Looking Beyond the Next Step

Because of the built up frustration with my recent project, I tried a lateral approach. Knowing that the character needed fur, I started playing with Hair Particles. Last time I tried working with hair was on the My Little Pony project. It was version 2.79 and on my old PC. Long story turned short, It didn't turn out so well, and I ditched it for molding a quaff for the mane and tail.

This time, I created a sphere, squashed it, and gave it an unusual color. Adding the hair is (and was) the easy part, but my problem was styling it. I rewatched a YouTube tutorial that I "borrowed" a while back. We never have the greatest internet while in Thailand, and knew have a few would be helpful. It was much earier this time. I did try and apply a color ramp to the shader, hoping I can get the strands of hair to change color, but it didn't work. It only changed the overall fur from one side of the sphere to the other.

Because of this, I ran through my model quickly. I duplicated the remesh, and applied all the modifications. Then, I removed parts of the mesh that didn't need fur. Finally, I added the Hair particle to that mesh, and roughly combed it. As some of you will understand, my laptop crashed, several times while manipulating the hair. However, something happened this week that really helped me out. Blender had just put out their 2.80 Release Candidate. We were at a hotel with pretty decent Wi-Fi, and because I had some free time, downloaded it. I did not have a lot of time to explore the updates, but I didn't have any problems or crashes combing my model.

This does not mean I made any progress with my secret project. What I did gain was a reassurance that most of my re-mesh will not make a difference under the fur. In addition, I already contacted my sister, and told her I won't be done in time of his Birthday, but I will show him where I'm at. Hopefully, with his input, I can see an a better ending to this project.