Greetings, Dungoneers, and welcome back to another Fur Quests update over at Itch!

Today's update is a fairly small one, adding a few minor fixes here and there to offer a more polished experience. We have big plans for the RPG Maker build, but right now, I’m mainly waiting for Fae to finish more illustrations so we have more art to work with. She’s just about done with the final piece for a new scene with Morrigan, which we’ll be releasing for our backers on Patreon and Subscribestar this Wednesday.

In the meantime, I figured I’d share what else I’ve been working on. As some of you may know, I’ve been an aspiring 3D artist for some time. I’ve mostly focused on sculpting, but I’ve also been slowly learning the technical side—how to bring a fully painted and animated character into the game. I’ve done a lot of experiments, but I didn’t want to commit to anything until I felt my skills were strong enough to achieve a level of detail and quality I’d be happy with. I’m proud to say I reached that point last year.

With the skills in place, the next challenge was nailing the right style. For my first real test, I decided to adapt Nagara into 3D. 

Partly because I love her design, but also because she has a little bit of everything I needed to figure out how my 3D models should look. Her mohawk is a mass of long, flowing hair, she has a stylish coat of fur, fur-lined wrist guards, and a cool skirt around her hips. These elements share similar concepts but have very different shapes, so I knew that if I could make them all work together, I’d be golden.

I started with the mohawk since it’s a big part of what gives Nagara her personality. At first, I tried an Arcane-inspired hair texture, but it didn’t mesh well with the fur coat. Plus, the amount of curves it required to look right was a bit much for me. And I hadn’t even tried rigging it for animation yet! So, it was clear a new approach was needed.

I pivoted to a more anime-inspired style, focusing on broad, simple shapes. It took a few days of trial and error, as I couldn’t quite get it to look right, but after reading up on hair flow, I got a result I’m pretty happy with.

While the hair curves were too much for the mohawk, they worked well for the fur collar, which has a simple pattern. I wanted each strand to stand out and be clearly visible from a distance.

In contrast, the fur along the shoulders and back needed to feel more relaxed and fluid with Nagara’s movements, so I made those sections out of a single mesh piece to behave more like cloth.

The wrist guards were an interesting challenge. Like the collar, they had a simple shape, but each strand needed to flow naturally along the wrist wrappings while also bending and swaying a little for a more organic look. On top of that, they had to fit under the wrappings while allowing for thick, exaggerated tufts of fur to emerge.

Then came the fur skirt. This one had me stumped for days. I tried countless variations and approaches before landing on something I was reasonably happy with. I used a mix of the techniques from the fur coat and collar—starting with hair curves and then merging them into three separate meshes to form one cohesive piece with lots of natural curves and patterns.

But... something about it didn’t sit right with me. I don’t know if it just didn’t work with this 3D style, but it felt too big and clunky. Adding smaller details only made it feel too busy and messy.

In the end, I replaced it with a tattered cloth skirt, and honestly, I think it works a lot better. Part of me regrets spending so much time on the fur skirt, but it was a valuable lesson and gave me plenty of practice.

Right now, I’m adding a few final details and retopologizing everything. In short, that means breaking down the model into its major landmarks and reducing the poly count so it’s easier to render and work with.

Once that’s done, I’ll move on to painting. I’m planning to experiment with a style similar to Darkest Dungeon, which has a nice hand-painted feel. By placing outlines over the paint, I should be able to easily swap out base colors to create quick and simple variations for other NPCs in the future.

I’m still learning, but I plan to document and share my process when I start working on the next character. Hopefully, it won’t take as long now that I’ve learned so much.

A huge thanks to our backers on Patreon and Subscribestarr for your patience and generous support during this early stage of Fur Quests' development. You’ve given me the means and motivation to push my art beyond anything I thought I’d be capable of just a few years ago, and for that, I am truly grateful. Thank you all so much!