Guess what I've been up to! Well, all sorts of things all at once as usual, but between more art, more writing, a secret(?)ish project, and trying to finish this subpage that's been in development hell for four months, I've started to learn 3D modelling. After a looong time of thinking 'wow it'd be so cool if I could do that!', I finally took initiative and started to 'do that'.

Also as usual, I yap too much so I've decided to organize this log. I should maybe do this more often?

The Idea:

I've thought for a while of having a 3D model of my sona. Reason? I don't know, for fun. Also it'd be cool. Earlier, the plan was to make a Live2D model because I really wanted to see my sona move around and sync to my actions etc., but that plan never quite came to fruition because I had minimal access to my pc at the time and basically gave up after rigging the eyes. Also because I kept not finishing the model, remembering the model after a few months or so, hating the model I drew and redrawing it. I've done this three times.

The second and third models I did.

Not my best work, but I did kind of learn L2D layer separation. Also figured out a few render techniques along the way. I have no idea where the first one is, but it's not chibi, it was from when I didn't finalize their outfit design(s), and it's ugly as hell.

Some time after I'd finished drawing, started rigging, and given up rigging the third, I designed my current non-human sona, which you can currently see in my about page and also my gallery I guess. Since I hated the model I had now and I really didn't want to draw that sona a third time, I thought I'd try to model the current sona instead. I brought this up in conversation one day while talking to my wonderful and talented friend Debbie (SHAMELESS PLUG go check out her website!!) and she told me it'll be much easier to make a 3D model of that sona since it's basically just made out of basic geometric shapes.

'Hm,' I thought, and stored that idea into the neat little box in my head I have for things I really really ought to do and will be good for me, I promise.

Actually starting:

I wanted to use the design I did in the pinned art I have right now (close-up below). I ran this by Debs as well and upon hearing a mech body is easier to do than a human one, I went fuck it, I'll just redesign it (me?) to be fully mechanical. I can do that. It'll be cool.

Which means I set myself back to point zero because now I have to do the design before I can move on to drawing the reference image and starting the model.

The good part about this is that hey, I am actually finally giving my sona a mech body design. This is something I intended to do from the moment I made that sona, but didn't really know how at the time. (Thank you again Transformers for forcing me to learn how to draw mechs.) Also all that about the rigging/modelling being easier later on. The bad part is I'm putting off getting started on learning because I kept getting stuck on the design.

My progress so far.

Aside from not really knowing how to design mechs in general, I ran into several self-imposed hurdles. First, I was going to just repurpose the mech parts I already had, as well as maybe taking some from the other half-mech design of it I had (which is the little sprite on my links page... gosh lots of links in this post), and then I ended up not doing that. Reason being some parts really just did not make sense and I really needed to plan out how the parts move, etc. beforehand. Second, I thought about slacking off on designing the chest and the shoulders because I was supremely stuck on designing that part and it was covered by the little jacket anyway. But then I thought 'no, but what if I want to make an alternate version without the clothing on' and went on to figure out the design anyway.

As I have discovered, my biggest setback is just me.

So, Blender. I decided I might as well watch a few tutorials while I'm still stuck on the design, or something, which means I of course went to something that's decidedly not a tutorial. Which, in this case, is very good for me because the video was made by someone who's also a beginner, fun to watch, somewhat informative about the things you do in Blender, and most importantly actually did make me think learning blender is gonna be a breeze. It also made me re-discover how cute low poly models are. (This ties into a decision I make later.)

At this point, believing that I could very well fully master the app if I so intended, I really wanted to get started, so I fucked around in blender randomly and made this TV head, among other things:

I don't know why I can't stop laughing at what I made, but then again I'm me.

The only things I know how to do is add a cube, I to inset, E to extrude, and S to scale, all of which I learned from another tutorial that is actually a tutorial. I wasn't making this model very seriously, as my intention was only to familiarize myself with the app.

Anyway, I went out that day and found a cafe to sit at thinking I was going to make some progress on my art or write something, but instead I grabbed my mouse and headphones and ended up following the aforementioned tutorial to create a low poly humanoid body (with my own stylistic adjustments, of course).

Well, damn. Since I did all that and since I really wanted to make something in low poly anyway -- and the design I'm going for with my sona doesn't seem too compatible with a low poly style either -- I guess I'm making this model for serious.

Actually actually starting:

I should mention that the TV head wasn't something that came out of nowhere. I wanted to try to make a character of mine using minimal shapes, similar to in that first video I watched, and I remembered this little guy I had.

Cove, he/they/it. CRT monitor.

