Holy crap when did it get to be December?

I finally broke down and got myself a new laptop. Not being able to do any proper work while away from home has been...frustrating.

Granted, it's not powerful enough for proper full scene renders, but I can at least block some shots and experiment with wardrobe and such.

It's been so long since I bought/built a computer, I'd forgotten how much setting up it takes. Logins and passwords and setting and tweaking and WHY IS WINDOWS 11 SO SHIT? Just when I'd finally (almost) gotten used to all the where-the-fuck-is-the-button-for- in Windows 10, they go and add more obfuscation?

This has, of course, required me to rebuild my entire library not ONCE, but TWICE. And with Daz apparently discontinuing DazCentral, this meant a bunch of manual installs of content. Still not sure I have it all back exactly right, but at least the most important bits are working. So far.

Here's something I made on my shiny new portable DevBook!

Happy Halloween!

It sucks when Halloween lands in the middle of the week. It's hard to get into the spirit when you know you have to work again in the morning.

Boo. And not the fun, thematically-appropriate kind.

Hope you all have a happy Halloween! Don't eat so much candy you make yourselves sick.

Or do. I'm not the boss of you.

I should learn to make my own 3d models.

Don't get me wrong; the assortment of clothes/props/environments/etc. for Daz is great and all, but it's very difficult to find exactly the thing I'm imagining out there for sale. Sure, I could probably contract a professional to do the heavy lifting for me, but good work isn't cheap, cheap work is rarely good, and neither is likely to be worthwhile for an asset I'm going to use exactly one time.

Maybe I just picked the wrong aesthetic for Kimmi? Maybe 50's/60's pulp-scifi is too niche? Maybe I should update to 80's/90's totally-not-Star Trek-please-don't-sue-me-Paramount?

Maybe I'm just spiraling like so many creatives do when they start to realize that what they thought was a fully-formed masterpiece in their head is actually a barely-coherent jumble of discordant notions that have no logical flow and oh my god I'm a fraud everything is terrible and I'm terrible and why isn't this working oh god oh god what madness have I wrought my parents were right I should've been a plumber instead they make good money and don't have to deal with this creeping existential dread all the time and...

Or maybe I just need sleep. Haven't been doing much of that recently.

Yeah, that's probably it. I hope.

Not much progress since last update. Nothing meaningful, anyway.

I must have re-written the same scene six times at least. The same pattern, too: make lots of progress, realize I should have included a line about ____ earlier, go back, add that line, realize it now changes something a dozen lines later, go there, adjust, back to where I was, get distracted by idea for scene/plot/character that won't happen for several episodes, spend far too much time thinking about how that storyline would play out, forget where I was going with that last sentence, question life choices... Lather, rinse, repeat.

Is very frustrating.

Anyway, here's one of those random moments of inspiration that is in no way helpful for the scene I'm currently working on: The infamous Space Pirate, Cap'n Blackbush!

That's a working title, but it's probably going to stick. I like the idea of a bunch of pirates with color-coded pubes savaging the space-ways like it's the Age of Sail...In Space!

The question is: how much Bush on this Cap'n? Kimmi is clean-shaven (as you've seen), but is everyone in this universe? Is that what makes the name funny/ironic? Please, let me know your thoughts.

Below are some renders of Cap'n Blackbush v0.1. What do you think?

BTS: Meet the Cast (Part One-A) (Re-)Introducing Kimmi! (Jennifer Garnett)

Jennifer (Jenny) Garnett is an American actress and model. Born in Colorado, she moved to California after her mother's obsession with Bruce Springsteen inspired her to relocate the family to Los Angeles, even though Springsteen hasn't lived there for decades.

Despite being a self-described "shy, dumpy thing", Garnett began modeling as a tween, eventually becoming the face of a local chain of discount Italian restaurants. For her efforts, she was compensated almost exclusively with vouchers for free pizza and breadsticks.

A late bloomer, Garnett was among the last in her class to hit puberty, but quickly developed to nearly her current measurements during a single summer break. Garnett would later attribute this (positively and negatively) to her diet, which at that time consisted almost exclusively of pepperoni and mushroom pizza (her favorite). These "developments" brought her greater career opportunities, including her first movie role: "Victim #3", a non-speaking part in the low-budget slasher film Wrathful Murder 7: The Revenge.

Eventually, Garnett's mother moved back to Colorado, having finally realized she was never going to "accidentally" bump into Springsteen in Hollywood. Garnett stayed behind to continue her film career, landing supporting roles in Car Wash Vixens and The Taste of A Woman, among others.

Garnett's breakout role was in The Sultan's Harem, a political drama set in ancient Persia. Despite controversy surrounding the studio's failure to cast a single person of appropriate ethnic heritage, and criticism for the abundance of full-frontal nudity and use of historically-dubious lesbian power-brokering to drive the plot, the series has a very dedicated fanbase, despite only lasting for one season.

Sadly, the master prints for much of Garnett's early career (along with hundreds of other such works) were lost when the production studio was destroyed in a fire described by authorities as "suspicious". Conspiracy theories within online fan communities claim the Studio Head owed significant sums to less-than-reputable lenders, and may have burned the building as part of an insurance scam, but no concrete evidence has ever come to light.

Few complete copies remain in the wild; most of these are in poor condition or obsolete formats, though clips do occasionally surface online.

BTS: Meet the Cast! (Part One)

I'd like to introduce you all to Jennifer (Jenny) Garnett, the lovely actress behind everyone's favorite Space Ranger!

I'm working up a full IMDB-style Bio for her, but here's the short version: She's from the Midwest (Colorado, maybe, if that's actually Midwest. The geography gets confusing), she loves dogs, pizza, and the outdoors. Your typical all-American girl, as it were.

I think she might be a Libra, but I haven't decided yet. I don't know enough astrology to know the signs and their personality types off the top of my head.

Now, the big question I have for you: Is Kimmi's pink hair a wig, a dye-job, or all natural? Obviously, Daz will let me recolor pretty much anything at any time, but I want to strive for some logical consistency.

The main issue: eyebrows.

For most of Episode 1 so far, Kimmi's eyebrows are covered by her bangs, which is good, because there might be a few renders where I neglected to apply / accidentally removed them and/or they may change color at some point after I noticed their absence...

...please don't go looking.

...

Aaaanyway..

Is it immersion-breaking if her hair isn't naturally pink (pink brows, which I know don't happen in Real Life), instead dyed pink (brown eyebrows), or a wig (Jenny is a brunette)? I have some renders below that show the difference. Personally, I'm leaning toward one of the brown-eyebrows versions, because I think it'd be funny if Obvious Dye-Job is Obvious like the Targaryens on Game of Thrones. If you bleach real hair too many times, too close together, it WILL fall out, and actors have this weird hang-up about losing their hair in large clumps...