Bluejay Model Update (Patreon)

It looks like we'll be seeing the bluejay in the upcoming mini animation, so I decided to take the opportunity to go back and touch up her model a little. Honestly she doesn't look too visually different, most of the changes I made were to how she works mechanically, but still there are some visual updates and, being the patreon type peeps that you are I thought you'd all be curious to take a peek.

The most obvious changes are to her face and bottom, but there are a lot of little tweaks everywhere.

For those of you curious about the mechanical changes: a while back I started working at 10 times size scale because supposedly it makes blender's physics behave a little better. This model was made back when I was working at real-size, so I took the time to resize her, which meant recombing most of the hair and reworking a lot of drivers. I also updated the shape keys that correct joint bends- I used to just use a single shape key but "modern" Ru-made-models use a double shape-key system that just works a lot better, so touched that up and now her joints all look better in motion. 

I also made her feet just a little smaller, which is as much a mechanical change as a visual one- it was actually pretty hard to make her walk around due to those big ole' feeters. Shrinking them a little should help I hope.

I also implemented an experimental IK-finger rig that should maybe make posing her hands easier? Won't really know 'till I try to use it. For those of you not in the know, this means I can essentially take her finger tip and put it where I want it and the rest of the finger just animates automatically more or less, whereas before I could only animate fingers from the top down which made it very hard to make them precisely contact anything. This method of animation would be much better for, say, rubbing and pinching things. :P

Finally I updated the method I use to control facial expressions, to a bone-based system rather than just a custom property on a bone. Basically just makes it easier to control keyframes 'n such. Did the same for the FK/IK switches on her arms and legs.

While making this multi-image I noticed that the front of her legs stick out a little farther than I'd like, I'll probably go back and touch that up soon... but overall better I think.

Like I said, visually she's not dramatically different visually speaking, but she should be much easier to animate with now which should be handy when she's getting absolutely blasted by the BFCT in the near future, hah.

So that's what I've been up to lately. I know I've been a little quiet on the posting front for a bit, but that usually just means I'm working on something for making smut down the road!