John Joins Payhip!

I joined Payhip on November 15, 2022 under my "JohnMarineDesigns" handle! The intent is to sell my creative works on a proper store. I want this to be an outlet for which to get direct financial support from my audience. As I do have some other places where I have uploaded my creative content, I feel the best way to get things across is through a proper store rather than a real third-party service (like Envato). This blog post discusses most of the reasoning behind me wanting to set up this store.

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John Joins Payhip!

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I decided to join Payhip recently. But...

Why Payhip?

On Facebook, I announced that I might consider joining Gumroad for which to sell my creative content. I was mostly convinced... except for how poorly organized content can be. You have a sidebar on Gumroad stores that trims down the available categories of resources in Gumroad for a Gumroad store. However, I was ultimately convinced about Payhip.

I went with Payhip because it seemed better organized and with some better options towards sales and content. Since I mostly produce digital content, that is what I have gone with for my store mostly. I even went ahead and included things I uploaded to other sites and have them available on my own Payhip store. One such thing is the Breakout Block Pack that is on OpenGameArt. When Voxel Art Shop was discontinued, I added my pack to Payhip. I also edited the links to my Breakout Block Pack on OpenGameArt so people could find my paid package online.

Another reason why I joined Payhip was because there are no monthly fees to set up and maintain your store. I don't make my own money outside of blogging, so having some sort of way to have some income would be great. Neither Payhip nor Gumroad have monthly fees, so either service would have worked for me.

Items offered on Payhip from me are offered either for free or for a fee. My free content will be provided on a name-your-price basis. I am hoping someone can pay whatever they like for some of my content that they will offer a bit more as a tip. Some of my paid content will be name-your-price outside of paying the original price for my content.

My Payhip So Far.

Payhip for now has a lot of the past content I have developed and offered for sale or download. Before coming up with this blog post, I uploaded all of my old models that I sold on Turbosquid. I will later look at selling my eBooks and music to my Payhip in the future. I may still sell any future content on other sites, but I want to try to build up my Payhip store all the while. I will add links to my blogs and a lot of my different social media profiles for interested parties.

Want to Visit My Payhip?

If you would like to visit my Payhip store, you are invited to follow the link below:

payhip.com/JohnMarineDesigns

Happy shopping! :)





I hope you get to support my work directly through Payhip if it so interests you. If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my JohnMarineDesigns Weebly site, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin! Let's connect:
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Patreon	Soundcloud	Bandcamp
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Voxel Character Evo Project

For years, I have contemplated what to do with my voxel model characters. I felt it wouldn't really be enough just to have voxels in the raw. So for this blog post, I will discuss my plans with my voxel models. You have an idea of what it is by the blog post name, but you don't know about my full plans until you take a look at this full post. Read on to find out about my plans!

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Voxel Character Evo Project

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About as far back as 2014, I developed a series of voxel model characters. I spent the better part of about a month to develop five different sets of voxel characters. I made a total of 43 characters including a handful of extra characters. I therefore made about 50-60 characters total. The base 43 characters, though, are what I am primarily focused on in trying to breathe new life into my voxel model collection.

Wait- what "new life?" Well, I have a bunch of static voxels. You can only do so much with a set of static models. I decided to re-do my voxel models through a combination of Magicavoxel and Blender. What I intend to do is take my voxel models and break them up for animation. This will allow for people to either rig the models themselves or look to a service like Mixamo for animation.

It is that simple, right? Well, no. I feel my voxel characters will have to be extensively modified and enhanced to make them better for animation. That is where the "Evo" part comes in for my models. "Evo" is short for "evolution." Whereas most people will immediately think of Minecraft or something for pixel-perfect or blocky voxel models, I need to make these voxel characters different but still retain a small semblance of voxel roots while not being hyper-realistic.

Project Inspiration.

A YouTube channel that has made animations of voxel-type characters has been one of my influences to work on my old voxel models. Even better, I saw a YouTube video that gave me some ideas on how to model voxels made in Magicavoxel. The channel in question with all the different 3D animated films is Zaminmation. Zamination is famous for their 3D animations based on "Minecraft" and the "Five Nights at Freddy's" series videos among others.

The Evolution Process.

A key in the evolution process of re-working these voxel models is in understanding the newer possibilities working with models in a unique way. Part of that involves considering things like how to enhance the models. I want to make the voxel models to be sort of textured. The way I seen my exports from Magicavoxel in PLY format, I could take the individual faces and maybe replace them with some textures I could make in a different program. Maybe I could re-do these voxels and take them beyond their voxel form without going overboard. Basically, I want these voxel models to be much more than voxel models.

Let me sort of explain the process in Magicavoxel...

• separate the feet, lower legs, upper legs, torso (including neck, just moving it), upper arm, lower arm, hands, and head
• separate accessories and certain long hair pieces
• add some extra voxels to the lower legs, the upper legs, the lower legs, and some of the torso
• move all parts of the body backwards except for the lower legs and the feet
• move the neck, head, upper arms, and lower arms forward
• clean up any painting errors

At best, this process can take about 10-15 minutes for each voxel model in Magicavoxel. It can take hours to do the whole process with about 43 of my voxel models. The point of the Magicavoxel work is to prep the modified model to be modified further in Blender for refinement and animation.


Once I start making certain things available, I will share my process and maybe some sample animation tests from Blender. So stay tuned for that! For now, though, here is a picture preview of what I am doing with my voxel character models:


^ Here is a preview of what I am working on towards enhancing my voxel character models.







If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my JohnMarineDesigns Weebly site, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin! Let's connect:
Contact Me via E-Mail	Contact Me via Discord	Donate to Me (voluntary)

Visit and Subscribe to My Blogs...
Subscribe to John's Blog Space (JBS)	Subscribe to John's Creative Space (JCS)	Subscribe to John's Race Space (JRS)	Subscribe to StyleSpace (SS)	Subscribe to John's Life Space (JLS)

Get Social With Me!
Facebook (Friends)	Facebook (Fans)	Twitter	YouTube
Pinterest	LinkedIn (professionals only)	TikTok	Discord

Support My Creative Works!
JMDesigns	JMDesigns on Payhip	John on Envato
Patreon	Soundcloud	Bandcamp
Twitch	OpenGameArt	TurboSquid

read more...