Meet Dartanbeck 8
An uncommon coupling of Michael 8 and Ryel for Genesis 8 Male, Dartanbeck 8 is finally up and running with skin shaders that can be in the same scene as Rosie 8 with her wonderful Sol materials. Dartanbecks materials come from Ryel for Genesis 8 by Thorne. Such a pleasure to add her artistry to the male side of our program!
Ryel's entire face along with Michael 8's body looked fun at first, but during most animation camera tests, he ended up looking like a character I met in a movie that I really don't care for - likely because of the wild hair I've given Dart. I didn't really want him to be quite as boyish as pure Ryel anyway, even though he has a great face!
So Dartan's face is basically Ryel with the intensity of the shape dialed back quite a bit, without any other character face shapes except for the basic Genesis 8 Male. The a few tweaks using Essential Face Shape morphs to dial in the look.
I'm still considering him a Work In Progress, since he needs to pass a lot more camera tests than waht he's gone through so far.
The hair is quite the thing and is still very much experimental.
Linday's Long Wet Hair provides the hair itself, which I've dialed as short as it goes and went through trial after error after error - trying to get that wild style to survive simulation without draping too much.
This image comes from the first animation test in which the hair survived the simulation at all without blowing up. I was jumping up and down for joy, driving the real Rosie nuts, though she joined in the celebration right along with me! Man, I really lucked out when I married her!!!
This phase of the experiments had many that preceded it and failed miserably. This one has not only survived nearly everything I've thrown at it, it turns out looking great in the final animation - motion and shape-wise.
Instead of looking stiff, it moves only slightly, but softly with a really nice dance about it. I'm hoping that this is near completion because I really like what I've been seeing with it.
Dartanbeck 8 is not as muscle-bound as some of the previous Darts, but he flexes up really nice when he starts wielding that heavy sword. That masculinity combined with his cheerful, innocent face is exactly what I'm after, though I'm not entirely sure I've reached his final look. Most render tests animated in different lighting and situations will reveal whether he's done or not.
These two main protagonists are whom I am most fussy about. I put a lot into many of the other characters, but nothing like I do with Dart and Rosie - and Dart's development pales in comparison to what I go through to finalize Rosie.
Speaking of Rosie, during all of Dart's development I've also been working hard on a new sort of thing for her - something I like to call "Stylized Simulations", which is me tampering with physics for artistic license.
It all started with editing the outcome shapes after a simulation - edits that can be turned on or off anywhere along the timeline - each sessions edits reusable anywhere within the animation at any degree of intensity.
This started to get my imagination going towards wanting different things happening with the simulation results, so I began doing many tests using many different dForce functions both in materials and in the simulation pane.
Oh the discoveries I've made along the way! So Cool!!! More on that soon.
The complete character and costume shown in the above image is made up of these fine Daz 3d products
Also, using Affinity Photo I painstakingly borrowed the unshaven whiskers from FWSA Chace HD for Genesis 8 Male, and made whiskered versions for all of Ryel's many faces.
I'm still not sure if I'll keep the 5 o'clock shadow on him or if he'll go with a bare face.
Using Jepe's Body Hair Project 78 I selected a very light covering of body hair and turned the cutout opacity down to 65%
It looks a little odd when he doesn't have any hair on his face :)
More on Dartan 8 coming soon!
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