Change in Workflow
After working on this project for a while, I noticed something consistent with my work ethic. Usually, I'd have a week where I would be super productive, I'd easily work on the sculpt for several hours a day, and I'd make a lot of headway on detail work. After that, I'd have a week where I could not stay consistent no matter how hard I tried, and I just didn't really want to work on this project that week. I've decided that I will shift to making devlogs a bimonthly thing so that I'd be able to present more work at once rather than have a devlog where I get a ton done and then a devlog right after that where I have very little to show. I also plan to prioritize other projects on my off weeks that are shorter to keep this project fresh.
Finishing the Basemesh
My main goal for these two weeks was the same as it was last week; to finish the base mesh. I have gotten to a point this week where I'm happy with how it looks and am ready to move on to the rest of the sculpt, and higher detail work will be done later when all of the subtools are in place.
First I make small tweaks to the face to match up with the model sheet more. I also added eyebrows. These will likely just be placeholders for future haircards, but they help bring together the look now. I didn't have to do too much more with the face. After that I added in eyelashes.
From here I was happy with the face and I was ready to move on to the hands and feet, as those were the last things I needed to do and they've been causing me trouble.
Lizard Feet
I realized I once again made a mistake of sculpting/drawing something based on what I thought it was supposed to look like, getting confused it didn't look the way I wanted, and then looking at an actual reference and suddenly getting it. I was sculpting lizard feet and not looking at lizard feet. I realized that I had the knuckles wrong, I had them coming up and then down when lizard toes look like floppy noodles. A lot of them go down and then come up, sometimes the end of the toe doesn't touch the ground because of the claw.
I fixed the toes and I also took a closer look at the feet themselves, as I felt the leg just sort of when into the heel when on lizard feet there's usually a small bulge where the foot meets the ground. I also finally added in the claws and that just really tied things together.
Hands
Hands are the bane of my existence. I want them to look perfect in my art but for whatever reason I feel like the more I work on them the weirder they look. I was determined to make the hands on this sculpt to look like the best I've made so far. I think I'm like 70% there.
I had my friends weigh in on how to make them better when I felt like my own eye couldn't tell exactly what was wrong but knew they didn't look right. I feel like I've gotten them to look much better and I have gotten better at looking for the right details. They aren't perfect right now, but I'll address them more later when I'm doing higher detail sculpting near the end of the sculpt. I also added in the claws which always help in bringing things together. And with that, I'm ready to move beyond the base mesh.
Next Steps
I'm going to continue with this schedule, as I feel it helps me have more content to present rather than having an entire post dedicated to smaller tweaks. I think it's better for my health and also allows me to work on other things.
I realized I hadn't moved very far in terms of progress last month. January was a weird month for me, I had surgery and then my job situation changed so I had to dedicate a lot of time and energy to sorting things out. I do think despite that I've done a lot of really good work and now that I'm working beyond the base mesh, this sculpt should start to come together very quickly. I wanted to make sure this base was as perfect as I could make it. I'm excited for what will come next and I hope next devlog I'll be able to show off something with a lot more parts.
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