#harpy3d

Project: Draconic Lady

Played around with the Arnold Hair shader last week trying to get the right shade to match the concept and also the horns.

Went through quite a few iterations, first starting off just playing around with the Melanin levels and randomness as alot of the tutorials spoke about. At first I thought it looked pretty good but as soon as I tested it against the actual model witht the reference (top image) I realised it was way too orange compared to the almost peachy-red of the concept. I especially didn't like how the ends were quite yellow.

So I tested using just the base colour (Second image set) which at first I liked quite alot and was going to go with but after some feed back that it looked too flat and unrealistic I decided to keep playing around

So I added a ramp to the base colour to give it a nice gradient effect (Third Set)

And then I spend ages playing around with adjusting the melanin and randomness!

Too much and it looked more intersting but imediately started getting those awful yellow tips instead of the nice peachy ones. Not enough and it was too flat

So I finally laned on the last image which was the base colour ramp with .15 Melanin and .2 Melanin Randomness. Which I am pretty happy with, I think it has some nice variation while still matching up with the concept.

I meant to post this when I finished it last week but was too caught up in exporting the texturing maps. Been working on settin up the cards and getting the model into Maya this week, so I am about a week behind in my progress, but I'm planning on trying to stick to weekly Friday Updates now that I am back to regularly working on my projects again so will post that progress next Friday

Project: Draconic Lady

Spent the last couple of months studying/learning how to make hair cards and use Xgen. It's been awhile since I learnt something new so i kind of forgot my process and how much longer it takes when you are learning.

I was aiming to get this project done by mid year but because you can never really account for what will go wrong that you have to figure out. Or know how long things actually take because you have never done it before, that didnt happen. So like with everything this year, I have just kind of chilled out with the whole concept of a deadline and enjoyed the ride. And I have found it enjoyable, I forgot how much I do like figuring something out and how it feels when you start getting results.

I have also been keeping a hair card study document while working on this, just recording all my resources and the steps to the process. It needs cleaning up but at the end I might share it for anyone who interested.

The clumps got finished off the other day, some of them I really like how they turned out and others less so. I probably made more than I needed but I figured as I don't really know what I need I would just make a bunch and hope some of them work out haha

Using the reference images as a guide and then creating curves defintely made a huge difference to having control over the shape of the hair. I don't think I would have been able to get the same results so easily just using modifiers, so really reccomend doing that. It can be a bit finicky to start with but once you kinda work out its quirks its great!

Project: Draconic Lady

After doing a bunch of study on how to tackle hair cards I started working on getting reference together, the plan was origninally to pull out pieces of hair from the reference and then do drawovers to make my clumps but after just lassoing them out I kind of felt like it might be worth just using the cut outs and seeing what I can get from that, thought it might save me some time so was a worth a try and I am keen to get into XGen and start figuring that out. My last expericne was with NHair and I found it pretty tricky. So I figure I just need to jump in already and start figuring it out, then I am sure I will whether this was a good idea or not.

Project: Draconic Lady - Horn & Eye Texturing

This is a late notice, I always keep forgetting to update this blog when its 1am and I am updating all my social (probs should make a checklist for that >_>)

BUT I am have commenced Sculptember 2018, the challenge I have set for myself is to sculpt a 3hr bust sculpt every day for 30 days.