A Change in Workflow and Style pt.3

Yet another blog post about changing my art! :) 

I posted another photo set last week, but I still wasn't very happy with the 
face, which is the same problem I had with my first photo set too. It isn't 
terrible, but just felt off when comparing it to other artists, both 3D and 
2D. As I compared things to 2D art more, that's when I started to think 
about actually drawing myself. Of course its probably a bit unfair to compare 
my 3D characters to drawings, but in the end I simply want my art to be the 
best that it can be. Whether it's 3D or a drawing or music etc, I care about my 
ideas more than the medium itself.

I thought about it for awhile, and actually did buy a small Huion drawing tablet just 
to test things out. However the tablet was far too small, and drawing was 
frustrating compared to the workflow of using a keyboard and mouse that I am 
used to with Blender. It was my mistake to buy the cheapest and smallest one 
available, So in the end I've returned to Blender for now while I go through 
the process of returning this small tablet and finding a decent sized one that 
will work for me.





One of the biggest changes I made was trying to balance realism with anime. 
Since I am not doing a NPR (Non-photorealistic) workflow, going too far with an 
anime style started to be detrimental. For example I ended up feeling that 
having no lips looks worse, and the outline that I had around the character was 
annoying to work with because of the ambient occlusion that I use. I think the 
characters also look more expressive and feminine with more emphasized 
eyelashes compared to the simpler ones.

I also decided to add the lips back not just for realism, but also because the 
Rigify rig for Blender updated with the 3.0 update! This update upgrades the 
face rig to a modular version that has much better deforms by default in my 
experience. So hopefully I shouldn't have to fight against it so much just to 
get a nice expression anymore!



So with that said, I'll be doing my best to focus on getting back to making 
photo sets soon and avoiding any further random delays where I fix up a bunch 
of stuff in the background. I'll be sure to give an update about the drawing 
tablet too once it arrives and what kind of art I want to do going forward. 

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