Kaz spoke to me!

Ok, well – he replied to an email I sent. The very man who contains the soul of Katia within his demented and sadistic head deigned to reply to my humble email!!! I’ll never wash my monitor again.

Yes – THAT Kaz. The designer of such memorable characters as:

Happy Gator, your Customer Service Friend!

Evil Quill Weave, the sexiest Argonian you’d ever like to be tied up by!

Mikahail, the funloving, devil-may-care Assassin…

Furry Red Fox Guy… wait… Not him… go back to that sexy argonian…

Yeah, her. And he did some yellow cat girl too I think…

(You can’t really call it hero worship though – he’s the madmad who causes Katia such tears. More like villian worship?) Anyway – no, mostly I just wanted to see if he’s ok with Katherine Managan. I pretty much knew what his answer would be, but still it seemed the polite thing to do if I’m going to promote it out there first. Of course he said it was fine as long as I wasn’t looking to profit (I’m not), though he did ask me to be sure to make it clear that it’s a fanfic (of a fanfic) and not endorsed or associated with Prequel. And that it wasn’t for-profit. (Profit? Off my innocent version of Katia? Perish the thought!) So I stuck a little disclaimer on my banner.

But he also made one little comment – basically, “for god’s sake, get Blender and learn to MESH”. Ok, not quite in those terms, but that’s the gist of it. He’s right of course. But my problem is time – I know I could Learn To Mesh, but by the time I finished Katia will have long since lost her Cloak to Sigrid and I’ll be lucky to clothe her in Ectoplasm.

So, to quote a certain fox, “I understand what you’re saying, and your comments are valuable, but I’m gonna ignore your advice.” (How’d that turn out for him btw?)

Cloak of Gray Tomorrow prep 2

Alas, the Dragon Priest cloak from Cloaks of Skyrim mod was not all I hoped it would be:

So it doesn’t wrap around the front at all. The “v” cut in the back really isn’t that big a deal either – I have learned how to “cut” models by making parts of them transparent so I can cut a v in anything really. Think of it as having a great pair of scissors but no sewing needle. I can subtract, but I can’t add. And where a hood would be, there’s nothing. But while I had the mod installed, I wanted to see some others…

COUNT KATIA! Ok, no hoodie. Neck thing is rediculous (but remember those scissors!). Does wrap around pretty good though. Frankly, this is the most likely I’ve found yet (with a lot of cutting!). But obviously it still doesn’t cover anything in the front.

The rest all appear to be variations on this theme (though I’ve only looked at a FEW, there must be HUNDREDS in this mod!) Different colors, textures and lengths but all basically similar:

There are quite a few with hoodie-type things on the back though.

So, what to do… Best from this mod that I’ve seen is Dracula cloak (Daedric technically but throw some red inner lining in and we’ve got dracula!) Do I want to start work on this, knowing that it won’t look canon? Frankly, I don’t think so. Not yet anyway. I want to see a few other mods first before I commit. So, no mod work yet. Besides, I have other stuff to do too.

Cloak of Gray Tomorrow Mod prep

Yes, it’s that time again. Time to begin a new Skyrim mod based on Prequel. This time, Cloak of ~~Grey~~ Gray Tomorrow. (Stay Cannon! GRAY not GREY!)

This one’s gonna be tough I fear. First, let’s reiterate one thing – I can’t do mods from scratch – I’m just not good enough for mesh editing (though I did do some VERY slight mesh editing on Arena armor). So it’s critical I first find some existing mods to work with.

But even before that, I need to figure some things out. First, going as canon as possible, I’ve only got 2 images to work with right now:

So this first one has the cloak on but not the underneath outfit. So… should the cloak be separate? I think so. Also, here the hood is down so THAT should really be separate too. (or a version with cloak hood up and another with it down – either way). So we’re really looking at 3 separate items here. 1-hood, 2-cloak,
3-undergarment. The cloak is the most important of those though.

And here we have the undergarment with it. There’s a .gif where she pulls the hood up, but it’s so short we don’t really get much of a look at the hood. Fortunately the original designer gave enough of that here:

(bottom right) so when it’s time to start creating the texture file for that, we’ve something to go by.

Ok – now back to the cloak itself. It has some features that are going to be hard as hell to imitate. First, it covers a significant chest area. Almost (if not all) the existing cloak/cape mods I’ve found mostly just cover the back like a cape and nearly nothing over the shoulders. Here’s some I’m looking at:

Velvet Robes and Cloaks

Not much in front, but beautiful cloak. Problem is it would not reflect the swooping curve from the front to back. But all have problems, this may be the least!

Winter is Coming

Has the advantage of much more in the front, but all Furry and quite mounded over the shoulders. Plus, there’s still no way to make that swooping curve from front to back.

Cloaks of Skyrim

This one has me interested. I’ve yet to see a good front-view of it though, but it does appear to carry around quite well around the shoulders from this view – plus it has a split in the back that is canon. the tatters around the bottom may not be an issue either as it needn’t be quite this long and I’ve proven I can “erase” with no problem using the texture file.

So I’ll probably at least try first with that Dragon Priest cloak from Cloaks of Skyrim mod – if the front isn’t just too “off”.

And yet MORE KM delays? (sorry!)

Wow, I’m starting to feel like I understand Kaz a bit more. Sorry for the Katherine Managan delays. I always feel like its a bit of a cop-out though to try and explain way – it doesn’t matter really. But more to come soon. I finally got my privacy back and it’s kinda needed to do KM the way I want to do it.

Once this first cycle is complete, I think I will push it a bit in various places. Though I said last time I probably wouldn’t continue, I’m already starting to think of another plotline. Probably not a good idea when I’ve not finished this one yet. Problem is, >I< know the ending of this one so it’s a bit less interesting to ME. So never say never, I think there’ll be a KM Cycle 2 after all. But I would like to complete this first and hopefully get at least a couple more readers first.