February 2021 Update (Patreon)

Hey all,

Last month still felt like 2020, but this month really feels like the start of 2021 for me.  Now I get a chance to relax a bit, review, and do some development work.  There are a lot of small to medium sized tasks I'd like to get to this month, so I'll give a rough outline in this post.

Looking Back

It looks like a lot of people really enjoyed the elegantly named 'Sindel Cassie Sonya'.  Even though the project outgrew its bounds, I'm glad I was able to deliver.  When those things go on for so long, and you're showing a lot of your work to people, a lot of pressure can mount to keep adding to it.  It's classic feature creep; in porn form.  I was starting to feel that I needed to make a proper intro and outro, but I decided to draw the line and just leave it at 4 scenes.  Now that it's over, I'm happy I did so.

The voice actresses did an excellent job despite the tight time constraints.  This was the first time I had worked with the VA who voiced Sonya and I was particularly happy with her.  She displayed a level of professionalism and experience that I could only dream of seeing among all the other artists and performers in this field.

I might end up making a retrospective post about it this month, but we'll see.  My mind is focused towards the future.

What's Next

The pre-production for my upcoming project is nearly complete, but I have  a lot of odds-and-ends to tie up and some things I'd like to research before I start production.  Lots of tests.  This mainly pertains to the two models I'm using, but these developments will help me grow as an artist in general.

Ideally before I start the animation these models will be: fully dressed and with custom rigs, modified with any corrective morph I could need, equipped with cloth and soft body simulations ready wherever they're needed, fleshed out with a wide variety of material options, and motion capture ready.  If I could get them prepared for facial capture as well, then that's even better.  So expect some work in progress materials.

Regarding the next project, I've gotten quite a few messages about what I plan to do.  Just so everyone's on the same page and I can properly set people's expectations, I'll put together some sort of project description equipped with reference materials and synopsis.  I'd like to have some more development time to do that, so I expect to release that later in February or maybe soon after.  Until then, you can refer back to some of my WIPs from April and May of last year.

In The Meantime

I'll continue my usual output this month and I've made it a goal to share a little more with my audience at large.  I have a difficult time finding things I want to share, so it'll be a challenge for me.

Also this month I have a few text posts planned and some ideas to spitball, maybe even a poll or two.  I'm about to release a post about my plans for commissioning/collaborating with other artists and performers on my projects.  It's rather long.  I've also floated the idea of funding/sponsoring an animation competition with actual cash rewards involved, and some other big artists have expressed interest as well.  I'll be asking around about it and I might make a post or tweet too.

Finally, I never had much of a chance to address the Patreon growth within the past few months.  So to everyone new and everyone who's stuck around, thanks for your support.  It's getting a little... big.