Rabbit holes upon rabbit holes in the Egypto-Victorian suit

Work - or whatever one would call this 3D hobby - is the exciting thing I look forward to when I get out of bed in the morning, mood willing. Managed to get back to it a couple of weeks ago thanks to streaming - the people there energize me - and currently am working on a suit.

The not-commission is a take on an fantasy Egyptian prince, with a Victorian aspect - that sounds like a hot mess, but 'fantasy', 'ancient Egypt' and 'Victorian' have been my GMed tabletop roleplaying campaign themes for 30 years, so it's my comfort zone. The Egyptian outfit is finished, and I've been working on the Victorian one for a while and am having a blast, because it requires learning a plethora of new tools. 

Whatever little I learnt of Substance Painter was mostly wiped during my two months off, so that needs re-learning. The outfit design is currently benign - bland Victorian, nothing Egyptian about the silhouette, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to change that; was this a design class, I'd have failed it for that alone. 

It needed folds, which meant a week or two invested in tackling sculpting, then cloth physics, then cloth simulation brushes, then stencils, failing each and using some amalgamation to get the result I could pull. It looked embarrassing, so there was much research of men wearing suits and how folds and wrinkles really look.

Then a week of researching elements that go on the garment: hems, seams, wedges, buttons, button holes, historically accurate design, sifting through disappointing amounts of AI slop and trying to deduce what makes a Victorian coat look Victorian and not, say, a WWI coat. Not that anyone will ever notice; this isn't even a game asset or a paid one. I don't understand why I'm obsessed with making this, but as long as I have a creative obsession that keeps me engaged and immersed, I'm happy.

More research about how to make a heavy European fabric look like one, and I got the coat and trousers somewhere that feels decent to me; no seams or pockets yet:

Then a couple of days looking into satin and silk for the shirt, failing at achieving what I wanted - I probably need to work on observation and analizing - and getting a bit fed up with it so compromising on this:

Now the waistcoat. My few attempts at fixing the faulty normals on the collar failed, but today I bumped into a possible solution! Then some research about Victorian waistcoats merited they're the one gaudy part of the suit, with heavy embroidery in rich patterns, metallic threat on satin or wild silk. That led to the rabbit-hole of researching textile designs in both ancient Egypt and Victorian England, and I thought - paisley wouldn't cut it, nor would the intricate floral designs that seem popular in the 18th-19th century; what I need is a pattern of ancient Egyptian elements, that still feels like the Victorian patterns. 

So more ref collecting, more analyzing, some sketches, some attempts to make it in Photoshop, lots of failing, getting a modern Photoshop for the pattern-along-path feature that my 2012 Photoshop didn't have, et voila! I don't have a pattern yet, but I have the plan and the right tool for it. 

Since I started researching and analyzing last year, during the Stormwind Library project, my notebook gained a somewhat Henry Jonesesque feel, which delights me more than it should:

This makes me feel like making corsets again, or Warcraft image commissions, or roleplaying in Warcraft - the blessing and curse of great passions with a short attention span and a rabbit-hole tendency; perhaps it's lucky I don't currently have a sewing machine, any incoming commissions or a roleplaying guild that suits my needs. Besides, while immersing myself in this Egyptian Guy project is the thing I mostly write about - the thing that got me writing in a public blog again - my life outside art and online stuff has never been so full or enjoyable. There's a boyfriend, there's his two kids which I was surpsied to enjoy the company of which, there's the funniest, derpy half-a-cat (yes, really), and half my time is spent cooking, shopping for groceries or proposing to the dishwasher, a miracle I've never had before. And living in the same house with kids and a cat, that feels like having a real family; something I haven't had for around 40 years. And it feels rather lovely.

More updates once I manage to crack that waistcoat design challenge!