– New Avatar –
The first avatar using my new base (which I have named Arita) has been released today! It took a while as I learned new modeling techniques during the process, but I ended up with a classic maid outfit that I’m very happy with. Let’s dive into a few of the details:
The skirt ruffles as well as the decorative ruffles were something I didn’t want to sculpt or model by hand, because I wanted a consistent design I could reuse across the whole model. So instead, the approach I took was modeling one small segment of ruffles without any curvature and then using modifiers to achieve the final result. In order to do this I first duplicated the last edge loop of the skirt and converted it into a curve, then used a combination of Array and Curve modifiers to duplicate the ruffle segment along that path. Unfortunately the topology didn’t line up perfectly, but I made sure I had the same number of vertices on both loops so I was able to manually move and merge everything into place. I’m looking forward to using this technique on other avatars because I see a lot of potential, and not just for clothing ruffles.
The ruffle base that receives the modifiers.
Texturing the clothing was a bit of a struggle, mainly because I was trying to bake out the ambient occlusion or anything else that could give me a good baseline for shading. In the end I decided to do it by hand because it just wasn’t working, but I’m happy with how it turned out and it gave me a bit more practice texturing from complete scratch. I also changed up my normal eye texture a bit, by moving and adding highlights, adding an inner ring before the pupil, and overlaying a space/star design to give it a bit of a sparkle.
Close-up of my new eye texture.
There’s been a slightly major change of styles from my Kyou avatars to this new Arita line, and that comes down mostly to shaders. I’ve switched from NoeNoe to Poiyomi, which offers much more complex options. I’m now using an outline as well as toon shading to give a more traditional anime style, instead of the softer shading I used to have. Depending on feedback I may change this setup, or just swap back and forth between the different styles.
Enjoy, and keep an eye out for my Halloween themed avatar near the end of the month!
You can check out the portfolio page here and purchase the avatar from Gumroad!