[WIP] Texturing the upper body clothing, drawing practice, and adapting the digestive tract for the avatar

Last week, I completed the UV unwrapping process, which involves flattening a 3D model onto a 2D plane.

This week, I’ll be working on texturing—applying color to the model. Now that the model has been flattened, simply painting the 2D surface will automatically apply the color to the 3D model.

This is the texture that’s been unwrapped onto a 2D plane; right now, it’s completely unpainted. I’ll start applying color to it.

First, I’ll start with the elements located at the top of the head. I’ll begin with the halo, which I’ve placed at the top-left corner of the texture image.

I’ve painted it.

The color has now been applied to the model. I’ll continue painting this way for the entire outfit.

Next is the cap. Since I couldn’t find a free font that matched the lettering style, I’ll hand-draw the text to mimic it.

Next is the helmet. Since the shadow color is calculated based on the position of the light in the environment where the model will be used, I’ll avoid painting the shadows too dark.

I’ll paint the face mask.

With that, I’ve finished painting the face texture.

I’ll paint the coat. Here, too, I’ll do my best to hand-draw the text.

For the school emblem on the back, I found a free resource shared by a volunteer who had hand-drawn a replica, so I’ll use that. I’ll apply color on top using layers to match the shade as closely as possible. Since this model is intended for sale, I’ll make sure to thoroughly check the distributor’s terms of use to confirm that selling it is permitted.

I’ll paint the upper inner layer.

I’ll paint the armband. For this, I’ll also use the previously mentioned shared resource and layer colors on top to give it a silvery sheen.

Here’s what the textured image looks like so far.

I’ll paint the gloves and wrist straps.

I’ll paint the cord for the command device around the neck and the command device pouch.

I’ll draw the command device inside the pouch while referring to the reference materials. The reference materials showed some text on the command unit’s screen, but it was so smudged I couldn’t read it, so I added some doodles for fun. You can’t read them in this screenshot, though...

Next, paint the shoulder and torso belts.

Here’s what the back looks like.

That’s it for this week’s texture painting. The remaining textures to paint are the lower body and the weapons, so I’ll do my best to finish them by next week.

That wraps up the modeling process for now, but starting this week, I’ve begun a drawing training program called the “A to Z Method” with the goal of improving my drawing skills and developing my own artistic style. The challenge I’ve set for myself is to draw 26 illustrations—A, B, C… through Y and Z—over the course of three months, following the themes I’ve assigned myself. The approach is to sketch all 26 roughs in the first two or three weeks, then spend the next three weeks finishing the first three—A, B, and C—with color, and from there, spend three days each on finishing the drawings from D through Z with color. Right now, I’m halfway through the roughs for the G drawing (the 7th one), and I’m really enjoying the process. It’s fun to feel like I might actually be pretty good at drawing after all.

Also, behind the scenes, I’ve been working for about a month and a half on a request to make my digestive tract avatar compatible with VRChat. Popular avatars have a lot of mouth shape keys, so it’s taking a long time and is quite a challenge to make them all compatible. I’ve finished about two-thirds of the shape key adjustments so far.

By the way, I haven’t cut back on the time I spend on modeling at all. Roughly speaking,

Modeling: Drawing: Avatar Compatibility = 6:1:1

is the time ratio I’m working with. I calculated that my modeling time last month was about 141 hours. You might think I’m taking on too much, but this is necessary to expand the scope and quality of my future creative work, and it’s something I genuinely want to do myself, so please be patient if you’re looking forward to my animation work.

That’s all for this week’s progress report.