January Update#1

Some more WIPs from the BG project. I also redid the lighting and the scene for the intro, as it became one of those things where I realized I’ve improved compared to what I had back then, which now feels somewhat outdated. Need to retouch the lighting for the other scenes so I shared the viewport renders for those.

I’ve got all the VA files, so I’m currently working on the body acting and lip syncing, something I didn’t really focus on before. Most of my old animations, if they had dialogue, barely had any correspondence between what was being said and how the rest of the character’s body reacted or acted it out. The characters mostly just moved their lips while the rest of the body was in a sort of ‘idle’ state, which always felt off putting.

This is definitely the hardest thing for me to animate at the moment, as it’s the area I’ve worked on the least. But considering I’d like to include more intros that set up the premise for why the characters are stepping into the ring to wrestle, it’s great practice. I’m getting more familiar and comfortable with the workflow as I go.

I’ve also dabbled in new ways to approach porting from DAZ to Blender, which should make the process of setting up rigs and textures significantly faster. I’ve got a model basically ready to start testing today, and I’ll see how much time this new approach saves.

The model in question is futa Darkseid. I made her on the larger side to reflect how imposing Darkseid is in the comics, which should allow for some fun size dynamics. Of course, that also comes with a complimentary serving of existential crisis when you realize that you now have to make that giant New God dong fit into anything...

If the new approach turns out to be as fast as I hope it will be, I can finally port some models that I’ve had on standby for a long time now, from both DC and Marvel.

As always, thank you very much for the support and stay safe out there!