moving forward.

So.  The only progress I've been able to make has been on the Eagle Rider and The Eternity King's ride.   The EagleRider has airbubble issues.  This is annoying.  I've tried liquid greenstuff, and will keep trying more, but it is beginning to irritate me.  I am wondering if I'm working with the stuff wrong, but it doesn't appear so based on the things I've seen out there on the interwubz.  I'll post up pics when I've delivered to the customer.

As a side note, if this stuff works the way it has been, it might just be the solution to the WHM-1r and the Jenner. It's easier to use than the body putty I've been using for the DDC.

The next thing is the Dragon.  I am wanting a BLACK dragon, but with a hint of amethyst throughout.  Getting a "hint" of any color out of black is always a challenge.  I have tried a few washing and drybrushing techniques and the results have been mediocre. 

Below are the results of two tests.

 I prefer the darker of the two which used several layers of a royal-purple and black wash, with a bare drybrush of light amethyst.  It still has a much more "dry stone" rather than "bare bone" look, which is not what I was after.  I really would like to find a way to come up with a blackish-bone look that feels better on it.  Perhaps a different highlight.  Then I'll have to find a way to do a similar thing with the wings.  Black "leather" vs black "bone." 

And then, there's Malekith, the Eternity King himself.  That is going to be a custom build because there really isn't an option there.

a new year... a new entry

Welcome to 2015. 

There are some updates happening in the Manufactorum, and the desk has some projects on it now, as well as some clearly on the way for the future. 

First; some great supply news.  Fusco Construction Yards has apparently seen a turn around.  Instead of winding down production, it appears that 2015 will actually be a prolific year.  In addition to a release of the new  Vulture Mk IV, an updated and improved Timberwolf Mk II-a is due to be run, as will perhaps a revist of some older designs. (Mr. Fusco, if you're reading:  *cough*Victor*cough*  I know of 2 merc units that have Victors that look more like walking rolls of ducttape. . *grin*  )  Seriously tho, this is great news for those who need to acquire new 'Mechs to reinforce front-line action of the Clan Invasion and Inner Sphere Liberation from the Tyrannical House Governments.  I forsee an unboxing video in my future at some point. 

Speaking of unboxing, I also have a shipment in our loading dock of a captured I.S. Jenner from THOR.  It's been in the box for a couple of months, and has yet to have undergone R&D to check it out and get it ready for scouting.  I expect I'll do an unboxing of that one when I do the one above.  

The work on the WHM-1R and ATL-DDC both are currently on hold.  The WHM is an amazing machine, but needs some dedicated time on the manufacturing floor to get ready for the field.  The cockpit build is still being developed and I recently acquired some 1.8mm leds for another project (see below) that will be used for the cockpit on this one, which means I'm basically starting over from scratch for that.  The surface still needs a ton of work, although I'm contemplating some sandable primer rather than trying to sand down the whole surface of the mech.  With the intricate angles on it, it might be better.  As for the DDC, I need to figure out how to work the hip joint and then start building the torso.  I definitely am still sold on modular weapon builds for it.  And of course, a cockpit.  I suspect that'll take me through the end of 2015 on the BattleMechs.

Stepping away from the Innersphere, I have a personal project and a commission for the world of Warhammer.  First, the prince of the WoodElves has an Eagle-rider he wants to see done.  The original piece is a metal horseman.  The size and weight of it is such that it won't work well for the war eagle model that he has.  I am currently attempting a re-cast in resin that I can work with, although it hasn't come out well so far.  I may end up having to modify a different model altogether to get him the same look.  I just might be trying some greenstuff sculpting.  We'll have to see.  I'm not sure I'm up to that for a commission... but we'll see.

The other personal project is one that He-who-shall-be-unnamed suggested.  I saw the warhammer Warpfire Dragon and thought that'd make a perfect mount for the Eternity King.   I was looking up some painting techniques for glow effects, because I LOVE the look of the Balrog from Lord of the Rings and the effect of the infinity Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy.  I thought it'd be neat to have the throat and four eyes of the warpfire dragon "glowing" a purplish/blue glow.  I was talking about the throat, and was commenting that it'd be really hard to paint that shadowed place to actually look glowing. 

So, HWSBU says to me "well, you're the master of LED's.."  yeah. Right. 

So, I think I will give it a shot.  I have 1.8mm blue led's and they're the perfect size for the eyes and throat spaces.  The trick is, I don't really want to carve up the original Forgeworld head.  That's pretty much the defining piece of the model, and it's not a cheap kit.  So, I decided to give a try to casting off the head while I was making a cast of the above rider too.  The first try didn't go well, but the second attempt came out much better.  I'll give a try on that casting to see how to carve out the head and make the space for the lighting kit.   It's entirely possible that I'll just use the resin cast as a test run on HOW to do the carving, but either way, it has the potential to be either really awesome or a terrible bust. 

