This year’s Christmas image is just a tad late –
I had posted the sketch on DA, Facebook, and Tumblr last week, but it’s taken me this long to finish it (between the holiday chaos, travel, and recovery…)
Merry Christmas, folks! Here’s a cheeky image of Daisy that MaxBlackrabbit slipped under the tree!
Daisybutt by ~maxblackrabbit on deviantART
Over the past week, I’ve been scribbling some thumbnails for my hypothetical “disrobing Daisy” animation, while also trying to plot out the technical challenges that’d be involved.
Here’s a quick summary of some of those challenges –
…with all that in mind, it’s unlikely that I’ll even attempt something like this. I’d be much better off focusing on other characters, or at least on something that wouldn’t need quite as much explaining.
Sometimes my best ideas and eureka moments come from a lack of sleep. That’s how Daisy came about, anyway. And the past couple of days I haven’t been sleeping well, so I’ve been hoping something would pop into my head sooner or later.
This morning it hit me – a total fan-service (and potential fan-gaining) animation of Daisy disrobing, layer by layer. Not a strip-tease, but more like she’s changing out of her work clothes after a long day. Now to kill any remaining excitement by getting technical…
No matter how I would choose to animate it, this would be a challenge of nightmarish proportions. Either way it would be a fairly long sequence, assuming I do it all as one continuous shot.
As a hand-drawn piece, it could simply take me forever to draw. It would also take quite a while to clean up, to say nothing of keeping her on-model throughout. And if something doesn’t move correctly? If more (or less) drawings won’t fix it, I’d have to scrap that section and start over. Just thinking about it, I’m reminded of why I got into 3D animation in the first place.
If I animated her in 3D, the biggest challenge would be the multiple levels of cloth simulation. My choice of staging could also make it more difficult – the camera would be behind and off to the side of her, and aimed between her and her reflection in a mirror. This would mean that untying her apron can’t be faked – it would need to be modeled so that the bow can be untied on-camera. The apron may also need to transition from a hybrid of skinning and cloth simulation when tied, to completely simulated once untied. And if I have her fold it… now I’m just asking for a world of hurt. But if successful, this segment alone would look impressive on my demo reel…
After the apron is her uniform. I might need to model an unbuttoned version that can be stretched, just so the cloth can then return to its natural state when unbuttoned. Or I could remove the stretching with morphs or skinning. Either way, her uniform will also need to transition from hybrid to complete cloth simulation as she starts to remove it.
Underneath her uniform is a t-shirt. The main problem will be collisions with the uniform. Again, it might be nexessary to start with a hybrid solution – if not 100% skinning – and then transition to full cloth simulation once the uniform is safely out of the way. Having the t-shirt affect her hair properly could also be an issue, unless I can fake the interaction with simple invisible colliders.
Speaking of her hair, there’s the question of how to transition from one style to another. If her hair is sculpted geometry as it is now, then the only way to do this would be to hide one style and unhide the next. If simulating realistic hair, each guide curve could have a morph target for the transition. Then I might need to adjust the simulation so that her casual hair is less rigid than her professional hair.
Her bra would be last, and whether she wears a sports-bra or a normal one, it will have its own challenges. Like her uniform, the bra would need to transition from skinning to cloth simulation. Once removed her breasts would need to fall to a natural position*. This could either be done with joint animation and other deformers, or it could use yet another cloth simulation. Or perhaps both? Cloth is challenging enough, but at least there are material presets for me to work with… There’s no “fatty ball of flesh” preset, though.
* assuming I don’t have them unleashed with such force that she falls over, thus ending the animation on a fun note while keeping on-screen nudity to a minimum. Though I might censor any nudity anyway, to keep it safe to post.
…and that is just part of why you don’t see many (if any) Pixar-quality animated strip teases. The amount of simulation work could require an experienced TD. Plus independent artists don’t have access to the types of tools that the major studios have, and they’re definitely not working on something like this using company resources.
If I were to attempt this, then I guess it’s a good thing I’m remodeling Daisy – I’ll be able to plan ahead. While I might learn some useful skills by the end, whether the effort will truly be worth it is the question.
Now that ‘Discovering A Unicorn’ is finished, I need to decide what’s next. I’ll be taking a breather from the comic until after Christmas – mostly because I won’t have access to my Cintiq and so won’t be able to finish new pages during that time – so I’ll have some time to pick a story and prepare.
In terms of comics, right now I’m focused on introducing all of my central characters. Fortunately, I have stories plotted out for each of them – even some stories for characters that haven’t been designed yet – so the first task is prioritizing them. I keep telling myself that Mary-Anne should be next, but she presents a number of problems…
Mary doesn’t have an intro story… She has two. Two candidates, anyway – one is short and simple, while the other is longer, more epic, and quite simply the ‘right’ story. If I were to make a feature film centered around her, this story would be the opening 10 minutes. The problem with that story, is that I’m not currently capable of drawing it. I’m not comfortable with drawing environments in general, yet; I need to practice use of shading and thick shadows to enhance the mood of the scenes; and I especially need to practice motion-blurred action scenes. This story also features several incidental characters that I’d need to design, first.
For now, it’s looking more like I might just draw Rose and Violet’s intros first, and then draw the easier Mary intro.
Aside from comics, there are other projects I’m hoping to make some more progress on over the holidays – For the past two pages, I’ve gotten my 3D model of the interior of Daisy’s Diner to a point where it can be used as reference for the comic. I’d like to eventually get it and the exterior to a point where they can not only be used for 3D renders, but also toon-shaded for the comic to save me the trouble of tracing them (or, God forbid, have to draw them by hand).
Another project is my next 3D character – Daisy & Rose’s Aunt Mercy. I’ve already modeled her head as a morph target for Rose, so really all I need to do is model her habit and make sure all of Rose’s facial expressions can be re-used. The only real challenge with her will be the cloth simulation on the habit.
Commissions are another thing I’ve been thinking about. It would certainly be nice to make a little extra cash for Christmas, but again, I won’t have access to my Cintiq. I will have my Galaxy tablet with me, but there’s only so much I can accomplish on that. With the general madness of the holidays, it might be best if I just wait until I get home before opening up my commission list.
This week’s page may be delayed, and not just because of Thanksgiving – overall the page is fairly simply, but it shows just a bit more of the diner than I’m comfortable with (or capable of) drawing by hand. Fortunately, I happen to have a model of its interior in-progress –
The model is far from being complete, but it’ll still make my life easier.
Oddly enough, the most difficult part of the model might be the appliances behind the bar. Schematics for many of them can easily be found online… but first I need to know what to look for.
Welcome to my new comic site! There’s not much to see at the moment, and what little there is may be temporary, but it’s a start. 🙂
