PinkLemon said:
I am aware that there already exists a bunny girl outfit on SDTmods, but there hasn't been one where ...
"Bunny girl outfit" is somewhat ambiguous (for example: here's a
bunnysuit which isn't sexy at all). The standard Playboy outfit has several distinctive features, but it's been heavily copied and adapted in popular media (e.g. anime) and so your expectations may be different.
- strapless teddy
- highleg fitting is typical (for modern versions of the costume, at least)
- fabric tends to be glossy; it's ruched slightly to create a rough surface
- the costume is intended for movement (rather than exclusively for posing) and may be worn continuously for several hours. Hence, the boning is flexible and the bodice is not tightlaced.
- Japanese artists tend to downplay the rigidity of the bodice, presenting it as a fully elastic garment (akin to a one-piece swimsuit). Sometimes they'll go so far as to include concavity or shading on the navel.
- ribbon ("seal of approval") at the right hip
- detached suit collar with bowtie
- both of these already exist, but I don't know whether they've been combined
- Japanese costume designers sometimes replace the bowtie with a miniature necktie -- to draw attention towards the cleavage
- detached dress-shirt cuffs (sometimes oversized) with cufflinks
- fluffy white tail attached to the bodice
- dark pantyhose
- short-heeled pumps
- hairband with bunny ears
- already available but the ones I've found aren't ideal; we might want to create new ones if we're generating a new bunny suit
- if I've omitted or overlooked something then please let me know
... you can change the color of her outfit ...
What's your preference: light or dark? It's
very difficult to setup RGBFills and a shading pattern which will look good at both ends of the luminosity scale.
... or adjust the size of her breasts.
Now we get into the tricky bit. Take a look at the cut of
Mike's bunnysuit. Pay special attention to the upper edge of the bodice -- the curve which begins at the lumbar spine and ends atop the breasts, with a midcourse deviation to cover the inframammary crease.
The deviation in Mike's design is (presumably) included so as to create an oversized "hinge point." Hence, the CHEST layer artwork will remain connected to the RIGHTBREAST layer artwork, except under extreme stress.
The "hinge" strategy is not mandatory. We can use
physics techniques to generate a smoothly curved neckline which will accommodate various breast sizes (and breast-motion effects). However, some artists include a deviated neckline deliberately (
example) - so
perhaps it's an artistic feature which we ought to retain.
Mike's design uses a "mid-back" fitting. It's possible to expose much more of the back (
example) or much less (
example). We must also decide how much of the breast to cover (anywhere from "nipple" to "clavicle"). This has significant implications for the garment's interactions with the breast slider.
Mike's design uses simple flat-color fills to obscure the overlap between the CHEST and RIGHTBREAST layers. If he had attempted to darken the underside of the breast, his work would have been more difficult. As a result, the garment appears to be fairly smooth across the z-axis. We
assume that the mid-breast section of the bodice
ought to bulge out into the foreground, but there's no visual indication of this effect.
Here's a counterexample in which the bodice exhibits an inframammary fold (which is absurd, but it's meant to show "the other end of the scale" rather than being offered as a reasonable compromise). We need to make a decision here: what should the underside of the breasts look like? If we opt for a heavily-shaded approach, then how do we deal with very small breasts?
Mike's design fits around the "naked" breast shapes. It does not attempt to apply any reshaping effects (e.g. corset, push-up bra). It even includes protuberances for the nipples (which is possibly due to "modder laziness" rather than being a deliberate design feature). These aspects could be reconsidered since we're starting a new design from scratch.
My suggestion would be for you to
sketch out a basic fitting for the bodice at various breast sizes. Don't bother sketching in the pantyhose or cuffs or anything - that's a waste of time. In fact, you don't even need to
fill in the bodice - just draw
its outline.
Here's an example that I created for a previous project. I created my example in Flash using bodypart templates, but that's overkill. If you take a few screenshots of a naked girl in SDT (changing the breast size but keeping the body position consistent), then you can perform some quick-and-dirty edits in MSPaint to show the basic shape that you have in mind. We can then focus on any areas of inconsistency or doubt (such as the shape of the leg-holes, the fabric texture on the bodice, or the shading strategy for the bones).