While I played around with the model in that coffee shop I made my first fuckup, which I promptly reported to Debs:

She told me to turn on "something called snapping or clipping", and I just did not see the second part of that message I guess, and instead turned on a random function that was something like snap to grid before moving the two halves back together. Which is great, until I discovered I fucked up a second time:

We decided that I should share my screen over discord so she can help me with the model easier (texting can only be so efficient). Turns out yeah, the issue was I didn't have clipping on in the mirror modifier. The gap issue was fixed, for real, and so was the second fuckup. Clipping is really useful.

Several things we discovered during the stream:

• I can't use the number hotkeys because I'm on a laptop and don't have a numpad
• I accidentally made the model 20 meters tall
• The annotate feature sucks honestly, but that's probably because I'm not using a tablet

I fixed him to be only a meter tall, which is about his canon height. Stream was really productive and I learned a ton of stuff about the app, the specifics of which I can't recount because my memory is Just That Bad. Debs fixed a lot of the model's topology for me and had to dissect him to fix presumably the shoulders and also the too-small gap between the legs. I say presumably because I wasn't watching. I figured I should use the time to work on a drawing instead of looking at her work (we were both sharing our screens, courtesy of Discord Features). Which, okay, maybe I shouldn't have done that because if I had watched I might've learned more stuff, but whatever.

We ended the call after around two hours. I was going to put a screenshot of how the model looked then, but I apparently didn't take any... gahh I'll remember to do it next time I decide to write a log again.

I was happy with the progress. Much better than what I could've done on my own. I must admit having someone watch you work (and also guide you along) is a really good motivator for progress. Only in this case though.

Day Two:

Not a ton of progress, but I figured the hollow hood looked weird because I didn't account for the extra fabric that would fold over and create a lump inside(?). So I did this:

Don't mind how I say 'morning' at 12PM. I'm on holiday. I'm allowed to wake up late and classify noon as morning because I woke up late.

The fix still kind of looked weird and unnatural, but I had other stuff on my plate that day so that was the only bit of progress I made.

Day Three:

More hood fixes!

There was an attempt.

Debs said she'd take a look at it and ended up fixing it for me ~again~ . Did I say fix? I mean remake entirely. Earlier I had found a reference image to try and figure out the structure of this kind of hood, and we had completely different interpretations of that:

I thought the hood and the collar were one thing and she thought it was two. Her interpretation seemed more reasonable but I genuinely cannot make out how it actually works still. Anyway, as long as it looks good on the model, I'm all for it.

We hopped on stream once again that night and I adjusted the collar some more. I wanted the edges to not look sharp from the front, but I can't bevel the three vertices there because that would result in the faces on the shoulder having five vertices, which is something you don't want, apparently. We figured out a workaround, which was to add another loop cut to the side so that one loop can be moved forward, and vertices can be adjusted to achieve the idea I want. Nice.

This probably sounds super abstract but I'm a Blender beginner and I have no idea how to talk 3D model talk, so forgive me. I'll get better at this eventually.

I made some changes to the connection between the hood and the collar, and then it was time to make the clothes a part of the main body. Since this was low poly I figured I should get rid of anything you can't see from the outside, i.e. connect the arms (which I directly made to be sleeves) to the hoodie's torso part, making the hoodie, and deleting the middle part of the torso. I rushed this in the final few minutes of the stream because I had to leave real soon, and it was fine, really. Not as hard as I thought it'd be. Also learned about more Blender hotkeys I need to burn into my mind in the future.

I could just end it there and begin texturing, but I wanted to try and make the creases of the pants at either the knees or above the shoes, or both if I can manage it. I haven't done this yet, but I learned how to do it. V to rip behaves really jankily and feels like forbidden knowledge. I don't know how it decides whether to cut out the top half or the bottom half, it seemed random to me. But that's a problem for another day.

Final progress check:

Are you proud of me? I'm really proud of me.

End Log:

I had to stop working on the model because of New Years' custom stuff and also preparing for a trip (I was being dragged outside a lot). Also had to put aside some time to write this log, but all in all it was a promising start. Blender is unironically a ton of fun and you should totally also learn it, if only to fuck around. Yes, you, dear reader. If you're any bit interested in 3D modelling you should try to play with Blender. I encourage the making of things as recreation >:3.

I'm currently out of country on a trip but I did bring my laptop and mouse, so if I do manage to make more progress in my time here there will be a BlendLog #2. If not, there'll just be another blog post. Either way I will... look up to the sky in hope anticipating what tomorrow brings me, I guess!