Uncanny Valley of the Donuts

In the next few sections of the tutorial, we make the icing blobbier, give it a color, get into shading files, then geometry nodes (while adding sprinkles) and weight painting, and and and...

There's a bunch of stuff we used in the tutorial that I don't completely understand, but this is how I learn best — use the features in a project and start making the connections as I go. Some of this stuff I've stumbled into while messing with things in Daz3D, like when I wanted to remove the patch on the leather jacket and had to modify a few files to get rid of it.

I do think the donut looked more appetizing in grayscale. It's hit some sort of uncanny valley where it looks more like plastic than food, but that's okay. Maybe I'll stop craving donuts as I finish the rest of the tutorial.

More realistic drips plus color:

And sprinkles!

Honestly, the hardest part was when we scaled the donut down from its previous size of one meter to a more donut-like size and then I had to move the camera position so there wasn't a tiny little donut far in the distance. I should probably figure out better lighting at some point as well, but you get the picture.

Adding Icing to the Imaginary Donut

Today in Blender learning, we duplicated the donut, wiped out the bottom half, solidified it outward to make the icing, and then played with the edges and extruded some drips.

I followed along in the tutorial reasonably well, though I did... something... that made the mesh of the icing disappear into the donut even though I did the stuff to make that not happen. Though clearly I didn't. Have I ever mentioned how hard it is to follow instructions?

Also, at one point there was a break in physics and a couple vertices transported to the other side of the donut, creating an odd bar through the middle. I just deleted those vertices because that seemed like the easiest way to fix it. Is there a weird flat spot somewhere on the icing where vertices are missing? If there is, I haven't found it.

All in all, I'm still pretty close to the desired output.

This tutorial is making me hungry.

Learning Blender

I know I've ranted about this before, but the available clothing options for 3D models, especially female models, are horrible. (Unless you're making images of strippers — then they're fantastic!)

The obvious solution — complain on the internet — has thus far failed to yield results. So my backup plan is to make clothing myself, because again, I have the self-confidence of a mediocre white man, so why wouldn't I be able to do this difficult thing that I have no training in?

There are expensive programs that make virtual clothing creation easier, but I'm cheap. And Blender is free! Obviously, it's time to learn Blender.

Since Blender has a pretty steep learning curve, this time I decided not to go with my usual "poke at menus until I figure out how to do the thing" method of learning new software. Instead, I am working through this tutorial on YouTube. At the end of the series I will have created an iced donut.

So far, I've learned the basics on moving around in Blender and then modifying a torus so that the end donut isn't so symmetric that it looks fake.

At the end of two lessons, I have this lumpy torus.

I think it's going rather well. Maybe I can dress my characters in baked goods...

Auromancer (Cyperpunk)

Day 28 of Thingadailies:

(For anyone reading backward, Thingadailies is a challenge to create a new thing every day during the month of February. I chose to do fake book covers in Affinity because I'm trying to get more comfortable using it so I can dump my Adobe InDesign subscription.)

I didn't have a plan for the day, so I decided to go with cyberpunk. Mostly because it's super easy to pick an image in DepositPhotos that will look striking on a cover. So here we are.

Font is Oxanium, because I couldn't justify using Flavors for this one.

Thingadailies wrap-up: While I may not be a pro, I'm at least as comfortable using Affinity Designer as I am using Adobe InDesign. That means I have a week to export all my InDesign covers and drop my subscription. I can do that.

Other than getting comfortable using Affinity, this month has improved my skills at picking an appropriate image to use, which is a huge win.

We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Medusa's Revenge (Fantasy)

Day 27 of Thingadailies:

I decided I wasn't done playing with the Flavors font, so I grabbed a fun picture and made up a title. It was quick and fun, and I still need to add the last scene on a story that I have to edit and send out to my Patreon supporters tomorrow, so sue me.

I like it.

One more day! What should I do? I'll have to think about it...

Bobcat, Lynx, and Mountain (YA Fantasy)

Day 26 of Thingadailies:

Honestly, some days (eg, yesterday) you spend a bunch of time trying to get something looking halfway decent and finally give up, and then other days you just throw something together in 10 minutes and go "huh, that looks pretty good!" (Yeah, it's because the image is right.)

I need to get to the grocery store anyhow, so I'm glad this just sort of fell together. The font is "Flavors".

Avast! (Fantasy)

Day 25 of Thingadailies:

As usual, I'm not convinced I really hit the mark with this one. My friend Richard was trying to find a title for his time-traveling pirates story, so I grabbed one of my suggestions for this challenge. I think time-traveling pirates might need a mashup of images, and I've been trying to focus on using one image and letting the typography do the heavy lifting.

This uses the font Princess Sofia. I wanted to use Black Sam's Gold, but the title was illegible when I tried, so... Princess Sofia it is. A true professional probably wouldn't give up after two tries.