We'll see where this one goes... 

Vulture, Mk IV

So, the previously mentioned CEO Fusco has decided to give another run, this one for the Vulture Mk IV.  The prelim images look fantastic.  If you're a fan of Mechwarrior and like what the I.S. Stravag call the "Mad Dog".. give it a look:

http://battlemechclub.blogspot.com/2014/12/vulture-mk-iv-pre-order.html

Availability.

Well, one of the best craftsmen of 'Mechs is shutting down the main factory. http://battlemechclub.blogspot.com/. CEO Fusco has some very legitimate reasons and I can't argue with any of them.  Unfortunately for the few of us still sending forces to the front lines, it makes an already small supply line, even smaller.  However, he can't maintain what he has been.  The market is just not supporting the load, and there's no reason for him to suffer for it.  Better to retool for a different process and work on one-offs and specific commissions.

This pretty much means that the only open production line left is Thor's Mechworks.  http://wingnutscockpit.blogspot.com/  He has some seriously good looking products rolling out and has a good production capability.  So there will be products available for those that want them.  The catch is that the machines need serious work to get to a high-level of finish.  His designs are really good, and very accurate.  They're light and fairly durable.  They also have an extremely high level of detail and accuracy to the MWO universe machines.   However, the production methodology means that we need to do some seriously intensive finishing work.  The printer leaves a layer of gridlines that needs to be sanded down.  The best method I've found for that is good, ol' fashioned sandpaper and elbow grease.  I tried using acetone, and it has some positive results, but it does melt the surface and leaves behind some residue I don't like.  

I did start hollowing out the torso for a cockpit and the way these are made does make it easier.  It's a honeycomb of material once  you break through the skin, and that's easily dremel'd out.  It was far easier than what I had to do for the MK II Timberwolf. 

That leads me somewhat to the point:  3d printing is easier for the manufacturer to develop and deliver, but the quality of product for the lower or intermediately skilled modeler presents a serious challenge.  There is no casting, no molds, no huge up-front investment, and so it's a much more affordable process to go with.  And if you can overlook the gridlines, it's got a lot of detail and finished work/look to it.    For the more advanced modeler, the challenges can be overcome with patience and technique.  However, speaking as someone in the middle of building a model of my own from scratch, I have to wonder if that time and effort isn't much different than actually building from the ground up. 

The kits coming out of Mr. Fusco's pipeline are amazing, and the effort required to get a very good result was minimal at best.  The techniques I need to apply to achieve the effect *I* wanted were very straight forward and focused for a specific effect.  But even a novice modeler, with just a knowledge of basic pinning and painting techniques, can quickly and easily produce a very good looking result. 
Basically, the two types of manufacturing address two separate needs.  One puts a huge variety of models out there at a fairly affordable pricetag, more specifically for the manufacturer.  The other has a very large initial expense outlay, which minimizes both the variety and quantity available.  The skillsets are very disparate but both specialized, although I believe that the 3-D skills are far more prevalent and reinforced throughout our society at this point. 

I'm glad Tim will still be working, and will take commissions.  Sharing Techniques and tricks is a great thing and it helps the rest of us, and for that, I really appreciate his blog and effort.  I am just sad that his work will be much more limited in scope and availability. 

Decisions.

Work on Project A continues apace.  I am just about to the point where I'm going to call done on the legs.  I need to scribe in panel lines and other small details and then pin things together.

The hip assembly is framed up and I'm in the process of applying the armor plating and those details.  Still have some details to look at there, and then drill the pin holes so I can pin the upper legs to the hip transmission pieces.  Speaking of those, I ended up pulling a mold for left/right hip transmissions.  The same modeling for hips are used in MWO for the Atlas, Timberwolf, Highlander and several others, so I figure that if I find that I want to try another one of these, I'll just pull 2 more castings of each and I'll have those.  The detail came out better on these than the foot, basically because they're much simpler. 

Once that's all set, I'll turn my focus to the torso.  The main weapons mounts are things I plan to make modular, but the primary model will likely be as a bog-standard DDC.  The torso ballistic weapon is something I can easily make a magnetic-swappable module, with PPC, Gauss or AC20.  The same with the torso missile housings, I can build it with a 'bay' that will take a modular LRM/SRM etc.. mount.  The arm-mounted weapons are all external to the forearm housing, so that's also a simple swap. 

This brings me to the other question that I should answer at some point:  Kit it or just build it for me?  I was talking with He-who-musn't-be-named, and he thought I should kit it out.  The thing is, I have no idea where to go or what to do about that.  There's no way I want to try doing it myself, I just don't have the resources, equipment or space to try creating all the castings.  Starshipmodeler.com lists one resource that might, and I could reach out to find out what I'd be looking at to kit it out.  (Timeslip Creations... they list 2 others but both links are dead)   Of course, there are tons of considerations here.

