Lady Littlefox Blog

Chuckles,  some silly nut (hugs the wanderer) sent me a boat load of questions, so thought I’d answer these here while I’m waiting on testing results for Ashley Hair

- How do you decide what model your will make next ? It has to sell well ? You’ve never seen anything like it offered by anyone before ? You enjoy making “that” kind of model ?

Hmmm… well for me it all depends on my mood an what’s been inspiring me lately ;)  Usually it’s writing projects with my best friends that are the most inspiring. For instance several of the Koshini outfits were based off of stories we had worked on, many of the hair styles off of sketches for characters as well.   I do tend towards three themes… Toon, Fantasy and Furry, I guess what comes up next though is whatever is filling up my sketchbook and my head enough that I have to model it cause I see it ever time I close my eyes ;P

- Do you have some kind of ideas/projects book, for things you would like to create ?

Oh heavens, I have sketchbooks full of designs that I want to make,  more designs than I’ll ever get done. But I’d love to

- Do you ever create models just for yourself, that you have no intention to sell ?

Chuckles, actually don’t have much time to do it on 3d work,  last one I did was the Gumdrop Wolverine… wanna finish the Gumdrop Nightcrawler….. But generally when I finish working for the day I’m usually chasing children, the puppy, or recovering from the chasing and trying to sculpt something with actual clay ;)  Have way too many mediums…

- When you start a new model, do you have any base models that you use ? I don’t mean like the figure models, just things that help you start, so you don’t have to create everything from scratch.

Hmmm well for 95% of stuff I actually do start from scratch, the 5% that I reuse is scalps ;P

- When you decide on what you are going to create, do you first start on paper, then transfer those ideas to use as guides in the modeling program, or do you start right in the modeling programa ?

Usually I have a 2 view of a character I like to design for printed out, front and side.  I sit down and chart out what I want so I’ll get a really good mental image of what I’m trying to build, from there I just sorta dive in.  The sketched design isn’t really used as a guide really but more of brainstorming notepad so that I get everything working together before I start building… .though if you looked at the sketch book for some of my things, you’d probably think it was an absolute mess since it’s sketching and resketching scribbles all over the place rather than something clean and perfect

- Do you ever look at real items to help you create your models, or do you like to make up everything in your head ?

Oh I look at alot of real items,  I have like two book shelves of books of costume design, historical clothing design, hair dressing, resin garage kit books, comic books, and magazines from all over the world.   It’s huge, but generally what I do is go through and find things that inspire me, a sleeve here, a cuff there,  how boots and shorts work together,  just cobbling together tiny pieces of dozens of sources into one design.  Sometimes the inspiration has absolutely nothing to do with clothing, like currently I’ve been really inspired by carved birch wood boxes.

- How did you get interested in building these models for Poser ?

Actually Koshini was created in an effort to build myself a stand in figure for my own toon art.  I was having trouble with multiple character scenes and consistent proportions in my drawings.   Vicky was hellish to rescale to the type of toons I was doing so I ended up just building my own.  I already knew how to model from CAD, but it was a bit of a leap from 3d drafting to 3d modeling, but found I really loved it. In the end, I liked 3d more than I did my toon drawings ;).

- Do you remember what your first Poser model that you sold was ?
Oh that’s easy Koshini 1 ;)   My very first model though was actually for my husband about 3 months before Koshini’s release. I swiped his computer while he was at work and learned Lightwave and built him a Digigrade Felinoid for Christmas

- You ever create something, but feel something is lacking, or you just don’t feel happy about something, and put it aside for a later date to complete ?

Oh heavens yes! I’ve got a scrap pile that you wouldn’t believe.  And even now, I’m still growing with my skills and driving myself further and further, I look back on things I did when I first started out and just groan at all the mistakes and things I could have done better if I knew then what I knew now….. but yeah, I’ve got an entire directory of stuff that I revisit as I’m starting new stuff, trying to see if there’s any way to turn it into something I’m happy with, occasionally they make it out of the pit

- You ever stop working on one project because you have this really great idea, and just “have” to work on it instead, or do you try to stay focused on each porject till it’s done ?

Laughs oh lord, I’m the worlds worst on working on too many things at once.  I usually at any given time have 6-8 projects open and playing with, its an exercise in self control to put them down and getting things done…. which is just painful cause  I’m always running back to play with them when I should be finishing what I’m working on…. I’s naughty ;P

Been a while since I did some Mix and Matches, thought I’d throw together some Anime Hair since I absolutely fell in love with Poser Works’ Toon Shaders for DS…. I admit, I’m still all thumbs at working with DS but this render I think says it all…. I may be all thumbs but I’m enjoying exporting my pz3’s and rendering em in DS

Doing multiple fits so it’ll be for multiple anime/toon style characters. Short list for now is Sadie, ChibiBel, NearMe, and the K crew.

