional tool demo, I’m trying to find a use for.  I have some videos I could post of my brother’s dogs…  it might not fit with my other stuff, but people love dog videos.

CGSociety, CGHub, and 3DTotal are other sites I could be posting my stuff too…  But they’re fairly 3D-centric, and lately I’ve only had time for hand-drawn pics.  CGS and CGH do have 2D galleries, but mostly for crazy-talented painters…  My inks and color fills don’t exactly fit in.

Posting to all these sites leaves me wondering just what to do with my personal domain.  I still post 3d WIPs here when I can, but those could easily be switched over to my Facebook page, or to any of the other sites.

I finally got around to compiling a modeling & animation reel of my work from MoonSpider –

I might update it later, to show off my skinning work. I don’t really feel like putting each model through some test animations, though…

One thing that’s surprised me, is just how complex the jaw rig is.  I’m used to rotating the jaw joint directly, but Malcolm’s is set up so that the jaw control’s rotation is divided, experessions are used to move the joint’s groups to compensate.  Picking it apart, I can see how it works, but understanding the thought process behind it is just out of my reach at the moment.

While I was able to duplicate Malcolm’s eye rig on Rose, the jaw will require some tweaks.  When I draw Rose, I’ll shift her nose and mouth around to keep her appealing. Without that kind of control in Maya, her face ends up looking way too long.  One way to fix this, is to cut the actual jaw movement half, and her lower lip (and teeth) move down.

Of course, getting the perfect jaw rig for may have to wait.  Aside from more contract work coming in, setting up the perfect rig for her wasn’t really my goal.  Once I add a few more blendshapes and set up her shaders, I should just pose her and be “done” with it.  I can always come back and do more rig experiments later.

I spent most of today setting up the pose sliders for Rose’s eyes, but I’d say the results are worth it –

Yesterday I noted that it is much easier to understand how a rig works by rebuilding it.  Something else I learned today, is that a character’s skin solution isn’t set in stone when you start rigging.  As you’re setting up the rig, you may find it necessary to add helper joints to assist the deformation.  In this case, Rose’s eye corners were sinking into her cheeks when I pull the slider down.  Some extra joints help to pull the surrounding areas down, to even things out.

I’ve also added something I think the Malcolm rig was lacking: having the eyes affect the surrounding mesh as they rotate -

One other trick I’m trying out might be overkill – rather than using a wrap deformer to attach the eyebrows, I’m using a series of joints that are constrained to the surface.  The main advantage to how I’ve set it up, is I can easily pull the eyebrow away from the surface for a more cartoony effect.  I suppose I could have gotten the same effect by applying a cluster to the wrap-deformed brows, but I’m sure this technique may have its uses elsewhere…

Rose is inching closer to completion – Her body is mostly weighted, with only a few parts of the face remaining. The face is especially tricky, because I’m attempting to implement a Malcolm-style rig.

I’d been picking through Malcolm’s rig for some time, but it’s much easier to understand how things work by building it on a fresh model.  While the various layers are a lot to take in, simply duplicating the rig isn’t much fun.  I’m adding my own touches wherever I can…

Her hair and clothes are skinned as well.  I think the only things left are skinning the shows, modeling more blendshapes, maybe some pose corrections, and then setting up the shaders.

I’m ready to be done with Rose.  3 months in, and she’s close to being finished, but each step forward at this point takes more effort than the last.

I’ve at least got a good start on her blendshapes -

And I’ve finally started working on her shoes -

 Once these are done, that leaves skinning and rigging…  neither of which I’m looking forward to.

I thought I was done with it, but I’m still toying with Rose’s face.

It’s slow-going, but I think I’ve come up with a look for Rose’s pants that I can live with, at least for now –

I was going to try for a more realistic look, but I have neither the ability nor the patience to do so.  Instead, I attempted a more stylized map in Illustrator, with a faint amount of the actual denim texture blended in.

Still need to give her some shoes, so I can start skinning.

A little more progress – her glasses are finished (the model, at least), the brows are blocked in, as is the stray bit of hair -

Her shirt and pants are also at least blocked in -

I’m still a bit stuck on how to handle the clothes.  Even though I’ve started cutting them in, I wonder if things like the pockets would be better as textures rather than actual detail.  But then the textures will be another challenge – I have tons of denim scans from years back that could be used for the pants, but I’m tempted to try a more stylized approach, if I can figure out how to simplify it but still have it look like denim.

Also I haven’t decided on footwear.  I’m tempted to put her in high heels, but the extra rigging challenge is one I don’t want to deal with any time soon.

Rose is getting to that point where updates are small, but no less time-consuming.  I still need to finish her glasses & clothing, and give her eyebrows, but for now I’m experimenting with her maps & shaders.

I’ve also started simplifying her hair, to try and get a somewhat more natural edge flow, and to cut down on the point density toward the ends.  Being able to smooth the mesh without crashing Maya is also a plus.