Saturday Update – August 1, 2020

Another week, and I have been working on my next project. And it is quite frustrating.

Admittedly I put myself into this position, and knew coming in that it would be hard. 

My next project is a parody, and because of that I need characters that people will look at and know it is the people they represent. I do not want it to seem like I “recast” all the parts. I am not trying for perfection, and in fact have looked into caricatures to try to focus more on getting the essence of the character. 

I think I picked the hardest one to work on first. I even used a transparent overlay image to match her face shape, positioned her eyes, nose, and mouth, and I believe I got her nose down, and yet it still was like looking at another person. Part of it might be the hair since I haven’t found any hair that matches hers, and I don’t exactly have the skills to create that on my own, at least not yet. 

I ended up taking a day away from 3D work, and while I still worked on other stuff, tried to keep it lite to give my brain a rest, and reduce my stress. I did come back to it, started from scratch, and created the closest one yet, but it is still not right. Once I figure out that aspect, I think everything else will go more smoothly. Not to mention this is giving me experience so that making the next characters should be easier.

I am expecting a problems and delays, and have factored those into my plans. This is also why I decided to wait until the end of August to decide if I was going ahead with this project. I will most likely know by then, but I am forcing myself to keep my options open just in case, and this is why I am staying cryptic. 

I am still thinking it is quite likely that I will go forward, even with less than perfect characters. There are a couple more hurdles to get over with this, and once I am up and running, I expect things to move fairly quickly. It is just this initial preparation that is the biggest issue. 

I also need to make sure the story Is worth it too. I believe I have a compelling idea, and have written the beginning/introduction. I believe it’s interesting enough to grab people’s attention. I am not positive yet but the first release may only be that introduction. Kind of like a teaser for the story. I have plenty of ideas, and a general story arc of sorts. But I need more of a story line, I need to organize those ideas, and flesh them out. 

What’s sad is that the story for my next project is further along. That one has flowed out of me, and it was done in my spare time working on The Game. (Yes, it’s true that when my “workday” is over, I relax by working on another game.) 

I will stop here before I start rambling. (More.)