Here is my finished Self Portrait Low Poly Character.
Used Mixamo for the animation. Went with a sassy/frustrated animation because I find it absolutely hilarious for the uniform haha!
Still some small details I could add to the uniform but decided it was enough for being low poly.
Fantastic LP model animated. Great details from fingers to the uniform.
Thank you! I actually meant to go back and redo the hands and I completely forgot 
.
A great example of low poly and animation.
Mabe a bit less shiny hair (because itās low poly, bigger reflection on flat faces).
Character details look great. Animation reminds me of my wife for some reason. hmmm 
Thank you! The secularity on the hair was intentional to add some contrast and emphasis on the small sculpting done on it. Perhaps it did not execute well.
Haha thanks! Thankfully my wife lacks this sort of sass but makes up for it in other aspects haha!
He looks like heās about to say, āAwww fiddlesticks, I forgot my keys again. I guess recess is cancelled kiddos! Oh, Iām so maladroit, I should tie a string around my finger. Just do some push-ups or something.ā
Haha most definitely ! I could see an officer saying they forgot their keys, even with them on his hips.
āOh these things? Ohā¦ uhā¦ no, these are my personal set!ā
Side note, I love your wide range of vocabulary. Anything specific that helped you to engrain more words into your day to day use? I absolutely love that and wish I could do as such!
Thank you for the vocabulary compliment.
Um, well, when I hear a new word in a conversation, a movie, or music, etcā¦I usually bother to find out what it means and try to use it a few times.
The āword of the dayā from dictionary.com is a good source, but to be honest, I signed up for a few of those types of things about a decade ago and never looked at them so I unsubscribed.
Technical writing is something that is worth practicing. It helps to write essays about the things I learn, and then post them to places like LinkedIn, etcā¦just for practice and to help me remember stuff. Thatās the same reason why I write so much in here. Just processing ideas.
Most Udemy classes were probably started by people doing this very same thing, then they decided one day to sell the information that they wrote as an āonline courseā. Have you ever gotten the notion that most Udemy classes maybe started as a means of someone just writing to improve their own understanding of a topic? My suspicion is that that many people BECAME an expert as a result of writing an Udemy course, but they didnāt all start that way.
Youāll probably notice that my posts in here are longer than average. Quality time is spent on each post. Itās really where a lot of my thinking gets done. Seeing the words helps me process my ideas. This very post was actually about three times longer, but most of it was deleted and re-written a few times. Thatās a pretty common practice.
Everything is usually proofread and re-write several times to make multiple corrections for spelling, grammar, semantics, flow, punctuation, etc. It can be difficult to avoid using the same word twice in a paragraph, so looking up a synonym or two can be helpful.
Avoiding multiple back-to-back āIā statements is also a big challenge for me. It requires a lot of re-writing. There were probably about 50 sentences in this writing that began as āIā statements before the editing process started.
All that having been said, dumb jokes and puns can be helpful because they often require quick thinking and timing.
Playing the role of āthe dumb oneā can be a lot of fun. Many people find it irritating, but ya gotta be good at something.
Like, the other day I was at the farm store. Top-soil was on sale so I bought five bags because it was dirt cheap!
Oh, and do you know how NASA organizes a party after each successful shuttle launch? They planet!
Anyway, itās mostly itās just practice. Itās fun to be an idiot, but being an eloquent idiot requires some ānext levelā ability.
Yesterday, I decided to start this thing on Medium.com. LinkedIn was a consideration, but thereās too much garbage there and Medium seems to be much better suited for my style of writing.
Iām sharing it because of what you wrote in the above quote.
Itās not a plug for myself because I honestly donāt care if anyone reads it, but itās there if youāre interested. My notion here is to create a writing portfolio for things that I enjoy, and I can keep some of the longer, boring, off-topic things out of the GameDev environment.
Since you asked about writing tips, here are the things I rely on most:
Write. Let it all out. Sit down with your topic in mind, and get it all onto the āpaperā as quickly as you are comfortable. This isnāt about writing 110 WPM. This is about NOT interrupting the flow of ideas coming from your brain.
Let the information come out however it comes out. If you write like I do, your first draft will look like:
Save your work and put it away. Edit later. Embrace the idea that editing is a different process than writing. Go back the next day and read your work again. Make any necessary spelling and punctuation corrections.
Donāt rely on vague pronouns like āitā or ātheyā to accurately convey your meaning.
Most importantly of everything Iāve written here, understand that āIā statements will absolutely murder any good writing. Rewrite any sentence that begins with an āIā statement.
Proofread your work from top to bottom, and from bottom to top. That is, youāll catch many mistakes if you start at the last sentence and make your way up to the beginning of the piece because your eyes and brain are not trained to flow over errors when reading this way.
