WIP: So close...yet so far...

Hello! Weekly update~ How's everyone? I'm...not gonna lie, a bit frustrated with this one. :')

The more I work on it, the more I realize it was far more work than I anticipated!!! Too...many...characters...

I did work on it a lot during this week, yet I could only really add a few seconds to the final video. I'm at 75%, which is 1 minute and 4 seconds currently done.

The reason for that is, there's a lot of characters I want to include, and I want to have their outfit match what they wear in the manga as close as I possibly can...yet they only appear for like, 3 seconds each. So a lot of work goes on very little actual video time.

At least I'm going to have a LOT of characters rigged after this...maybe I should make more Eorzea Academy AU videos to actually get to use them. My goal last week was to rig at least 3 more characters, and I actually got to rig double that! So yay!!!

Sadu and Magnai were really fast to do, because their uniform is the standard one, thankfully. They're so fun, I love them. Yotsuyu also wears the standard Educand uniform. Her skirt is actually seems a bit longer in the manga, but for what I'm doing, I think it's okay to save some time and go with what we have.

The ones I'm the happiest with are Ryne and Gaia! The girlfriends look so cute~

And of course, they were the ones I spent the most time in. Both have custom outfits that I had to test a few times until I got them right.

Ryne's appron is a mashup of the Craftsman's Apron and the Collegiate Attire, with a custom pattern applied to the apron. I couldn't find any art of her wearing with in color, so I picked pink to match the ribbon in her hair! And also, because Ryne and Gaia are yet one more of the pink/red and blue trope of shippable characters in this game...have you ever noticed how many of those we have?! Ryne/Gaia, Sadu/Cirina, the bunboys of Wachumekimeki, Valan and Quinfort, Lizard and G'raha -- anyway, I'm getting distracted.

Gaia's outfit is a mashup of the Educand uniform and the Diadochos Coat of Healing! She actually wears it closed in the manga, and there are no pockets, but this is the best I was able to do. I'm also pretty happy with how with looks~

I actually recorded the whole process of making this, if anyone's interested in a video showing it, please let me know and I can put it together. Since I'm pretty new to the whole modeling and changing models like this, I can't guarantee it's the best way to do it, but it works nicely, and I didn't feel like it was too complicted.

I can't say I'm happy with all of them though. Sadly, Zenos looks way cooler in the manga than what I have...but after spending a few hours on his model trying different things, I give up, and he is wearing the Educand uniform in white - because for SOME reason, he wears all-white in the manga?! WHY??

But instead of wearing it closed like this, he wears the jacket like a cape, Yu gi Oh-style...which I don't think there's any outfits like this in the game currently, so I can't replicate.

I also tried to make a full white, plain button up shirt with long sleeves but it just...didn't look good. So for now, it looks like he is wearing a chef's uniform or something. Uh...sorry, Zenos fans. He is only going to be there for 3 seconds on a split screen. I need to start optimizing my time now!

I can't escape the messy timeline. This whole new messy bit (between the "MMseq" nest and where the needle is, is where all of the characters I rigged are!

And still, there's 5 more characters that I have to rig. Tataru, Y'sthola, Urianger, Thancred...and Emet Selch. I'm too far in to stop now!!! In the end, I kinda feel like I'm putting way too much effort on little result, but I still want to see my idea as I thought of it done. No backing down now! I really hope it comes out fun in the end.

If I were to estmate, it might still take me 2 more weeks to finish. I'm going to aim for 2 weeks, at least. But if I need more, I won't let it go past the end of the month, so there's that. I AM going to finish this month!!!!

Oh also, I want to apologize for anyone that was expecting a video last week, as I usually post weekly. I really needed to rest a bit more and ended up not making one :') I hope I can deliver one this week. If you're interested in them, let me know if there's anything specific you'd like to see a video on, and I can make it for you on that!

And that's it for this week's update. Thank you very much for reading and for your support!