Guitarist is now fully animated throughout the project. I'm pretty pleased with it and yes, it's a zombie. I thought it would be fun/funny/fitting to have zombies playing the instruments. Think about the movies where the one zombie was being taught to do the blocks in the slots and such or Shaun of the Dead with them being somewhat domesticated. Why not make them musical? I thought about just some generic Umbrella people. Guards or techs, but eh.

    The part that holds her in place is still not created, thus her still kinda floating in the air. Also, the drummer turned out to be a total nightmare to animate. Not sure what/how to go about that section. Fought with that a lot this week to no avail.

    It's a shorter song, so the focus stays on her. It's also pretty damn flashy with lighting, so it'll have that warning on the start again. I kinda miss the way I did early intros. Might go back to that as well.

    Sadly her hair has no bones to animate anything past the back of her ears, so I improvised and used clips to keep her hair pulled back out of her face and somewhat stationary. I think it works well. That and the lighting makes it look natural for the lack of movements despite the motions.

    Still no name for it. Something will pop up before the end though I'm sure, once the effects and the rest are there.

    Nothing else specific worked on this week. Some new ideas, as always, to try to distract me. Jotted down for later potential. I do still wanna make something of that Cassie Cage workout concept. Christmas 2025 stuff is being sorted too, haha.

    Finally sorted a side project and so far, I love working on it. It goes back to what I was meant to be doing with fully musically synced animations. This is a true Ramma'Jam, akin to Poison Ivy or Ashley Graham, but with a new twist.
    Instead of the machine just playing music into the girl via pistoned dildos, this is an interactive band style Ramma'Jam. Meaning, instruments like drums, keyboards and guitars are hooked up to it. What is played upon them is 'played' in the machine.
    Rock Band: Sybian Edition?
    Basically.

    I chose January van Sant for a few reasons.
    #1 She is an excellent model.
    #2 I thought she was cute.
    #3 I've not used her before.
    #4 I liked that her outfit (Tropical variant, no other style yet available on the model) was a nice rocker look, which sparked the rock band idea. Sort of.

    I had the idea for a Ramma'Jam like this a long time ago. Probably even mentioned it before in a Weekly. Finally doing something with the theme.

    Also, to be fully transparent about things, I've been pretty down lately and it's hindered my SFMing. Burnout, annoyance, whatever factor you wanna attribute to it. Maybe all. This project, being strictly an 'I want to make this' has already rekindled my love for making these things. Also, as I've said before, I've been wanting to get back to the full sync Black Menageries anyways. I strayed from them for the sake of longer and more indepth projects and while some work better and should be like that, it's not suppose to be the focus style. Some of you might have even been hanging on for the off chance I would do more Black Menageries styles, as I should be doing really.

    I am now.

    Preview pics are, of course, early WIPs. The ball gag's design is meant to be a cartoonish skull. It's a custom texture and it's a bit too large right now. There's no actual scene/background yet, etc. etc. I do, however, have a good portion of her motions animated and one of the instruments has someone playing it. I'm pretty pleased with how that bit has already turned out too, even without refinement. Some lighting is being set, so on and so forth.

    Black Cat Cafe is still going too, so no worries about it stopping. It's coming along well overall, although slowly. With January van Sant's project kicking my interest in again my interest in that project has increased more as well. A couple things need revamped on it, like the UI overlay for the machine levels/powers. Knocking a few settings off. 10 isn't needed to show increases. I'm thinking more like 6-8. Probably 6.

   Last, I teased another project last Weekly. The upright front view of 'girl unknown'. Well, that was Aurore Cassel from Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty. It was meant to be a project designed purely to kick me back in gear and give me the 'go go' to my 'mojo?' or something. You get what I mean, right?

    Anyways...

    It's still on the table, even though it was going off track already. Not sure what it is about the Cyberpunk 2077 projects. They love being difficult. Some reworks with this newfound drive should get it back on course.

    But yeah. Nothing currently going is being stopped. I have a literal passion project going which is giving me a needed boost.

    Things are looking up.

    Not happened in a while, but there it is, and not really canceled I guess since I'm typing stuff? This little bit of info I guess technically counts.

    This week has been a disaster for anything SFM. Some progress was made with Black Cat Cafe, but not enough new to show off anything. I did show the animations as they are to an upper tier member, and they seemed to like them a lot. Some other ideas have sparked, but nothing of significance enough to bother chatting about.

    And other than that nothing. As I've said in previous 'canceled' Weekly WIPs, that happens from time to time. Some weeks has tons to show/talk about, others like this one nothing.

    I was thinking though, to try to avoid this kind of situation and especially since I hate not releasing something often, about doing a sort of animated posters. Not a fully motion anything, more like that Cyberpunk 2077 Misty loop I did recently. Better than nothing, right? Some of the sparked ideas were along those lines.

    A somewhat slow week; another section of Cafe though. Machine level 4 for 20 seconds. It's the 'resigned to her fate' reaction, when she realizes she's in it for the long haul. Not every level or length of time will be represented. The concept of each level being faster/harder should suffice, so I can skip like level 6, as an example.

    Having some issue sorting a smaller side project. I think I might just hammer a full sync single song Black Menagerie out. Or something semi silly. So many tested or started projects that are just in limbo. A few keep popping back in my head though.

    Black Cat Cafe (top 2 previews) has its 3rd machine segment nearly finished. I say 'nearly' because after they're all 'nearly' I have to bake the jiggle bone and adjust them all accordingly. If I do that early and then want to change something about the general animation, those adjustments are lost when I reenable the jiggle bones. So basically, everything gets finished to like 90%, then sits til the end to be completed.
    An example of what I mean is those chains at her ankles. In earlier WIP on this they were connected to thigh straps instead, which are now gone. That caused a slight adjustment to her leg position in all segments.
    Still not 100% sure of what music to use for Cafe. As I said on the Discord, I don't want to 'waste' a lot of music on a single project, not that I can't reuse music and will eventually though, and I'm not sure I have anything I can loop for an extended length that wouldn't become annoying.

    In other news, I've started a new Black Menagerie (bottom 2 previews) project as a 'side' project when not working on Cafe. Not sure why, but the parts meant to glow are coming out muted and dull. (The bars at the ankles for example). It's an odd issue I've not ran into before. As you can see it Cafe previews, it's not an issue there. The dildo bits meant to glow are glowing just fine. Maybe it's a general lighting issue.
    Who is the girl? Secret for now, but it isn't someone used before, and I might not have even chatted about having her at all anywhere. I've had her a while though and came across a really nice pic someone did with the model and an idea came to me.

    Some other very minor things have gone on; like who will be in Christmas 2025 (it's not even July!). As said before, I always want to be sure to get Christmas released on time, so I start early. The who and general what is decided. Music though, ugh. I hate trying to find Christmas ones I like and are useful.
    OC Character I've hired to have created was pretty close to finish. A few issue to solve, so she has more time to be worked on, but that's an exciting prospect. I might be able to sort something to introduce her later this year.
    A few more things I'm not thinking of right off, but minor anyways. Probably just testing things.

    Ever wonder what your character is doing during a loading queue? Do they just stand there? Do they idle like a Mortal Kombat character ready to fight? Do they talk to each other? Do they find themselves in interesting situations?

    Let's assume the last one....

    Just a little creation I thought would be fun to do. I don't play Marvel Rivals, so I don't know how accurate she is to the aesthetic of the game. I'm personally not overly fond of her though. Can't like them all though, right?

    A couple of quick QAs.

    Hope you enjoy.