For readability, try not to make any paragraph cover more than four or five lines of text on the screen. Thereās no law against a ten sentence paragraph, but people will be less likely to accept the challenge of reading it.
After youāve removed all of the āIā statements and you think youāre done, then itās time to post your work.
Once your work is posted, read it again and youāll likely find a few more things that youād like to edit. Go ahead and make those changes.
When reading your own work, ask yourself if it āsoundsā like āyouā. Most people donāt actually write in the same manner in which they speak. Youāll probably find that your āwriting voiceā is much different from your āspeaking voiceā and there is nothing wrong with that.
This piece was mostly āIā statements when I first wrote it yesterday. Today I did the second draft. Itās just an example.
I hope this helps.
I wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed both of your responses fully. I actually ended up getting sick and being out of it for what feels like forever now. I spent all day in bed with a migraine and fever. Iāll definitely have to try and do the word a day through dictionary.com . I seen one word on there yesterday that I actually liked a lot but have already forgotten it unfortunately . I am at work atm but plan on re reading these responses again and definitely appreciate the input and feedback on the off subject as random as it is. But I truly do enjoy seeing your responses come up on posts especially with your awesome word usage!
Thank you again! I appreciate the compliments.
Rick and Ben actually use a lot of good words. I used to say something like, āIām not trying to be right for the sake of being rightā¦ā but then I heard Rick use the word pedantic a couple of times and itās just easier for me to use that word now. To be honest, however, the intention is usually to be more didactic than pedantic, but more for accuracy and not necessarily in a negative way.
As far as the tenets of āgood writingā are concerned, semantics and syntax are, indeed, important, but empirically speaking, I would argue that careful phonology is often taken for granted.
Good examples of bad phonology include:
A tenant is a person who rents a land or property
A tenet is a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true
Taken for granted is to assume something as true, real, unquestionable, or to be expected
Taken for granite is to confuse something with a rock (I guess)
A rottweiler is a dog
A rockweiler is a word made up by drunken rednecks that think they are talking about a dog
You get the idea.
Phonology and aphasia can seem similar in meaning, but the former is being careful and knowledgeable about semantics and the latter is a medical condition that causes people to confuse their words. To be fair, I discovered both of these words tonight while I was writing this.
If you really want to learn some cool words, I recommend casually browsing the German language. The Germans have a word for everything, seriously. Germans have words for things that you wouldnāt even think about.
Petrichor is a personal favorite. I find the thought of petrichor particularly soothing, especially on a bad day. Itās a very powerful word for me. Thinking about petrichor makes me want to breathe in very slowly and deeply.
On a different note, Iām sorry to hear that youāre not feeling well. I hope things get better. Iām not sure if youāre into meditation or holistic healing, but Iām a firm believer that most causes of disease, or the lack of being at ease, begin in the subconscious mind.
Louise Hay suggests in her book that a fever is often caused by āAnger, burning upā. A phrase on which you can meditate is:
āI am the cool, calm expression of peace and love.ā
She also suggests that migraines can often be the result of the āDislike of being driven. Resisting the flow of life. Possible sexual fearsā. A phrase on which you can meditate is:
āI relax into the flow of life and let life provide all that I need easily and comfortably. Life is for me.ā
Depression relates to āAnger you feel you do not have a right to have. Hopelessness.ā Her phrase for meditation is:
āI now go beyond other peopleās fears and limitations. I create my own life.ā
Only you know what these mean to you, and youāll have to think back to what was going on in your life just before you started getting sick to make any meaningful connections, but I would also add that I would probably be angry a lot if I were a corrections officer. I donāt think I could do that job and be satisfied with my life.
Iām not suggesting you should take any specific immediate action, but I do think your mind and body are trying to communicate with your spirit in a way that will bring you greater peace and wholeness, if that is what you want. Not everyone has a desire for peace and wellness. Who am I to say what another person should want out of life?
That said, if you are, indeed, seeking peace and wholeness, it might require major life changes, or maybe just a few small adjustments. Being sick in bed is a good time to seriously contemplate lifeās decisions and consequences.
I think our minds and bodies have reasons to offer us those āopportunitiesā. We, as humans, enjoy being entertained and many of us are actually afraid of the āsilenceā. That is, we crave constant distraction to avoid facing our deeper thoughts and processes. Entertainment can inspire us, but for the sake of mental health, our minds also need quiet time to reflect upon our actions and heal just as much as a broken bone needs to be set and remain undisturbed for a period of time.
Anyway, like I said, only you know the deeper meaning of what this means to you. I donāt know you personally, but the Universe is offering these ideas to you. Iām just the conduit. Things happen for a reason. Youāll have to decide any deeper meaning for yourself.
I hope it helps.
Rest well!