Progress Report, 02/07 - 21

Hello everyone and welcome to the first progress report of July!

We're approaching High Summer, as we call it here, which means the heat is ramping up its assault on our senses, society and general existence. But that is no excuse for shirking my work here, which, indeed, has continued this week.

More specifically, The Convict has seen a lot of improvements on its scene structure, and made some strides with additional scenes added. I realized fairly quickly that I had put myself in a difficult position when I began a scenario set in a time when Jack's completely shaved on the head (ME2 recruitment mission), and the models available on Blender are her ME3 variant (who has hair), meaning I'll have to be sneaky with camera work and the likes to not give up the game. But that's a me-problem: more importantly, it's steadily growing outside the bounds of a regular Scenario, and instead looks to be pushing into at least Small Project territory. The script that's forming in my head, especially, will no doubt require VA work to make it viable, and I have as such begun to slowly capitulate to the idea that this might become my first proper Blender project to date. Regardless, work on it continues and I'll keep you posted here on the matter.

In other news, I'm in the process of making something of a short-comic featuring Wonder Woman. This both because her model is amazing and demands more screen-time, but also because I would very much like to get some practice in working comic panels and the likes, as I'm still quite unfamiliar with high grade editing programs (finding GIMP pretty hard to get into for instance) and I don't think anyone of us here wants to see my future comic endeavors solely accomplished through MS Paint compression. Again, more to share about this in the near future, but it's taking shape very nicely, and I find working with different mediums like this keeps my creativity flowing.

Another project that saw some attention this week was, oddly enough, Blitzballs, featuring our dear Lulu from Final Fantasy X. Aardvark just released a new DAZ model of her that is, in no uncertain terms, pretty damn amazing, and I find my attention drawn to it on occasion. We'll see what this translates into, as I am eager to complete some of the older projects that I've had on the backburner for a while, all the while I amass the skill set to actually tackle the large Blender ones.

Speaking of, Continued Negotiations is being put on ice for the time being - the reason being that I honestly consider it something of my magnum opus, and I really, genuinely want to have a solid understanding of Blender physics, including fluids, to make it truly shine. I want reactive, physical collisions and for seed to leak out of them from creampies, skin to get wet and mattered from the action, etc. Thus, until such a time that my skill set has increased in the program, and I have accrued the funds for the massive VA budget required for the project, I'll keep it under lock and key.

Commission work continues, so I will get to you all who have been promised slots in the near future, with some addendum.

Next week we're approaching the midway point through the year, so I will soon be making a big update post on the state and my views of our on-going project lineup.

As always, thank you for your continued support and for all of your kind words! The heat is truly becoming a killer up here, and we've already had to put out more than a few wildfires as it is. Hopefully nothing major breaks out, as pretty much anywhere here has major forested areas nearby. Fingers crossed, and trust in your fire departments and volunteers.

Stay safe out there, take care of yourselves, each other, and stay hydrated! Be a bit more kind and forgiving to yourselves, this summer - we all tend to be unnecessarily harsh to ourselves, and giving yourself some respite is good for the soul.

/DH