So, I’m slightly late, but I decided to make a post about last year, and what I want from this year.

2019 was a bit of a positive year for me. It was difficult, personally, with some things that have been going on in real life, but I think for my art it was a bit better. I have a terrible perfectionism problem. Even with fics. But I was able to make a little bit of progress on it last year. I started writing True Sound, and did several chapters of An Unconventional Union already with Yan. I also wrote several more chapters than are currently released.

But, if you look at the amount of posts I’ve made here, and on my Tumblr…It’s not many. I experimented more, prototyped…But I didn’t do nearly enough finished works. I was still so bogged down trying to make it “good enough” and being bothered by how 3d it looked. Because of that, I didn’t finish much, even though I wanted to. I’m frustrated with myself for that. I want to do more. I want to be better and show my art and ideas, too. I tried last year to beat that stupid perfectionism, and I progressed, but it’s still there.

This year, I want to kill it. To make a lot more, and post a lot more, without worrying so much if it’s not perfect, or how NPR or 2d-looking it is. Those are my goals, but if I spend so much time trying to get one perfect thing, what will I have to show for myself? One thing.

Another thing I want to work on is my energy. I find for some reason, I’m frequently low on energy. It makes it difficult to do anything, and with the internet and such in easy reach, it’s too easy to end up vegging out for hours. Part of it is because I’m off my antidepressants, I’m sure. But I need to knuckle down and make myself focus, and, again, push that perfectionism aside. I have fics I want to write, and art to make. It won’t do itself. Though I’m told I should also take more breaks, too, rather than being constantly in a mindset of thinking I’m meant to be working. I find it difficult to relax these days. I hate it. I can’t seem to switch off, but being switched on doesn’t mean I’m in the right mindset or have enough energy. It’s like being awake enough that you’re not asleep, but too tired to move.

Still, I am trying. To prove that, I have some work in progress images to show. I started a Ryou model the other day. After spending a few hours, I was able to make his face and upper body. He also has a lower body, but, as per usual, it’s trash. I’m very, very poor at legs and waists. I invested in some videos about sculpting and anatomy that I need to watch to learn more, and get more references.

It’s extremely rough at the moment. I started out sculpting him a bit aimlessly. I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing with his face. I know that I want faces on my Yugioh art to be stylised in some way, but I’m not quite sure how, so I’m just trying to go with what I like.

• 

• 

• 

Now that I look at it, the side is very squished. That’s not right at all.

I think the look I’m going for is sort of psuedo anime? Slightly stylised proportions and shape, but keeping some realistic elements, like realistic anatomy and proportions, and features like noses, rather than more common anime kinds like noses stylised to points, or, on very stylised or chibi characters, that sort of snout-shaped face.

• 

• 

Looking at Yugi’s hair as an example, I don’t think Yugioh characters would adapt to a totally realistic style very well. If he was rendered in complete realism, his hair would destroy it by looking unnatural as hell. It just isn’t how realistic hair looks or works, especially elements like the red edges to it; that could, maybe, be styled as his hair becoming redder at the ends or something, but that wouldn’t hold up from multiple angles. So, I think a semi-realistic style at most is best for him and the other Yugioh characters I want to make models of.

• 

• 

• 

My other problem is that Ryou is very slim. I’m used to doing more muscular characters to learn anatomy, so I’ve made him far too fit just by default. I need to slim him right down until he looks suitably bishonen, haha. But truly, this model is, in its current state, embarrassingly bad. I didn’t reference a lot so far, partly because I couldn’t be bothered and partly because I was in the zone when I was doing it and didn’t want to kill my momentum. So it has lots of problems, like the terrible waist that has no hips, the weird shape from the side, the back being altogether horrible, the lack of ribs and serratus, which I basically flattened to oblivion because they were horrible…He’s too broad, to boot, and too narrow from the side.

I wanted to just power through it before I lost momentum by stressing about those, but I really should correct them before sculpting more on him. If he’s missing landmarks and correct muscle placement, it won’t look better when it’s slim and smoothed; it’ll only be blobby.

It’s really horrible to me, so far. Some work can fix it, and I’m going to try that. Yan encouraged me to show more wips and all, so I’m trying that. I want to show more of them as the year progresses, too. I’d like to get more skilled and able to finish them better and more quickly, though.

Still, this is something, at least. And when I put it through 3DCoat’s basic renderer, it doesn’t look entirely terrible with shading. There’s a lot to fix, but it exists, at least. And this as it stands, even when corrected, should be a far cry from how he’ll look with my shaders and NPR techniques.

So, I think I am making progress. Baby steps, maybe, but still, progress. I want to post more this year, so hopefully I’ll post some updates soon as I progress on him. I want to make a Ryou basemesh to derive our au-versions from, and do the same for other characters as well.

For now, I’ll just try and work on it when I have time, and try to push those negative thoughts out of my mind.