Cyrene(4) | Amber + Collei | Animation updates

Last one for Cyrene, check both new sets in the pinned link!

(Essay jumpscare warning)

The animation situation is crazy.

The promised animation. It is once again delayed, and I am sorry for that. This is the result of multiple bad decisions. As you already know, I shot myself in the foot by adding a second pose. It doesn't stop there, the stroking movement of her arm was reworked and set me back on progress.

Previously, I set it up such that the arm goes between fixed position A and B on the parameter slider, and all I had to do was to animate it with that slider. Simple enough.

But then, I found out there is a way to animate a set up that's similar to a pseudo bone system(like Inverse Kinematics), and there's more freedom in the movement compared to the previous 'move between two predetermined fixed points' solution.

Without going too much in detail, the newer version does allow free and dynamic movement, but at the cost of time and workload, due to a lack of some QOL features(in my opinion). Now I can have the arm track the PP while it moves and change angle non-linearly, but the keyframe workload was insane.

The other problem was the balance between working on the animation and drawing, I believe I mentioned this before in an earlier post.

If I worked on a drawing, I'd inadvertently end up working on them exclusively. If I worked on the animation, I end up not drawing at all, and then there were no progress on any end. And then sometimes, I've got to take a day off because of other matters. I naturally gravitated towards making drawings instead, as I'd feel more productive since they took less time.

I've also mentioned this before, I will try and optimize and change part of my drawing workflow so I can make both types of work at a rate I am happy with. The current predicament is a great lesson on the extent of the scope of work I can manage, taking into account my position as an illustration artist and not an animation artist.

If I didn't add a second pose, this would've been done sometime in early October, perhaps. If I didn't have to make illustrations too, this would've been done the week I showed off the progress. I need to first make stuff that's simpler, and work on gaining familiarity with the software. Next, habits and workflows will form naturally. Then work on efficiency, before expanding scope.

So, it will take a while, bear with me. I will work on balance. Optimize illustration workflow and limit scope for animation, and if possible, monthly illustration plus animation will be on the menu. I wish to make animations more frequently, not once every three months.

Right now, I would say I'm about 80% done overall, but I am not confident in giving an exact completion time. I will give myself the first week of next month dedicated to finishing this, and it'll be available to members from September to November.