[WIP] 6 Armed 4 Legged Lady Request (Patreon)

Patrons keep asking me for updates on some of the requests. Complex requests take time - months, not just weeks.

Whether it is commissioned or requested, it takes the same amount of time it will take to complete.

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Sorry for the rant. TL;DR : Join the stream, watch me work. :D

Important Note: Please make multiple requests. I will try and do the simpler ones early and quickly.

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Posing

The more limbs are there the more time it takes posing each digit (finger) and joint. The more realistic and natural pose of the limbs is needed the more time it takes to tweak and angle, rotate the joint, bend the limb - maybe I can reposition this for clarity or any reason - well reposition that limb again... rinse and repeat for each limb and finger. 

I try to be attentive to details like are the fingers naturally bent or stiff? Should this interaction with skin/muscle make an indent? Are other limbs getting in the way of my camera and obfuscating other limbs? Yes - reposition.

Sometimes I am in a hurry and/or lazy and I ignore the finger posing and try to have them go flat palmed or cupped palms. Sometimes I'd find a fingernail poke into the skin/body and I might not have enough juice left to return and fix it, wait for another 5-15 minutes of render.

There are auto poses that I can and do use in DazStudio but, they're for normal 4-limb models and each pair of arms and extra limbs need to be manually posed and positioned.

Color Correction and Joints

Another factor that is a pain point is joints. I edit the joints after the render. It might look different for each render. 

For some, a mere blur is used to blend the two skin textures side by side. For some, a little or maybe intensive airbrushing is needed (especially for corrections of clipping and poke-throughs). 

In case of color mismatch or bleeding of other colors from the environment like green on the joints or shadows, I might even need to take a copy of a clear patch of skin and overlay and blend the layers by fiddling with the opacity in order to preserve the details of the skin (pores, texture, bumps, imperfections, etc.).

Post Process

Filters, backgrounds, reflections, shadows, transparency, text, etc. This includes several minutes to an hour or more of background stock images searching the web, then rescaling and editing them together. I use Pexels and Unsplash. These two websites host free licensed stock images.

If the render includes an environment then I don't need to do much editing but that means renders take a minimum of 15-20 minutes for a non-grainy smooth high res look. I have run commissioned renders for hours at a time.

I might need to HDR and color correct the renders. Change the contrast to pop out the colors or, gaussian blur to remove graininess, or change the brightness to show the edges a little better.

Time and Decisions

Some days I have to argue between remaking and fixing a render or making a completely new one with that same model. I crave novelty. For me personally, every new idea should be executed first. I'd love to give you verity, but that costs corrections or remakes down the line. My time is limited with work [or, worklessness, currently :'( ] and other life stuff [i.e. accruing credit card debt to support my crippling caffeine addiction]. 

I try and incorporate as many ideas and requests proposed by patrons and myself as I can. Some ideas might be easy and some requests might take mere minutes to make, while some complex (more limbs, character interactions, environments, etc) requests might take... well, months. That is why I ask patrons to keep pitching as many ideas and themes as they'd like to see.

Maybe your request for the two-headed woman will take a longer time as it needs blending different skin tones and editing more joints. But, if you asked for a humantaur wearing a funny full-body onesie with an udder, it might be easier to do that instead. It might even take mere minutes or a couple of days to finish it properly. So, please make multiple requests. If I am unable to attend to a good request then I might pick it up for next month and onwards. Also, if I make your idea, I will share it with the original requester whether they're a current patron or not (I will email you as per my listing here).

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