September Update! (Patreon)

Hey all! 

I hope yall have had a great summer so far! I've been a bit busy between my day job and getting the animation finished, but I've got a bunch of plans for the coming month!

With the larger animations finally finished, I'm finally getting around to taking some time to update my workflow and doing a couple deep dives into a few processes that have eluded me since I began animating, namely character/outfit rigging, body physics, and sound design. I've been experimenting here and there with different variations of these topics, but I haven't had the time to properly immerse myself in them and figure out the optimal ways to get the effects I'm looking for. That being said, I've learned a ton since I tried learning these topics earlier, and between drawing parallels from other processes and advice from other artists, I think that I've got a much better chance this time around to develop some workflows that will really amp up my work. I love to animate and make stories come to life, but sometimes you end up spending more time banging your head against a wall trying to get a physics object to stop spazzing out than telling the story that's in your head. Granted these issues aren't localized only in 3D animation, but finding ways to make the program work with you rather than against helps immensely with not only the motivation to create, but also the quality of the final product. 

At any rate, this is a long winded explanation to say that this month will have a lot of experimental content, and I'll be posting a bunch of renders/updates as I go along. This means that the line between posted render and WIP will probably get a bit blurry for the month, but I'll be posting a lot more WIPs to keep you all updated on what I'm working on. Also, commissions will also be re-opening this month on a rolling timeline. This means that there'll be fewer slots open to begin with, but more opportunities to get them. Hopefully this'll help reduce the concurrent workload and help me get the commissions created and turned around faster. 

Additionally, the Patreon Pin-Up poll will be live tomorrow for suggestions! I've been thinking that I should add a particular theme to the poll so there's not as wide of a range of suggestions as normal, but I'd love to hear what you all think about that. Generally the themes would be something along the lines of "Wholesome", "Curious", "Surprising", etc., but if that curbs the suggestions too much we can figure out something else. 

Finally, I'll hopefully be getting around to updating the banner and profile pic for Patreon, Twitter, and DA. The banners in particular have been a bit of an eyesore for a while now, mainly because I don't have much of an idea of what to feature there instead. If you all have any suggestions for any changes or updates, I'd love to hear them! Hopefully at the end of this month I'll have learned a few more things about animating, and I'm hoping that doing this exercise will help make the animation process not only quicker, but more rewarding. So buckle up, cuz this month may get a bit weird!

Thanks!

Haptick