Pokemon 06: Eevee
Looks like Sandshrew is suffering from a particularly nasty version of Eeveefication, poor thing. I don't know how it happened. One moment I was looking for good reference images of Sandshrew and the next thing I know I'm sculpting Eevee. Oh wait. I know how it happened. There bloody aren't any good reference images of Sandshrew, that's how. Not that there are great many with Eevee either. You'd think that such a cute little fella would have tons of pictures. Well, it does, but try finding one from a side and one from a front that will produce the same creature. I dare you, I double dare you!
Ahh. With the rant over, I can now brief you on the current state of the project. It is not good. I'm writing this section on Friday and I haven't finished the sculpture yet. That means I'm at least two days behind, which is as far behind as I've ever been, Mr Frodo. If I don't get some serious work done today I have a very miserable weekend to look forward to.
The worst thing is that I'm not even sure why it's suddenly taking so much time. It started with the base mesh. As you'll see in the gif, I had to change my approach several times before I got something to work with. First, I tried to avoid the skin modifier (because I'm an experienced sculptor now, ha!) and I began sculpting from a sphere, like the last time. Only this time it ended with an unrecognizable blob on the screen and me on the verge of tears. Alright, scratch that.
Then I created the base mesh the old way, only I did it with a sitting Eevee in mind—an idea I had to abandon as soon as I started sculpting because the not-very-good reference image of sitting Eevee turned out to be incompatible with the front view. So I struggled with re-positioning of the tail until I got fed up and removed the whole thing. Eventually I stripped the mesh down to the basic body shape. No tail, ears or fur.
From this bare bone mesh I should be able to build up all the details. The only question is whether I'll be able to do it fast enough. I still have retopology, map baking and texture painting to do. Better not waste any more time, then.
***
Alright, I've re-attached the tail. It looks more like Bulbasaur's bulb than anything else but it will have to do. When I ran out of unhelpful Eevee references, I tried searching for some real-life fox images. Talking about unhelpful. It may come as a surprise to you, but foxes have much slimmer tails—which gets me precisely nowhere. I'm also not sure about the size of the thing. Or the body proportions in general. The Eevees I've seen all look pretty similar—that is, until you put them next to each other and try to adjust the body parts. I keep oscillating between several sizes of heads and tails and none of them seem right.
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| Basic body shape |
Since I'm running out of time, I have focused on finishing the sculpture and put the blog on the back burner for a while. That means you won't directly experience my frustration with the ears (I hate ears) or the collar fur (I hate that too). Maybe it is for the best. I will, however, say, that whoever designed the adorable spikes on Eevee's head should
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| Finished sculpture |
***
In an unexpected turn of events I somehow managed to retopologize Eevee in about two hours. (It it still Friday, by the way.) I don't know whether I got caught in a time loop or what (and frankly I don't care right now) but it is done. Not the cleanest retopo I've made but it will UV unwrap just fine. I think. Onto the normal map, then.
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| Retopologized mesh |
Holy cow, that was crazy. Alright, let me fill you in. I baked the normal map as I usually do. I did the UV unwrapping, created an empty texture, set up the node editor, created a cage mesh from the optimized mesh, scaled it along the normals so that it was bigger than the sculpture, set up the baking process and boom! Rubbish.
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| Normal map: attempt 1 |
The body is puffed up and unwieldy, the legs are all wrong, the eye sockets are a mess and the melted spikes on the head finish the design in a general ghastly theme. And I don't have the slightest idea how I'm going to fix it.
***
...and some twenty attempts later... No, seriously, it was a nightmare. Every time I changed something in the retopologized mesh, it snowballed into changing everything else. For instance, I had to add geometry for the eye sockets. That meant I had to make a new cage mesh (because it has to have the same number of faces as the optimized one). Then the cage wasn't good enough. Adjust that. Then the normal maps it produced were more skewed than usual. Because, of course, if you change the geometry, you also have to update the UVs. Then I noticed one of the late changes in the optimized mesh was done with snapping on and messed up one ear. Rework the mesh. Make a new cage. Re-bake everything... To be honest, I'm surprised I didn't just quit.
But I didn't and I'm now nearly finished with the texture painting as well. Oh, before I forget. I also tried another thing to help me with the spikes. I turned to Blender Render (which I never used before) and I baked a displacement map. The process is quite different from the Cycles Render so that was a lot of fun figuring it all out. But I have the map and I'm feeding it to the Displace modifier. It does have some effect on the body but the spikes are still quite different from the sculpture.
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Anyway, back to the texture painting. I thought I would draw a detailed fur coat but given the state of the project, I'm not going to be able to do that. I highlighted the white fur on Eevee's neck and did some subtle shading in the ears and inside of the mouth. I tried highlighting the claws with light colour next to the dark (to give it a sense of depth) but it didn't really work. The eyes, on the other hand, helped quite a bit. In a sudden wave of inspiration, I mixed in a bit of glossiness and it made all the difference. It is slowly starting to look like something I might not be ashamed to present to people.
***
And as it usually happens when I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I skipped writing the post and just carried on working on the scene. Which is now finished. I must say it turned out way better than it looked like just two days ago. Now, don't get me wrong, there are still loads of problems. Bumps that shouldn't be there, the head looks like a deflated volleyball, the spikes are flacid and the fur hasn't been combed in ages. But at least it looks like Eevee. From far away. If you squint a bit. No, really, it's... acceptable, I think.
And the next week? I have something in mind, but I'm not going to promise anything because, as you can see, things can change here faster than you can say "Snorlax on the loose" in an apple orchard.
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