#ArcticWanderer

[arcticwanderer]

Have a dancing badger.

When I found out they just celebrated their 20th anniversary I crumbled to dust, - then got up and made myself a little gif to use as a sticker/emote for discord.

Feel free to yoink.

[heatherfranzen]

Playing with Photoshop again. I picked two words for today’s inspiration. Thank you to @arcticwanderer for suggesting a West Highland Terrier and @nihilproject for suggesting poppies!

[arcticwanderer]

I made a website...

Finally got so fed up with being fragmented all over the place that I got myself a Neocities website and dusted off my rusted HTML skills.

And honestly, I'm happy with the results. I made it how I wanted it, which is probably insulting to a proper designer or whatever, but it works exactly how I want it to.

It has links to all my most used socials as well as a little showcase page for my VRChat guff. Oh, and a link to any random freebies I've thrown out into the world.

https://arcticwanderer.neocities.org/

Other than that I've finally 'finished' my ProtoBear base avatar, I'm quite happy with where it is atm and don't see any big updates in its future. I'll keep the files updated with any SDK changes, but other than that it's done!

Bolf base has been finished for a while, so same notes on the updates as to the Proto.

Kittenbee also received a cosmetic upgrade and a bit of polish, and I'm happy to call that done as well.

Hoping to start working on my druid avatar again in the new year. I got pretty far on the sculpting stage before my motivation fizzled out due to a combination of tedium and 'wtf am I even doing?' mood. (Self-doubt is a helluva drug...)

I just need to get back to it and blast through my doubts, - I'll get there eventually. Also want to try to get my current VRChat World project done to an acceptable state in the new year, but baby steps are needed for that. XD

Happy New Year all!

[arcticwanderer]

Not sure I posted on here, but I finally finished the Quest version of my Protobear avatar. Comes with both a Medium and Good rated avatars, Scenes are already set up so you can easily pick which one you want to use. [Quest Proto VRCArena link]

It comes with a material toggle, so you can choose between Toon Lit and Standard Lite.

I made it to go with the PC version and I've tried to keep them as similar as possible.

The PC version is also listed on VRCArena, and both are free. [PC Proto VRCArena link]

Also, an important note: I just fixed an issue I noticed with the fallback shader on the PC version, I've re-uploaded the fixed .unitypackage, but it's a very simple fix if you don't want to re-download anything. All you have to do is go into the Poiyomi shader on each of the materials, scroll to the bottom and change the VRChat Fallback Shader to [MobileToon/Opaque/OneSided]

[arcticwanderer]

So, I just found out that you can share direct links to public avatars on the VRChat homepage... Incoming showcase post with links to my public models! Protobears:

These are the first public avatars I made, and second overall avatar I created. I use a personalised one of these as my main avi atm. They do have a scrunkly Quest compatible fallback as well. They have MMD visemes as well, but due to the way their faces are made it can be a bit cronchy at times. (95% ok I'd say)

I want to remake these in the near future, once I learn a few more things, but they are still very special to me.

[Blue] - [Green] - [Black] - [Pink]

Bolf (Bear/Wolf hybrid):

My second public avatar, and free editable base. Again, with a scrunkly Quest fallback attached. I also made an Ookami inspired edit, - which is PC only because there was no way I could make the fluffs and reflector work within the Quest restrictions. If you want the base for yourself you can find it [Here]. These also have MMD visemes because I got hooked.

[Bolf] - [Divine Brush Bolf]

Kittenbee:

My most recent public model, based on the Kittenbee by Eskiworks. First avatar to have a custom sit animation as well as a custom combo gesture controller for expressions. I actually retro-fitted the other avatars with similar (but less complex) combo gesture controllers after I figured the KB one out. It also has a decent Quest fallback, although I had to sacrifice some colliders and physbone components for the good rating. MMD visemes again, because ofc!

[Kittenbee]

Overall I'm very proud of these, I've put a lot of work and love into them, and countless hours of headdesking my way through learning curves.

Hoping to be able to make and learn lots more in the near future! \o/

[arcticwanderer]

Been working on sculpting my redesigned bear druid, got the face and most of the arms done, just the legs to sculpt and then I can do the mane using curves.

Planning on baking the normals from the sculpt onto the retopo, never done it before so we'll see how it goes.

[arcticwanderer]

I just discovered I can share avatar links directly from the VRChat homepage instead of having to slap a pedastal into my avatar world (which is stuck in Labs limbo so has some restrictions applied) [Kittenbee Avatar link!]

It's Quest compatible, but the quest version is a bit skrunklier and (sadly) doesn't have most of the neat stuff like nose boop and headpat.

I have no idea how long this has been a thing, but now that I've discovered it I'm very happy and going to be spamming links to my models!

