Ryn Fluff

A side-profile view of a furred dragon character's face displayed in Blender. His mouth visibly clips into his fang and there's a gap in his lips.

A side-profile view of a furred dragon character's face displayed in Blender. Things are much more cohesive as his lips press together in a more natural fashion that respects his teeth.

I'm fixing up some of the older face tracking blendshapes on my avatar, and it's such a joy doing facial animation again.

Here's MouthPressLeft before and after today's touch-ups.

It's a subtle expression but the little details like curling the lips around the fangs bring it to life for me.

When learning from other artists, keep asking "what do I like about this?" instead of getting too rigid with your comparison.

Explore what you like. Leave the rest.

No cheating. Post the last pic of your pet.

Creatives, stop explaining yourself for taking breaks, logging off, making what you want, fangirling over your favorite fandom, drawing the same characters over and over, drawing what you want, learning what you want, doing whatever the heck you want

do you, babes

Early morning fox with a cup of coffee. Clearly didn't sleep well. Don't startle him please.

Look mom the artist is functional again !

FFXIV is like that. It's nice to be able to try stuff out without consequence.

Me in every class-based game.

A little before and after showing the changes I've made to the face. It's come a long way from stock.

(this excellent base is the Waggan by @quaggycharr.bsky.social found here: quaggycharr.gumroad.com/l/hhrmh
The topography is fantastic!)

Not the book! D:

A grayscale Blender view of an anthropomorphic fluffy dragon creature's face at an angle to show off its more refined contours.

I finally plugged the Blender back in and got back to work on the lad. I think I'm satisfied at last with his face. It feels very "me".

On desktop, I highly recommend the extension Unhooked. It has lots of options for disabling shorts or recommendations in general.

A black, wired phone with a small paper sign that says "FREE!" laying in the dirt.

A zoomed out view of the same phone, showing that it's just on the side of the sidewalk in front of somebody's house.

Anybody need a free phone?

I think Reddit in general went downhill after the mass exodus and deletions.

It sure was a movie and it definitely had a huge budget. The integration of 3D art with human actors is some of the cleanest I've seen and the rendering was pretty.

That's about all I've got for positives.

Welcome to the Local Leaky Impulse Bucket Show, where all we do is talk about the Local Leaky Impulse Bucket and why it's the best, most versatile node ever made. Each week we're going to demonstrate another unique use for the beautiful Bucket that keeps on leaking greatness!

there will be plenty of things out there that are not to your taste, but this culture of saying yuck to sincerity to get little more than an empty laugh - it will destroy your heart.

A stylized representation of my current mental state.

Properly horrifying results. Excellent.

... I'm now imagining avatars making awful squeaking and grinding sounds every time a limb bends in any way that causes mesh clipping and it's both hilarious and horrible.

1) Highly simulated material-based audio reverb.

2) Session hosts can now set up spoken phrases such as "Silence, mortal." and "Return from whence thy came!" to mute and kick users.

3. The ability to import bone constraints from Blender so I don't have to set them up every time I import.

(4/4) I'm open to advice and suggestions.

Or even just open discussion about open ended commissioning and/or motivation when doing art for money.

Perspectives from the "consumer" side are also valuable.

(3/4) it's a luxury and money is tight for most people. This leads to me charging little or nothing for my work, and/or taking on work from people I'm less close to because it's hard to ask my friends to pay me, both contributing to less motivation for the task and burning out.

(2/4) and often frustrating discussions about what's reasonable to accomplish in an affordable amount of time. That part of it is draining and doesn't often feel good, especially when I'm still grappling with the feeling that nobody will want to pay much money for these services because

I wish I had the motivation to make money from art.

What I do (VR avatar editing in Blender) is difficult to market. I'm basically a mechanic and have to charge hourly for most things.

Because of that, the few commissions I've done required a large amount of overhead in clarifying asks, (1/4)

get rotated idiot

My art motivation seems to fluctuate wildly between:

"I'm pursuing my dreams and growing and expressing myself and that's beautiful. I'm gonna go places with this!"

and

"Here I am in my pointless little corner making pointless little things nobody cares about. Sigh."

Historically some things that helped me were journaling, yoga, and exercise in general. Things that either let me sort through my thoughts or put me in touch with my body and the physical thing I'm doing at the moment.

All things I would benefit from getting back in the habit of... 😅

Which is frustrating because there are so many things I want to do and I feel like I'm currently not able to keep up with it all.

I've always struggled with not knowing how to take meaningful restorative rest. I usually want to be "doing" something.

I've been dealing with that a lot lately since things have been stressful with work, finances, and life events.

I especially feel the "resistance". Lately when I'm worn out and I try to focus on something difficult, it feels like my mind is putting up a wall and telling me to stop.

Oops.

Todays' updates.

- Changes to the eyes to make them more draconic.

- A slight narrowing of the muzzle horizontally and vertically.

- Shrunk the fangs and conformed the lips more nicely.

- Chin reshape.

- Fixed the blink to accommodate the new eye shape.

(he eep)