Update (Patreon)
Content
Hey guys, sorry things have gone a little quiet. I've had a rougher time getting back to animation than expected. It's not a matter of difficulty as it has been focus. I've struggled focusing on animations plenty before, but I think it's become pretty clear from the last few months. I had little problem focusing for 4-5 hours at a time while working on poster commissions or models, but immediately I can struggle to work 15-30 minutes uninterrupted on this Morrigan animation. I'm not entirely sure why that is. Part of it could be that animation is about making lots of subjective judgement calls about what looks good that get added on top of each other. Whereas, posters are much simply without motion. Modelling work is more technical so it's just a matter of working through problems and making progress.
Despite that, the loop itself is looking pretty good and it is nearly done. I pretty much just have to layer some variation on top, and it's more or less ready to render. Unfortunately, the voice actress I want to work with for the animation is recovering from being sick, so I'm still waiting on the recording. I think it should be ready in less than a week though.
The NLA editor continues to really help out too. I mentioned this before, but it has helped improve my workflow. I often jumped around a lot in different aspects of an animation. With the NLA editor, I focus on nailing down one iteration of the loop to near completion before adding on from there. As I said, there seems to be a focus problem when it comes to animation, but the NLA editor workflow does help. To be honest, I'd be kind of worried how long this animation would take without it, but I guess what matters is how workflow has improved with it.
I have a lot of commissions coming up once I finish this Morrigan animation, so there should be no shortage of content after this.