Did some sculpting this week! I did say that I would try to do some animation, but that didn't turn out for reasons you will come to understand. It's also just very tricky for me to get the ball rolling on animation. Everything else I can start just fine, but not animation. I'll definitely try to get some done the coming week instead.

For sculpting, I just did a little bit doodling (that's the only way I can accurate describe it), I took a little break from trying to learn anatomy to just goof about and play around with the tools that Zbrush offers.

That being said....

I accidentally made a Funko Pop.....

I didn't set out to make this, it just kind of happened as I was playing around. It doesn't look necessarily bad, just not what I expected it to come out as when I was making it. However, it certainly looks better than what I would have done not too long ago. Even though it's still stylised I could still feel myself considering head anatomy when making it. That's a pretty good sign that I'm absorbing the information about anatomy that I've found.

In terms of other things that I did this week, I've also been really hip-hoppy around wanting to use the Mixamo rig that I got and using Arise for the rig.

While Mixamo is really good for making a rig very quickly, but it doesn't have the versatility that I would like out of a rig. It doesn't have any squash and stretch controls and doesn't really let you add those things in any way (from what I can tell). That's understandable, Mixamo is more for motion capture and realistic characters, which my model most certainly isn't. On the other hand, Arise has a lot more really good cartoon controls that I'm looking for. However, it's skinning algorithm is absolutely HORRENDOUS. With Mixamo, I could just do a few tiny alterations and slap a delta mush on to get the weighting look good. With Arise, I basically have to completely rebuild the skinning from scratch. It could just be a couple of settings that I need to fiddle around with, but it's just so tedious. What makes this worse is that I can't even transfer the skinning from the Mixamo rig to the Arise one because of how different the structure is. Mixamo just has what you would expect: A rig with probably 2 or 3 more to drive the IK and FK of the binding skeleton. Arise has a whole bunch of twist joints on the arms, different joints for rotation and sections of the body. I appreciate that Arise is able to do all of this just from a preset that it's got, but the skinning is a real deal breaker for me. I've got a real bad case of Stockholm Syndrome with Arise. I keep thinking: "Surely I'll be able to fix the skinning this time. Surely this time." and then have a real bad time trying to do it.

As I said at the start of this post, I'm going to try and do more animation this week. I might try and find a different set of videos on Youtube to follow along with. The ones I'm following along with are good, but they're kinda short, and don't go into too much detail. I've also gotten my hands on a course for doing anatomy specifically in Zbrush, so I might be able to fast track the process! I'll just have to wait and see.

Thank you and good-bye for today!