I feel like I've been kicked in the gut. I spent the entire day painting skin weights* for the lower half of Hattie's body, trying to see how my new solution (see earlier entry) would work out. I'm not totally pleased with where I am now, but it's a heck of a lot better than where I was yesterday. But then I moved to the upper body, spent a couple hours working on weights for the shoulders and upper torso, then went to move the arms into place on her walker. Only to find that no matter how I fussed with the IK**, it wouldn't move the way I needed it to move. I'm going to have to remodel her arms in place.

* skin weights: Determines what areas of the skin move with each joint, and how far they move.
** inverse kinematics: a godsend. A labor-saving system for animating stuff like arms and legs. Move the foot at the ankle, and it'll move the knee and the hip for you.

Now, the remodeling itself will be a snap. It won't take long at all. However, in order to remodel, I'm going to need to unbind the skin from the skeleton. And that will destroy all the skin weights I spent all day painting. I'm going to sleep. After eating lots of brownies and ice cream. Life hates me.