Mechmaster

Hey Dok, that pilot is looking pretty awesome, I built a pilot for my Legioss but I went the low res route as I didn't have any plans to focus on him and I had made the canopy fairly reflective as well. I like the Valkyrie transform shot too, but why is that VF wearing the wrong trousers?

I'd say go with the paint, poo would tend to obscure fine surface detail.

Look at it this way, in 20 years time you will have a job, you will have money... and you will be wishing you were 16 again. Life is a bitch, you will never have everything you want, you just have to make the best of what you've got.

The lighting rig is now available in 3D Studio R4 format here I don't know how good C4Ds export filter is, according to the manual it does export light sources but when I loaded the resulting 3ds file back into C4D there were no lights so I hope it works ok. I also included views of the rendered object for reference.

Maybe we could simply offer the finished poster to the Macross loving public at large, there is a website here that does all sorts of stuff for artists, you simply send them artwork and they reproduce it for you on posters, t-shirts, mugs, whatever you want and they then sell it for you. The service is provided free, they simply take a cut of your profits (and since you pay no overheads anything you earn is all profit). If introducing the awful complication of money into the subject is considered a bad idea maybe someone knows a similar service that doesn't involve any financial dealings. Just a thought.

Looks damn good Les. And now for no particular reason...

Maybe the lettering is transformable too and flips over when the VF changes mode?

The proportion problem stems from the fact that the original anime mecha didn't suffer from real world limitations when transforming, parts not only change position they also change size and shape. While its easy for animators to cheat like this it is impossible for modelers, if you get the proportions right for the battroid mode the fighter mode looks crap and vice versa, the only solution is to make the parts somewhere between the two extremes which unfortunately means they don't look quite right in either mode. I suppose a sufficiently dedicated CG modeller could use vertex level animation to produce a CG model that reshaped itself as it transformed but for plastic models I guess you just have to decide which mode you prefer and bias the proportions toward that mode.

Optimism I guess, I just like to think that I will actually live long enough to get them all built and find enough room to display them all as well. Besides, I enjoy collecting them simply for the sake of collecting, anytime I actually get one built I consider it a bonus.

I have all 4 of the M7 1/144 kits but they are amongst the 550 odd unbuilt kits currently stacked in my workshop so I can't really comment on them. I also have the Rau and Ger and although its a few years since I built them I don't recall them needing too much work, sure they aren't snap together but I've built plenty of kits which fit far worse than those two. Nice diorama Phil, I love diorama work myself but space limitations mean I can rarely indulge, even with 1/144 scale kits.

Really nice, what CG program do you use and are those backgounds Terragen?

I guess in part it depends on the overall effect you want to achieve, I tend to use two main methods. If I want a really bold line for a more anime style appearance I ink the lines in with a 0.25mm technical pen. If I am trying for a more realistic appearance I give the whole model a wash of matt varnish with a little black paint added to it, this naturally settles into panel lines and other surface depressions, weathering the whole kit at the same time, needless to say you have to be careful not to overdo it with this method or the model ends up looking too dirty. I haven't gotten around to building any of my Hasegawas yet but given how fine the lines are I will probably use a wash method rather than trying to trace all the lines with a pen which is probably too thick for the job anyway.

The panel lines are inked in with a 0.25 Rotring technical pen, I think the contrast is partly due to my camera, the lines don't appear quite so bold in reality as they do in the picture. The hands make a real difference, so many model kits seem to have really bad hands, especially the older ones. Those metal replacement hands are just so useful, I have used them on some of my battroids too, makes a change from the clenched fist type all the time.

Flaking off? That is strange, must be a property of the paint, as I say I've never used that brand. I mainly use Tamiya acrylics, Humbrol enamels and acrylics and occassionaly the Games workshop acrylics and while gloss finishes are certainly harder to cover when painting with a brush, I've never had any problems when spraying and I've never known paint to peel when applied over gloss finishes. I hope you're able to sort it out ok.

I have most of the Arii 1/100 valks in my collection but not the Strike type. The hands on the gerwalks are real crap and I can't understand why they didn't use the same hands as the battroids which were pretty good. I replaced the hands of my gerwalks with metal hands from the Kotobukiya Modeling Support Goods range bought from hlj.com.

Les and anyone else who is interested and can work with .c4d files you can find my lighting test rig here. I've modified it slightly as on reflection I felt the shadows looked a little too cold. It assumes the object to be lit is positioned at the world origin.

Great work and a nice website too.

Here is my newly retextured Defender. The lighting here is along the lines suggested by Doktor Gonzo; a high yellow spot angled down from the left, a dimmer white spot coming in horizontally from the right, a blue spot below and behind aimed at the middle of the mecha and a blue omnidirectional filler light.

I've never used Testors products but generally matt varnishes are just gloss varnishes with a very fine powder added to give the flat finish. I would expect the gloss to work better as a sealant as the "impurity" of the matt varnishes tends to make them less robust. I normally apply a gloss coat over the whole model before applying decals since they adhere better to the smoother surface, then another gloss coat to seal the decals and finally a matt coat over the top to provide the dull finish.

One of these days I will get around to re-building my Imai Destroid Monster. I originally built it about 15 years ago and earlier this year broke it all apart again to use as reference when I built my CG Monster. The parts are now languishing in my workshop until I find the time to put it all back together and repaint it. Originally I built it without any modifications but this time round I think I will make a few changes, for one thing it could use ball and socket joints at hip and ankles for more flexibility in posing it.

I'm sorry that everyone seems to have overlooked your request because I think the idea has merit, and not simply because it would be interesting to see which programs everyone is working in. We know that lighting is going to be a key issue in this project and it occurs to me that a number of us may be using the same 3D programs, I know for instance that Les and I are both working in Cinema4D. What I am thinking is that instead of everyone creating their own lighting rig and hoping they all match up in the final image, it may be possible for those of us working in compatible programs to share a single lighting set-up. I know its too much to hope that there is a single 3D format which all of us can work with but the fewer different set-ups we can use the better the various component images will integrate. If just a few people working in cooperation can put together lighting rigs, get them to match up as best as possible and then circulate copies to others using compatible software it would probably save our photoshop meister a lot of work, I figure he or she will have enough on their hands just assembling the image without having to worry about correcting colour/brightness problems. What does everyone think? Dok, the mock up looks great, this thing is going to be cooler than a penguin's butt in midwinter. Les, I agree with Az, I love the distressed paintwork. I took a similar approach with my recent Spartan model and I'm currently reworking my other Destroids to match, a bit of extreme wear does wonders to highten the realism.

Had a few minutes to play around so here is a quick mock-up featuring the Destroids. Not scaled I might add, as I don't have the sizes for the ARMD platform handy. I just wanted to try and get the feel of it.

Something like this...

Before anyone says anything... yeah, the "U.N.SPACY" on the Monster's arm is upside down, I used an instance of the right arm to create the left and as this pic was just a quicky I forgot to flip the text before rendering. Well I am getting on a bit you know, the old brain doesn't work as quick as it used to, or maybe its just the hours I work.

I don't think sitting "astride" would work as the VF hipjoint isn't really built for that range of movement, a Monster is pretty WIDE, Kamjiin must have been singing all the high notes after straddling that beast. In fact VFs aren't really built for sitting at all, not with that pointy butt, but I could manage sidesaddle, as long as you don't think it makes the mecha appear too effeminate.