At first, I didn't really imagine myself doing Twitch streams but I went ahead and gave it a spin. Once my trial phase got me to Twitch Affiliate, I knew I couldn't stop there...
If you've been into my older streams, you know that I have no camera on and that I don't really consider showing myself on cam, ever. I get to keep my anonymity, in a way, but that means you'll just listen to me talk and have nothing to see aside from the games I play. I'm pretty sure everyone's clueless of what's happening because you don't see anything and I'm still prone to lots of instances of dead air (or accidentally muting myself). To me, that's not really the kind of stream experience I want to deliver so I decided to aim to have something for you to look at.
But using my avatar didn't feel enough. I wanted to look alive but not really expose myself. The closest thing to consider was to get a virtual avatar - which wasn't something I on the table right off the bat! What's a VTuber anyway?
A VTuber is a streamer who uses a virtual avatar. As you may have expected, it originated in Japan and ever since the pandemic started, more and more people have hopped into the trend. Most audience come from the anime and gaming side of things.
With that in mind, I had doubts about being one. Do I have to act cute? Am I going to play a certain role? Do I need to learn Japanese? It turns out I had so much impressions about VTubing and that was what was stopping me.
Honestly though. All I had to do was to go for it.
I did my research and downloaded the software (VRoid Studio) needed to start but, it looks like my attention span isn't prepared for all the footages I needed to watch to help me get started with creating my avatar.
There's so much to look into and I didn't know how to finish it the soonest time possible. I badly wanted to have one but I know I wasn't going to settle for less. That's how nitpicky I am with everything I do. Lurking around Fiverr just intensified my desire to get my avatar. I had to do something but cash is rather slow these days. Was I willing to try and sell some assets away? What am I going to do to finally become alive?
Luckily, help came into my way and I managed to secure funds for the avatar commission. In exchange for that help, a challenge was posed for me to do better with whatever I'm doing right now. It was something I'm glad to accept despite knowing that I could make or break myself in the process. I think it was time to take another leap of faith for myself.
You'd think now that there's someone to do the actual work for the avatar, everything's going to be smooth sailing. Well, sure. But not really.
My model creator, Aesop, had to use a picture of my character which didn't have a lower half so I had to send my Minecraft skin as a secondary reference too.
Aesop has done a great job for creating Arc v1 but the more I looked at my avatar, I realized I was aesthetically lacking a bunch of things.
Arc looked too plain. Aiming for a minimalistic design for an RPG character was one mistake I made and I didn't realize that until I paused and looked hard enough. What was I even thinking when I did this on picrew?
I ended up getting fixated with dressing up and dressing down for one whole week and here's what I finally settled with.
Added bandage to the left arm as it made more sense to me - these arms were made to pack some punches! To go with the modern times, I also threw in a mini hoodie too. I had to temporarily part ways with the back accessory and the shoulder guard but once I learn how to add more features to my avatar, I'd most likely spend a lot of time updating my model.
Once I got satisfied or tired with the changes I've made, I decided not to keep everyone else waiting and did my VTuber debut on Twitch about 4 days ago. Here's a clip of how I revealed my avatar on stream:
I'd take this as a successful milestone to my VTuber journey. I didn't realize there's so much more to discover about the craft and I hope you'd be there to watch me reach more. If you have already been following along, thank you! I wouldn't push my limits if it weren't for your presence and support. If you haven't seen me around yet, do check me out on Twitch! I aim to do at least 2 Rising Star giveaway episodes per week and more gaming streams.
You've reached the end of this post. Thank you for your time!
Arc likes to play games on and off the blockchain when she's not lurking around Hive.
She currently plays Valorant, 7 Days to Die, Rising Star and Splinterlands among other games.
Do come over her Twitch stream around 8AM UTC to chill or participate in occasional giveaways!
Check her out around the interwebz:
Avatar created via picrew.me
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Arccc, wow congrats naman to your milestone. I have listened to some of your streams sa Facebook but not in Twitch yet as a support because sympre I can.
ANyhow all the best to your journey sa pagiging V-tuber and hopefully we can get some more folks be enchanted to what you do and become part of Hiveph. Tandaan mo wala man tayong pera sa Hiveph, wala parin tayong pera at all. Puro trabaho wala naman sweldo.,
Super inspiring talaga neto. Kaya iniidolo kita eh.
Pero thank you sa support! I appreciate every bit of it hihi
Thank you for sharing this great content, You have been manually Upvoted by @skylinebuds
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I like your avatar, it seems to fit you. Looks pretty harmonious with your voice! Congratulations!
Glad to hear this. Thanks stdd! Reaffirms I got me a matching virtual self!
🙌🙌🙌
Never took the time to see how the whole VTuber thing worked, thanks for the informative post!
Neither was I expecting it! Thanks for stopping by, squids!
Yep no problem, I just click on what looks interesting 🙂. Keep up the quality content ❤️.
Awesome~ I'm glad you found your way to Hive haha.
Was creating your virtual avatar difficult? Do you need prior knowledge in 3d stuff?
I previously looked into Vroid studio for a programming project but I found it intimidating lol.
Felt so lost but now I'm found! Charot haha!
Looking at it for the first time was definitely intimidating! So I had my avatar commissioned since I knew just by looking at my hair, I'd take a long time doing it from scratch... I'm pretty sure if anyone dedicated their full attention, they would eventually find their way around it!
With VRoid Studio, you don't really need to have prior knowledge if you just want to get the basics done but do expect some tiny issues in the long run. Now I have to probably read up about Blender and Unity since I want to make more changes to my model.
I see. If it's simple, then we can do it on our own. Anything else beyond that, Commission is the key, lol.
Wow, Blender and Unity. Sounds tough XD But since you 've got the base ready, I think it'll be much easier.
My curiosity is satisfied. Thanks! I'll ask more about it on Discord when I'm really about to do it.
I really like the avatar! As I've said before, if only I am slimmer, I would definitely wear this outfit 😅
Lucky for us, the metaverse exists now. You can be anything 😉
@arcgspy I might try visiting the software you mentioned 😌
Goodluck! Let me know how far you'll go!! <3
Congrats sa pagiging VTuber. Hope to see more of your content.
Thank you, juanvegetarian! Hope I could do more for #hiveph din.
Your presence is good enough for @hiveph. We need more warm bodies though. 😁