Can’t remember if I posted any of these or not, but I finished my kittenbee VRChat avatar! Bit of fanart for Eskiworks, as it’s their character. There’s a few scrunkles here and there, but overall I feel it’s my best model to date. Learned a handful of things as well, - like how to make combo gestures, how to add an audio contact trigger (headpat purring) and how to add a custom sit animation. It has a toggleable wing flutter idle as well. Oh, and multiple texture toggles!

My expression controller is a bit of a spiderweb, but it makes sense to me. XD In the future I’d split it up more, but I was just winging it at this point so no reason to re-build it for redundant efficiency.

[arcticwanderer]

Dunno if I missed it, timezones are weird. You're all valid.

[arcticwanderer]

Finally, after what feels like forever, I've finished redesigning my druid!

My WoW druid was always close to my heart, and when the Kul Tirans were announced I fell in love not only with the animal forms (except the drowned turkey, wth?) as well as the human form. I had finally gotten comfortable drawing the KT bear and was working on the human design when the SA lawsuit against Blizzard dropped, and my heart dropped with it.

Something that had been a part of my life for almost two decades was suddenly tied to some really heinous things. So after a while I decided to re-make her, taking inspiration from the parts I liked and making it into something 'mine'.

I can't explain how happy this makes me, and I'm looking forward to making silly memes and sticker designs with this big derp again. :)

[arcticwanderer]

Bolf VRChat base avatar is done!

Woo, it’s been so hecking long! But I finished it!

This is a free editable base, and I’ve included as many files as possible to that end. (Including a Procreate 3D file, because I figured out how to make them 4k!)

If you want your own >CLICK HERE< to access all the files!

[arcticwanderer]

Some of my favourite artwork I’ve done in the time I’ve been away from Tumblr, all done in Procreate on iPad.

[arcticwanderer]

Been working on redesigning my Guardian druid for myself, mostly to disconnect it from WoW. I really vibe with the KT druid designs and was so happy when I could finally race change, but with having left WoW (most likely for good) I really missed the big scruffy twigbear, hence she’s getting a makeover. The legs are giving me so much grief, I have an idea of what I want but it just goes sideways when I try. XD I’m already itching to make this into a 3D model for VRChat/VSeeFace use... -_-;

[arcticwanderer]

I cannot remember if I’ve posted about this here or not, too many different sites to post to nowadays, and a few discords as well, so my art gets scattered all over the place...

Since finishing and releasing my Bolf VRChat avatar I’ve been working on an Okami edit, and finally finished it today. I’m quite happy with how it came out in the end, even if it’s got a ‘Poor’ rating ingame.

True test is yet to come, as I take it golfing to get a feel for it and if there’s any little details I’ve missed during desktop testing. :)

(I haven’t uploaded it with the Bolf stuff because the Unity project is a hot mess, but it’s cloneable if you happen to run into me.)

[arcticwanderer]

I struggle to remember what I’ve posted and where, I drop updates in 1-2 places max in one go and then remember to do it on other places as well the next few days... And it’s not like I’m consistent in where I do it first... -_-

Too many socials nowadays, and not enough brainpower to go around...

In any case, made a Quest compatible fallback version of the Bolf, has almost all the animations etc. as the main one. - Boob toggle is gone as there was no geometry left to re-make them. - Toe physbones are gone as well so no floor interaction. - Belly jiggle is gone as well, but I re-built the blendshape so you can still add some chonk. - I tried to keep the UVs as neat and symmetrical as possible but they were just utter garbage by the time I got to them. So, they’re a bit skrunkly. - Only included one texture as holy heck was I shattered by the time I finished it and to do it for all the textures (including the .psd etc.) is just so much work...

Avatar files can be found [Here]

[arcticwanderer]

Moar Bolf WIPs

Been working on my bolf model some more lately, managed to break it, then un-break it, and fix some issues. It’s not perfect but coming along nicely.

Going to be adding a few more shapekeys before UV unwrapping it.

I recorded a few videos of it dancing in MMD worlds, then realised I wasn’t recording any audio so made a compilation with a random track slapped on top.

<Dance Test Video>

After I made that I finally figured out how to add the lipsynch visemes so the avatar sings along as it dances. :D

[arcticwanderer]

When I was playing Pokemon Go regularly I had a tradition of drawing a pic of my WoW druid as a trainer with my fav pokemon caught from that year.

I race changed my druid to Kul Tiran in the 3rd year which presented some challenges as I was not at all familiar with drawing the new form.

In the 4th year I got an iPad so had fun messing around in Procreate and ofc made a ‘Free Willy’ inspired pic with my shiny Kyogre. :D