First, this is my very first attempt at making something like this and once I paint it up, detail it and so on, it might look just fine.  For me.  I'm really not convinced it'll meet the scrutiny and standards of the kinds of folks who would want a kit like this. I've seen the work of the modelers out there who've done this kind of thing and I'm definitely in the "raw apprentice" category in comparison.  All the techniques and tricks are new to me and I'm just getting to the point where I think I grok what can be done.   Second, and a corrollary to the first, is cost.  The kits out there are in the average of $120+.   FCY's Timberwolf II, which has been restocked ( If you want one, go *here* and act fast!) at $175.  His Dervish, (same link) currently in pre-order, is an even century with a req'd 15 for the model to go to production.  That tells me that the cost of having a kit mold made and cast up has to be in ballpark of a grand at minimum.  Yeah, I can ask, and I should just to know.. but..yeah.  Cost.   Thirdly, demand.  Let's face it, I know I'm something of a rarity, being that big of a battletech fan *and* a 28mm gaming fan at the same time.  

If I want to kit it out, I have to *not* do the painting and detailing to finish it off.  The caster will have to work with the base/primed pieces.  The other thing I can't do is put it all together, so I really can't see it all together at once either. 

/shrug.  Dunno.  I don't have to decide right now, but as it is, I'm leaning toward just building it for me and that's that.  I'll be happy to have it and will have the experience and reward of having done it. 

Project A. With Pixez

So. Now with Pix. 

Keep in mind, this is the "rough, still working on it, etc..etc.." stage, so do bear with me. 

The initial sculpt of the foot seemed to be ok, and while I could see some imperfections, they didn't seem to be too bad.  Now that I look at the closeup images, it's much more obvious.

Yeah, then I cast it.  Like I said yesterday, I didn't make absolutely certain that the foot was flush with the base of the mold cylinder, so it was slightly off true.  That meant it cast up in such a way that would mean a lot of sanding of the base. 

However, that wasn't the worst of it, since all those imperfections were really magnified by the casting.  I LOVE this mold/casting material.  All the nice detail comes out crisp and clear.  Even the guitar-wire details looked good, but the supposedly "flat armor surfaces" didn't because..well...they weren't.  So, putty, sanding and filling time. 

Moving on to the joint, I still think the best place for the knee is at the upper-shin spot.  It seems to give decent articulation and should look right when posed. 

There is still more needed to finish off the thighs and the hip actuator, along with filling in the knee with details and armor. 



Looking at the general dimensions of the legs vs the overall height, as compared to the 90-ton Timberwolf Mkii, I think I'm fairly close on size.  It should come out just about right.



This is quite a challenging project, filled with all kinds of engineering hurdles and need for creative solutions.  Slow going, and it's driving me nuts, but I'm really enjoying it.





Next update - Project A and part casting.

Updatedness..next wave.

So, the last couple of weeks, I've been absent from my workbench while taking part in a martial arts event.  Upon returning, the mold-making material had arrived and it was time to do my first cast attempt from a clay-sculpted master.  Let's say it didn't quite go as planned.  I used moldstar 16, the first time I'd used a mold material that set up that quickly.  To be fair, I think the mold came out quite nicely.  There were a few bubbles present, but when I pulled the air out of the cylinder, they mostly appeared near the top, away from the part. 

The issue presented when I found that the flat side of the part didn't quite mate cleanly with the floor of the mold cylinder, making it off-level a bit.  This meant that when I poured the plastic resin, it didn't fill quite properly.  It also manifested many more bubbles than I expected, and so I had to pour a bit differently, to avoid huge bubble gaps.  In the end, that didn't matter as much because of the other main issue:  my sculpting ability sux.  Well, to be fair, I got the general part dimensions ok, but I didn't see all the surface imperfections and out-of-true lines.  They all showed up when I poured the part.  In the end, what that meant was that I spent a great deal of time with putty and sandpaper.  I still have a little more to do with it, but they are close to being ready for what I want them for.

Project A also needs a bit of decision making.  Looking at the legs, there are two locations that serve as the knee joint.  In fact, it's entirely possible that the bottom of the thigh and the top of the shin parts BOTH articulate in the MWO model.  It's hard to tell and the fact that I can't get a good yootoob of it is frustrating.  So, I need to decide which point is the actual knee articulation.  The more I look at the stride and stance, the more I think I'll go with the upper shin point.  It's also easier to pin and work with at the moment, so that's what I'm going with.  Unless, of course, I see something that changes my mind.

Goal for tonight, finish detailing the thighs and cut the main pieces for the hip joint.  I test fit the pieces together so far, and stood them next to the Timberwolf II, and I think the dimensions are coming out just about right.  The Steiner Scout Mech should be just about the same shoulder height as the missile pods, if they all work out.  So far, so good.