We’re moved in… okay, we got all the boxes unloaded from the truck but we’re not yet completely unpacked.  Took us till this evening to get net connection… so guess what I’m doing for the next couple of days?  Yup answering emails *chuckles*  so have mercy and if you haven’t heard from me in about 24 hours and you were waiting for a response to an email or a forum post, please feel free to send me an email, my email box was brim full and I’m not positive if stuff bounced or not

Just thought I’d remind everyone,  I’m going to be out of action from tomorrow evening till about mid June.  The first week or so, my email access is going to be chancy at best.   We should be settled in hopefully by next thursday and unpacking.  Oh the joys of a cross country move!   Wish us luck and the next you see of me will probably be mid June

One of my longest standing testers had a special request,  a mint color for the Sugar set ;)  So here she is, Sugar in Mint

Hope you all enjoy it,  it’s only a P5+ Mat I’m afraid though, no textures included, works off of the included textures in sugar.

sugarmintp5mats-freebie

Whew, been a true marathon to get this thing out the door, lots of tiny fixes, testers running around like mad to get everything done, promos flying fast and furious…. She’s here!!!! well okay she’s over at www.runtimedna.com but that’s close to here, right?

Okay I have to admit, Poser 7 Pro has me hooked with one feature…. most of the improvements, eh, I don’t really use them all that much and they’re mostly for game folk not for content developers…However, I’m a Win XP 64 user with 8 G of Ram and a Quad Core processor. The render queue is my new best friend! OMG it is a life saver….

Normally in poser you have to set up a pose, tweak the lights, set up the camera angle… okay that’s still the same, but then you have to render it (and mind you Sugar is pretty dang high poly and then you layer it and add IBL or HDRI lighting and ouch ouch ouch…. then you add MANY MANY layers of transparency…and now render it at around 1800×2200 pixels… I’m sure you’re hearing my computer whimpering in the background… I buy it special toys but it has to work for em I’s evil) …..

Okay well you still have to render it in Poser 7 Pro, but here’s the deal instead having to put my entire promo session on hold for approximately 20 mins to an hour as I render at high resolution and then come then shift to a new poses, adjust the lights and camera and what not and then wait again while it renders, an endless cycle that lasts for a couple of days straight… those of you who haven’t heard me whimpering every time promo time comes around may not know how much I hate that part, but by the time I get through, I’m almost sick of seeing my own models ;P

Anyway, now I just send it to the render que and go about making the next shot while in the background poser runs the renders on whatever is of the system resources are left over. Even better, I set up like 30 shots, sent em on to the queue and just walked away and went to a movie with the family. No more every 20 mins coming in and setting up a new shot for three days, get em all done at once and walk away. YEAH!!!!!!!!! Okay I’m hooked for that feature alone. Maybe I’ll start liking doing promos again

Been a hectic week here, 8 days till we start the massive move so I’m kinda running around like mad to get this project done and pack and what not. Between that and a sinus infection, ICK ICK ICK ICK

Anywho, two down, Sugar and Sugar Expansion have passed final testing.  Fixes for Sugar Hair are being whipped up as I type this and all is hopefully getting ready for final upload to the store itself

*fingers crossed*

Now the hair doesn’t come with a melody morph, the style with it looping down over the ears made it pretty impossible, requiring the right head angle and post working,  but I used the magnets with melody and stretched it in a few places ;)   Couldn’t resist having a bit of fun.

Sorry for all the silence in the last few days. Been busy rendering… or rather my computer has been busy rendering, I’ve been busy packing (we move in  two weeks! EEEE!!!!!)

Anyway, teaser for Moon Maiden, whose final name is going to be ‘Sugar’
Traveler helped me with the promo template and I really love it
Its currently being run through final testing by my alpha crew and tomorrow I’ll be submitting it to RDNA’s store final testing.   With a little luck and fingers crossed this should be out next week.

There were so many pieces and so much detail that I finally gave up and made the outfit 2 packs rather than loosing any of the pieces or making the pack insanely expensive.  I’ll be bundling the packs together though at a discount ;)  Shouldn’t be more than $20 on sale, the hair will be separate though, not in the bundle.  Sorry guys but GT has to eat too And she’s worked her heart out on this . The hair is fit to A3, V3, A4 and V4. Just love this platinum hair color!

Anyway, teasers!!!!

Sugar: Which contains the base out fit (Shorts, Skirt, Shoes, Long Sleeves and Corset)

Sugar Expansion: Which contains the additional pieces (Necklace, Earrings, Ruffled Sleeves, Anklets and that monster parasol)

Well I’m getting closer to finish… UVMaps have all been tested, base textures done, but still gotta do mats and a PP version …..Still a couple of weeks from release at the very earliest, but thought I’d share on how it’s coming together.