Pending Freedom (Patreon)

I've just been informed that my contract will not be extended past the end of September. While I will miss the income, it'll be nice to be able to work on my own ideas again. And as usual, I have a too-long list of things to pick from.

First and foremost, I'll want to hammer out the next comic page, so that Alice's visit can finally be capped off after a year of waiting. There's more story to tell after that, but I'm toying with the idea of doing some of it more as lightly-illustrated novellas, rather than comics, just to get them out faster.

Lately I've been thinking that I need to animate something for myself. There's no way of knowing if there were will be more technical contracts coming my way in the future, so I'd best not let my animation skills deteriorate further, in case that is the only work to be had. The problem then, is what to animate?

There's one Daisy idea I'd already drawn, that I'd like to revisit - her on her ladder at the diner, reaching for a plate that's just a bit too far away.  The biggest problem is that I only have her nude model rigged. Most of that rig can be copied over to the clothed version, but the breast rig will need to be replaced, and her skirt will need to be rigged to allow for both dynamic motion and direct control. My concern then, is that I've been down this path many times before - I want to animate something, but that something requires a fair amount of rigging, and a new contract comes along before I ever get to the animation.

If animation with lip synch is my goal, then I'm leaning more towards former Disney attractions like America Sings or Splash Mountain. The Country Bear Jamboree is also on my list, though the fact that the show still exists prevents it from being higher on my list. None of these are short-term ideas, though, because first I would need to sculpt and texture the characters. And before that, if I'm not trying to replicate the appearance of the original animatronics, I'd need to explore what the characters should look like. More of a "blue sky" idea, rather than something I can actively work on right away.

Usually when at the end of a contract, I'd also have a tone of ideas for new rigging tools. This time, however, I've learned so much over the past year that I'd basically need to redo many of my tools from scratch. And I'd already started rewriting them before this contract had started, so I'm not exactly thrilled about that prospect. Not to mention, most of the controls I've built over the past year were one-offs, with there being enough variation that I'm not sure how to write a one-size-fits-all tool.

Off the top of my head, there are only a handful of rigging ideas I might want to experiment with, and write tools for. The first is a reverse spine rig. Normally in a rig, a basic spine starts at the pelvis, and ends at the neck. A reverse spine would start at the base of the neck, and end at the pelvis, which would be really useful for characters who need to hang from something. Like, say, Daisy hanging off of her ladder, if she slips. Being able to match poses between the two spine types is also a must.  There's another type of spine that lets you move the shoulders and hips independent of one another, though I've always found that to be more useful for quadrupeds, than humanoids. And I've yet to find spine of that type that I've actually liked, as an animator. But if I'm expected to know how to rig one for future tech jobs, then I'd best figure it out...