#unity was kinda the future outcome so thats not just a reading

[sapphia]

sometimes i think about how the harry potter sorting system was about pubescent children being divided into social groups based on often-pretty indefinite traits, and then the story was about how those children were not just fed the prejudices of their parents and of history, but how they often actually found themselves grappling with the narrow definitions of self the houses placed on them and on others around them, and specifically the jarring presentation and diversity and boundary-blurring within those groups, and also how the overall message of the books was one of self-determination and hope that people would gradually grow past those prejudices and hard distinctions

and then somehow the author still became a fucking terf

[lcxeren]

∎ JUST THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NESSESSARRY To post the model texture process of Lexeren. A few have already seen these as I've shared this 4 day journey with some mutuals, BUT I wanted to just share the screenshots & perhaps just link this post to my PINNED post as well. Below the cut are as follows ( warning: some NSFW / nudity shots were part of the process. )

First we have the hands, I went with black on the fingers to make it resemble that of a fox paw, complete with black painted nails. Added highlight and a darker pigment of pink for the knuckles and used that same color to shade up the rest of the arm to add a shadow effect. ( I am not too much of a fan of using the standard applied shadow vroid gives because it's only applying one point of where light would be hitting the model behind the grey background. )

Next was the chest. I ... didn't HAVE to go this detailed but also kind of found it necessary just in case I wanted to go back and add new clothes that... exposed this area in the future ; we'll see. ( it was for science and art okay? Lets just agree on that AHAHA ) It may seem like some areas are deeply shaded but I'm a girl that likes deep contour so this was the outcome & I like it; personally.

Ehem... ....Moving on.

Next I added the clothes. I didn't want anything too crazy, since his hair was already going to be AN ABSOLUTE PAIN TO FIX. There were so many overlapping pieces ( which you can probably see in picture 2) -- and layering / positioning hair can be a struggle if it's over textured ( which I kinda did ) but I was able to fix the absolute mess, then started on the shirt and pants, keeping with the color theme: Red Orange Black Green Gold.

I added the glasses and THOUGHT I wanted to go with elf ears, but was unsure if I should make them or just use the sliders to stretch the ears out. Later down the line I ended up completely scratching the elf ears and went with BIG animal ears instead since I wanted to keep the fox aesthetic. Blended a bunch of greens and blues and mints together in that collar part, then added highlight on the gold trim to make it look oh so shiny.

The final look came out fantastic. The tuff on the shoulders is where Unity came in. Those strands are actually made with the same hair thats on his head. I just moved the bone's to the upper chest once I plugged him into unity so they wouldn't move with the head, added a jade band with gold trim on the shirt and a gold band around the waist of his shorts. Bada bing this was the final product. The great thing about this as well is that I can go in at any time and make new outfits for him which I might just do in the future. I've been practicing making vroid models for quite some time and honestly really loved this character back in the day. I'm very happy with how he came out & can't wait to explore / create stories with him again! Thank you for taking the time to see & read this! It was a very fun process! :D

UPDATE: There was a lot of trial and error with the ( what feels like a very short window ) of this model. Here's an evolution of the process to the actual finalized look. ( his other outfits and hairstyles will be applied to the white haired version since that is the final texture process ) but enjoy this evolvement