Nico Update: Maybe this is not a chasm, and this actually have an exit.

Yesterday I did a lot of research, testing, figuring stuff out enough for my hands to give up on me and being unable to work. I think I have something.

Even though not many people commented, a friend did, some people agreed with him and I can see why he did it: it can be summarized to show wips and vent. Showing wips has a very simple purpose: work. However, because of this particular nature of work (tattoos), working on this will drain people out of energy and patience. That’s where the second part comes into place. Vent is pretty self explanatory, is to just let out all the frustration because in the end, keeping that for oneself can end pretty badly.

While I didn’t even consider to do that to be honest, I decided to do it because I actually need it. Dedicating too much time to just one task is massively draining. It feels like you are not doing any progress because after many hours, you are still doing one thing.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I did a lot of research, figuring stuff out, and work. After 8 hours of work, this is my progress on the left arm, which I can consider it ‘Done.’

Honestly, the sight of either clean or dirty texture, and the number of layers (more than 50) is just daunting in general. I cannot believe that I did this. And I also cannot believe I worked 8 hours on this.

The tattoo is on a working state, but the issue is, I’m not 100% happy with it. The positive note for that is, however, I’m happy enough because that is the extent of my skills. It’s really easy to notice that some parts of the tattoo (specially near the wrist) does not wrap around at all, and some parts of the tattoos are missing. Personally, I would love to have the full tattoo, but honestly, this is just too much. Notice in the dirty version of the texture how there are some parts all over the place. This is because I’m cutting tattoos off, rotating, rescaling and even stretching in and out to JUST TRY to wrap around properly. As much as I hate it, it’s the only thing I can do. Like I mentioned in the previous post, the tattoo is not the problem, is the topology.  

Some of you might notice that there’s no nail polish like Nico’s have. The thing is that, I will use the commissioned textures for them in particular, since they are just a time consuming task and I can avoid it by just reusing the asset.

I will say it as many times as possible: I’m not 100% happy with it. This work can be way better, however, with my current skill, this is all I can do.  

The right arm doesn’t seem as daunting, but it also have a couple of wrapped tattoos. I’ve always tried my best and I will always do, even if it wears me out.