Taygeta - Creation Process

The wings looked how I imagined, something bulky but also gives off a fast mech feel to it. I was looking at a lot of AI art of mechs and some of them were cool, so I was heavily inspired by those. I know there is a lot of debate in the art community about AI art but I have not copied anything directly. Just used it as inspiration to direct where my designs would of and come up with my own ideas off the back of them. I decided to get rid of that "blade" part of the wings and turn it into a "flare" look about it but that will be explained later. It took around an hour or so to make them, I would then have the make a base for it to mount on after.

I wanted a small back piece to brace these big wings. I didn't want anything too big because then I would have no idea how to make it look counterweighted towards the front. I also think that smaller packs like this just look a lot more appealing. You'll notice that this version has 2 vent ports on it which I decided to get rid of. I was not happy with the design as I believed it contrasted with the wings more flat and flowing design. So, I stripped those off and added a "core" to it with metal indented brackets. The core idea was from Iron man, that generator in his chest and wanted something similar powering these wings.

Going back to the "monstrous" look I wanted, I knew I needed some kind of mask or helmet unless I wanted to create an entire head from scratch and that simply wasn't about to happen. I was already taking big breaks from VRChat and creation in general and just going other things. 

I began outlining the shape of the mask I wanted. Using the modifiers solidify and subdivide-surface to get the overall result I wanted. I was looking good. Especially when I added the teeth as well, I was very happy with the overall look of the mask. Adding to the demonic look I added some additional horns as well. That's when I realized exactly what I wanted to make. A Celestia Death Angel. One of these nights when going for a smoke break, I noticed a constellation in the stars that stood out to me, looked it up and that is where the star cluster idea came from.

At this point this is how the overall avatar outline was going to look. I wasn't entirely sure what other things to add, I really liked the overall look but first wanted more clothing than just a one-piece unitard. At the same time, I did not want to ruin the aesthetic I had built up. It was looking exactly how I had in my head after months of procrastination and delays with working on models. I think I hit a wall with creativity so took even more time off, probably a week before working on the model again. I decided to double down on the demon aesthetic and aim to adding additional stuff in that area.

I worked on a tongue but wanted a level of gore added. I decided to go back on this idea after because I was unable to achieve the look I wanted from texturing. I'm sure it's possible but I'm not good enough with Unity material setups to get the idea in my mind across.

A long tongue and metal teeth really looks rabid to me, I looks menacing and that is exactly what I wanted to achieve. Adding the bit of blood and in Substance painter this looked look, I thought of allowing texture editing to give an acidic look to it as well but again went back on this idea.

I went on another long break after this point and really struggled to get creative motivation to work on anything revolving around VRC, not sure why it just comes in waves.

I came back and working more on the back detail and how this rig is going to hold onto the body. I had this idea of these "Ribs" hugging around the body and really bolting it to you without much movement. I needed it to feel secure though so within Substance Painter I added additional bolts or rivets to give it the heavy duty feel, and I think I managed to achieve that now. 

I also added an overlapping spine to really secure it to your body. I also generally wanted to give it a more futuristic look as most of my latest avatars have had. This was also an opportunity for me to add more emission to the avatar as this is something that I heavily lack on my avatars. I've noticed a lot of the more popular avatars are either colorful or have a lot of emission options to allow you to pop and stand out in public worlds that are darker. It's also a nice contrast to the dark colors (black) that I always go for.

This is after I had made the changes to the wings which I should explain. I wanted to animate the wings to be flared and flickering at the bottom. Turns out you can't do this without drawing every single sprite. Now while writing this, I could probably do it with a dissolve animation which could be cool. Of course, this would be PC only as I never make stuff for quest users, I have too much reliance on transparency to get the effects I want. That could be one way to do it though.

I also added a torn shirt to show that she has been through wars or some kind of torn environment, it also gave me the chance to test my blender works with flowing clothing and using the cloth brush. Overall I am happy with the result as it looks pretty rough and patchy.

I still wanted the heavy armored look that I mentioned previously, and I was going to achieve this with big armor pieces on the arms and legs. Starting off with the arms I went for big pistons and large plating. This was going to hang quite far off the avatar so I was worried about collision if lifting your arms but decided to double down and make them anyway. If I didn't use them then the experience making them is worth it.

The look was for reflecting large projectiles on impact by compressing the pistons on impact. I really wanted these to look industrial and bulky. It was not meant to be a smooth flowing design this time which was quite difficult for me to design mentally. I kept thinking "Is this too big", "These are too bulky, are they going to even look good" ect... but overall, I'm happy I stuck with it as the design came out pretty good to me. A lot of heavy pieces on a demon sounded cool and I think it works together. I've not actually animated anything on them but then again, I don't believe they need to be. Too many moving parts makes for bad optimization and overall, a noisy looking avatar to me.

The avatar now is looking heavy, and I would even say unique compared to most avatars in VRC. That I am happy about, I made the mistake before where I was trying to create for what I think others want and overall, it was not what I wanted. This was a mistake as my work was shit to me, the quality wasn't there and even though I take ages to release anything at least the new ones are unique compared to other people. I'm happy about that. Of course, there is still a requirement to make things at least visually appealing or there would be no point in spending so much time on it, I wouldn't be happy during and at least I can wear my own designs as my main because I am making what I want now.

I realized that I fucking hated the head that Porybase has, it looks really strange and uncanny to me. It also was the opposite to the kind of look I was going for. I wanted a "resting bitch" face on here, one that can also be sexy and not just unsettling. I decided to go with Cici's head. Not only does she look very pretty but has a lot of shape keys for blend-shapes that I wanted to use to express emotions. The change was very much needed as every time I looked at the face I was filled with unrest, that may sound a bit exaggerated, but I really did. Something was not sitting right with me almost to the point where I didn't want to work on the model anymore. This change re-sparked my will to continue working on it.