This weekend, I spent some time working on my model project from last year. Here is the progress:
This model is based on my character Ariel, who I’ve been developing for close to a decade. I would say that the top half of the model is mostly complete, save for me being a little unhappy with the details of the face.
I’m feeling something is not quite right about it. The texture work isn’t done yet, so that differs, but the shape of the eyes and mouth need a little work.
I’m learning a ton about Blender as I take on this project. It’s a really ambitious one. I have multiple layers of the character’s clothing, as you can see in the image above, and I’ve just learned about the Custom Properties functionality of Blender that can be utilized to drive other properties. So, with this functionality, I can create switches to toggle layers such as the jacket or necklaces if I want them on or off. Or, for example, I have the legs modeled, but I don’t want or need the geometry visible when the pants are modeled on top, so I drive the geometry only visible underneath the pants to go invisible when the pants are toggled. I could just delete the legs, but I feel for posterity that I’d like to keep the base model, in the case that I ever want to do anything else with the model in the future. This also gives me the ability to make multiple different outfits, mix and match.
It’s interesting to me that this project has been going on for more than a year, on and off. I really hope to finish this model soon. I’ll try to post more updates when I make significant progress on it.
