Updated Ms. Hartley CG and Taking a break for Dawntrail

Just wanted to let people know that I'll be taking a little bit of a break to play the new FFXIV expansion, Dawntrail.

This just means there wont be an art post on Saturday June 29th. I'll have a bonus WIP post for what I was working on instead.

That's the same day that Waifu Wonderland v0.1.2 goes public, and those releases take a lot of time. Since I have to go to multiple sites and update things like banner artwork, descriptions, and mirrors. This usually takes at least a couple of hours, depending on how many places I decide to post the game. So don't worry, that's still coming as scheduled.

This is going to impact art posts for a couple of reasons. For one, I always make the final adjustments to artwork on Friday, but that's when Dawntrail early access starts. I know I'll just be playing that all day lol. I'm also not going to want to spend all day working on Saturday. Since just posting the new version takes a couple of hours, but on top of that, when I post artwork that usually takes a couple of hours too. Since to do that I have to export out the full quality versions for both white and black guys, then also export out the 1080 versions for both, and I always export out the 720 versions for the actual game at the same time too. Then I have to make the rars for the full quality and 1080 versions and then make two separate posts. For those that haven't seen the full quality art posts, I always talk a bit about the artwork there too, which takes up a lot of time.

I had considered rushing through the artwork and just scheduling the post to go live Saturday, but going back and having to fix old artwork has been very humbling. A lot of it is clearly rushed and not great. Speaking of which, here's Ms. Hartley's updated character CG.

And for comparison, here's the old version.

Her face was an absolute train wreck. I can't believe I messed it up that badly. So I fixed the eyes so she's not super cross eyed, made them more the same size, redid the eyelashes to be more consistent for both, fixed the lips to be the right angle and be more the correct size, changed the nose to be more in-like with how I make noses in WW now, and fixed the glasses so that one lens isn't way bigger than the other. Then I also got rid of some of the wispy parts of her hair. I wanted to look a little cleaner, but also I think those are one of the reasons people keep thinking the art is AI. I've been doing some research to figure out why people keep saying that, and to make an effort to move away from it, and I noticed that AI tends to have the wispy parts as well. So I'm making an effort to stop doing them as much. That's also why I slightly changed the color of her shirt from more white to a little more blue. Since AI tends to use super white light, having that bit of color should help combat the comparison as well. I also added in a line for a fingernail. Not having fingernails is a pretty classic anime thing, but I'm a little worried that's one of the things drawing the AI comparison too. So I've started adding in little lines to add them in. Then lastly, in the original version I merged all the layers and used liquify to slightly change her head shape, but didn't this time. Because it looked worse when I did.

Honestly, I still kind of hate this. For the most part, I like the neck down. The head just doesn't look like Ms. Hartley. I changed up her hair to be more like how I originally envisioned her, before I had to just kind of use what models I had. But I think I'm so used to the "new" version that it just looks weird now. I also don't really like this pose anymore. I liked the idea of having her leaning on a desk, but when there isn't an actual desk, it just looks odd. I started to add one in, but that just looked weird too. No other character CG has props like that, so it just didn't make any sense. I honestly really want to completely redo her, but I don't have time for that right now. Once all the MMC characters are in, if I'm able to go back and start adding more scenes for them, I'll redo her then. But for now, this is Ms. Hartley. At the very least, the artwork isn't horribly disfigured anymore. Her scene was still solid though, so that's staying the same.

Anyway, back to what I was saying about rushing through artwork. Stuff like Ms. Hartley and Seika's TJ scene happened when I was rushing through and was too cocky. I wasn't thinking much when I was drawing it. I just started drawing without doing things like planning out proportions or sketching out things like eye, nose, and mouth positions. I just kind of drew them. I thought I was good enough to not have to do that anymore, but I was very wrong. That's why a lot of the earlier artwork has needed changes. I was more focused on being fast than anything and was way overconfident in my abilities. So with the more recent artwork, I've been trying to slow down a bit and work my way through the full process. I start with the basic proportions like a circle for the head. Add in the line of action. Fill out the basic blocks for the rest of the proportions, like a circle for the should, boxes for hands, etc. Then add in the guidelines for where the eyes, nose, and mouth is. Then start filling in basic outline details like the neck, boobs, full hips, etc. Then add in the eyes, nose, and mouth. Then start adding in more advanced details like the hair and clothes. Then finally going back and refining areas as needed and adding in smaller details. All the while flipping the canvas back and forth and working on the opposite side for a bit. It's led to much longer sketch times, but the artwork has been better overall. The scenes actually look more consistently like the characters and there aren't severe issues like with Ms. Hartley's super crossed eyes.

So that's why I didn't want to just rush something out and have it done and scheduled to go live on Saturday. I want to spend the time to make sure it's decent. If I don't spend the time now, I'll have to do it later anyway. I'm still sticking to my schedule, so I'm not completely obsessing over everything and am still focusing on making sure something it out, but it's all better overall.

Speaking of the schedule, to make sure I stay on schedule, I'll do a double art post one week. Probably not until after I beat Dawntrail, but before v0.2 for sure.

Just wanted to let people know what was going on, as well as share the updated Ms. Hartley character CG.