but i do like to make stuff. my buddy Gary got another year older, as he does every year. to celebrate/commiserate this, i made some art, using a character he made for his upcoming/current art show. i would like to say i was inspired, so i will. i was inspired. no really, it had nothing to do with procrastination, or wanting to mess about making a furry doll-man-bear.

still working with Sculptris, trying to build a design workflow. the slow part is re-topologizing in Blender, creating an efficient model for rigging and texturing. but with some of the updated tools, it is much easier than it was.

this character is an incidental one from my comic, who will probably appear again some day, if i ever get back to it. currently it is on hold, due to lack of motivation.

okay, this is too much fun. tomorrow i should do some plants. and an environment test. which will need an environment as well. who am i talking to? i should also look at transferring the sculpted details onto a lower resolution model, and building a quick pose rig. ha! i laugh at my naive ambitions. i could do all of that tomorrow. or i could get a real job. perhaps one that pays money. like raking leaves, or digging ditches. or stacking lumber. or folding clothes. or folding lumber. < sigh. >

apparently, i would rather spend time with imaginary people, and monsters, than actual people. i missed a couple of social gatherings last night, because i was distracted. i worked on a bunch of technical stuff yesterday, familiarizing myself with the new tools in blender. i am still clumsy with the cloth and particle hair simulations, but i am getting more comfortable with the multi-resolution modifiers, and the sculpting tools. i am not going to show of the female model i am working on, but this ceratosaurus is looking cool…

Dan mentioned that the T Rex was not a contemporary of the stegosaurus, so i had to come up with an appropriate predator, from the correct age. why? i dunno. i guess maybe… um. because? i just wanna build dinosaurs. and maybe i have an idea i would like to explore in narrative form. possibly.

…if only i could find a way to make a living building dinosaurs, i could do it all day long. and late into the evenings. and early in the morning. i have been using a new piece of software called Sculptris to quickly build base models. the version i am using on ubuntu is rather limited, as the some of the functionality is broken, but what does work, works well. i am looking at ways to integrate it into my workflow, so i will be taking these models into Blender, to do retopologizing, rigging, and texturing. i could also do the texturing in Sculptris, but i am not sure how well it would translate, having to transfer mapping between models. also, there are limitations within Sculptris, so i cannot go back to sculpting, once i have started texturing. so for now, i am just enjoying the experience of sculpting again. fun!