Where I've been
It has been a while since I've posted an update on this sculpt. I've been busy with other things going on, but I've decided that I'm officially back to working on this sculpt regularly! Not only am I working on this sculpt, but I'm also working on other things concurrently that I will be posting devlogs on as well.
Organic Skirt Layer
Where I left off with the sculpt last I was stuck on the "grass" layer of the skirt. I illustrated it to look like grass in the model sheet but I wasn't quite sure of what the texture was going to be like. I just knew it was going to be a layer of organic-looking material with shelf mushrooms would be growing from. This part of the sculpt really evolved as I worked. I started out by sculpting a grass alpha and dappling it all over the subtool. It helped make the surface look more interesting but it needed more.
I started off by doing more sculpting around the edges. At this point of the sculpt I was still thinking it was going to look like grass, so I was layering my strokes like I did on the alpha. The problem was the more I kept working the less it looked like grass. The tradeoff however was that I thought what I was doing looked way more interesting than if it was just grass.
After I wrapped around the bottom I started adding those same bumpy shapes around each mushroom blockout. In hindsight, I really should have waited until they were fully sculpted, as sculpting them changed some of the areas they occupied drastically, but it was good for visualization. I also added the effect around the tail. I'm debating now to add the effect under the top skirt layer so that it looks like it's radiating down, that'll be a decision I make when I go back through and finalize sculpting.
Mushrooms
This was probably my favorite thing to do this week; sculpting the mushrooms. They were ridiculously fun to work on and they really brought everything together. They do wonders for the silhouette and they are just so whimsical. I completely underestimated how turning them from blobs into their more finalized shapes would really liven this sculpt.
All of the mushrooms were just spheres I squashed into place and left to work on later, so when forming them into mushrooms I started by carving out the bottoms and any additional shelves they had. I really loved the look of those shelves so I added many. I'd then isolate the subtool and clean up the back, as they still protruded behind, and getting rid of the back would reduce their poly count. I'd then remesh them so their wireframe was better suited for their shelves and that made sculpting them a bit easier.
After finishing the mushrooms, I moved the organic layer to better fit around them. I'll have to go back in and do more sculpting on it because it looks so obviously pulled.
Accessories
Here is the home stretch as far as adding more elements to the model goes. This week i got to add the bow to the horn, the wraps around the feet, and the rings. When making the bow, I used the BendArc deformation on planes to make the loops. One thing I would do in the future is to use zmodeler to bridge the ends together because BendArc didn't do that automatically and that caused problems when I wanted to remesh and divide. When it came to the foot wraps I just masked out the shapes on the model and extruded them.
For the rings I just used Ring3D shapes that I remeshed and deformed. I did use the plane object and the BendArc deformation on the one ring that doesn't fully loop around and that worked very nicely for it. I only got to do some sculpting on the bow and footwraps while the rings are still not sculpted at all. I do know I want to add more filagre on the thicker ring and on the ring on the ring finger.
Next Steps
My goal next week is to finish adding all of the subtools I'll need for this sculpt and to hopefully get all of the sculpting done. I still need to add the necklaces hanging off the tail, but once those are done I can move on to final sculpting. I plan to break symmetry and add all the scars to the body. I also want to add more details to the feet because as I was working on the wraps, I really felt like more could be done to them to make them. In general the whole sculpt needs to go up in poly count so I can do more detail.
I also want to go back over the skirts and the hair to refine those, I realized as I was working on other things that they could have more done to them. I really like the sleeves and the top skirt layer, I just feel the rest of it could have more detail; the petticoat part of the skirt especially. I'll probably even go over some of the mushrooms and push their shapes.
I'm very happy that my excitement for this sculpt has been reignited. I have access to Substance Painter again, so that'll make texturing it eventually much easier. I've been working on a female base mesh alongside this and that's ready for topology, so I've also been learning how to use Blender for some things. I plan to have the female base mesh in my ArtStation by the end of next week, so stay tuned for that. These devlogs will be weekly from here on out.
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