Decided to perform necromancy on an old project from a year ago.

God I'm so rusty pushing polygons around, despite what my handle may imply.

Looking through the concept folder, it's certainly has had some iterations.

Mess'n wit matcaps.

Certainly been a lack of polygons on this feed for some time.

The matcaps are something I slapped together to test color not the final look.

The reflection is from a persona model rip.

Dunno. The proportions seem wonky to me...
But the more I attempt to work with the model the more stubby the limbs get. If I keep going it's going to turn into a nendroid.

I think next time I sit down with this, I may try to quickly deform the body to something closer to this sketch. I think this body shape has more of the spirit I'm going for.

As is, I feel like I've wandered into some sort of lumpy, Lalafell.

(Time for bed.)

Oh dood! This is pretty close!

Gonna have to get a hold of these assets from persona q and see if I can try and match the shape a bit.

It took a lot of lattice deforming, but I was able to get close.

Yeah, I think I'll roll with these proportions. Next time, clean the mesh up from all this destructive deformation. (Close seems, smooth out mesh, etc)

But we'll see how I feel about it by then.

The shin:femur ration seems wrong. Like the knees are too high up. Maybe that's the shirt playing tricks on me.

Oh well, things to see with fresh eyes.

Only had time for a little mesh clean-up tonight.

Next is hair retopo.

Ended up spending a good while doing some costume changes and minor body/face reshaping.

Hair retopo is going to take a loooong time.

Hair retopo was a paaaaain.
Prepare to cringe at my wireframe.

I remember when I used to care about poly count.

Innocent times.

Abnormal normals.

It's been a long time since I got my manual UV'ing on.

I could certainly pack these tighter if I didn't need to keep them to their own quadrants, but I got plans. Same with the grid alignment. Usually an unfold is good enough. Again; Got plans.

Started some texturing.

Are you winning, son?

Time to write the shader! I've been eager to dig into this part.

This is a mockup of how the material will colorize, but there's so much I want to try out with this one.

Lunch Break Shader Test:

Tweaks to outline. Pushed away from camera view a bit to reduce intermodel clipping.

Added a 1-frensel mask to eat away at AO texture just a little bit.

Gradients are from a secondary UV channel with an offset V ramp. Zero Banding!

Not sure how strong I want the attenuation to be. I think subtle is better.

I'm drawing the comic, but I keep alt-tabbing to my shader to poke at it.

Attenuation adjustment now merges with the AO mask. I like the look. Reduces that 3d feel.

Simple rim control added as well as stylized smoothness (Hotspots yo!)

Metallic is next. (Gonna use a matcap)