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Not dead! I've been continuously working on Episkyros for the last... 653(?) days since last posting anything on here (oops). There will be something cool to officially show later this year, but please look at this delightful bug that I absolutely must share
Extremely WIP animation to test out character physics. It's not got a whole bunch of life to it and isn't super anatomically accurate yet, but I wanted to share something this week. Very happy with how things are shaping so far.
I was hoping to be able to finish their clothing and environment in time but that's increasingly becoming it's own whole project for when the animations are finished, so for now enjoy the generic onesie and blank test-desert.
Quick status update: Not dead and working on This Guy! This is a super-WIP texture that's not finished yet (proper renders to share by next week is the goal), but I'm very happy with how the new Stekh model is going. Still needs the whiskers, fur, and lots of cleanup around the legs, forearms, ears, etc. They are already animation-ready and this time I've been keeping the design modular so I can quickly generate distinct people from this as a base in future projects.
I'm working to design clothes from two historical periods too, lots of stuff to share when it's ready! My current goal is to use them in some slice of life style animations around one of the cities they inhabit, in three different time periods.
Also a quick thing for 3D people: This was textured in Blender! My first time using a tool called Ravage, so far I've found it to be very reliable and as feature complete as it needs to be to replace my reliance on substance painter (finally).
Oh no
Behold! Some "real" Stekh bones! Made in 3D printed resin.
First (successful) attempt at using an SLA machine to bring some of my creations 'to life', as it were. Ran out of material while the skull was printing, but overall am extremely impressed with the result!
There will be a bunch more (digital) stekh content upcoming too, though it's still too early to comment on that much as well. Things are looking up in terms of 'amount of personal creative projects needing to release soon', now that things are less demanding at work and I have more energy to put into everything personally important.
Also: Still working on Train Game:tm: in the background, there's some substantial updates to share soon (Namely: it's top-down now).
Thanks to @hotkoin for the splash screen/home page for my setting's Wiki! I hope to share that as well once I configure it to be properly online.
A really rough écorché showcase.
To be retopologized as a character base in upcoming animations.
Stekh got a lot of visual redesign this year, the 'heart' of them ( ethology, evolutionary niche, cultures, individuals, etc that've been worked on for years) remain mostly the same.
I feel this design 'fits' them a lot better, that's also much improved over the original as I learned more about anatomy and biomechanics.
Museums are very helpful!
I'm most excited about the development of the hindlimbs. Keeping in line with the niche of a projectile-throwing predator, Stekh now have a novel way to do this via whipcracking!
TLDR: The force of the main body moving can be transferred to the hindlimbs, which conserves energy towards the end as an acceleration of the hand, reaching incredible throwing speeds.
It took a lot of trial and error to make this aspect 'real'. Lots of CAD modelling bone segments and 3D print experimentation until I made a physical model which really behaved as a whip in the real world.
Small world building update: This is roughly how Stekh are shaped now! I've had a few gripes about my previous designs as I come to learn a lot more about bio-mechanics and anatomical structures in general. They still have their same ethology, environmental role, and general body-plan; but this form really accentuates the throwing-niche specialization and allows them to move a lot more efficiently in their environment.
It looks like a tail from this angle, but those are actually the two hind-limbs. In this case they are a lot more articulated and fish-like, never having evolved to carry weight and more adapted for maintaining stability. Early ancestors also used their tails as a defensive tool similar to monitor lizards, though in Stekh this whiplike motion was adapted for killer underhand-throws.
More to come eventually, I've got quite a lot of work to do!
