Dark Kain at last....

Alright everybody,  Dark Kain is finished, it'll be a long while before instructions are typed up and released.  I didn't take as many pictures as I should for this build, but I figured I'd share what I have right now.  For the time being this is a showcase model.  As I hinted at before, this will be my last model post for a long time...

update from 11/24/2011:  Here is the file; I finally created the instructions!!!

A long while yet...

So you might be wondering why there haven't been as many sporadic updates for the past couple months?

"What's with this guy? He even posts about small progress reports??" you might be wondering...

Well to answer that question I've been busy.  I'm loaded with academic work...  I don't really have time for papercrafting at this point.  I've been going through the process preparing several projects, but I can't say when they'll get finished.  Working with the FF12 data has been fairly discouraging...I've spent hours and hours of flipping normals and scratch posing (you can probably see the polygon's normal in the gum area below), and I have yet to even get the model into sketchup for cleaning...   I have a couple pages left on the Dark Kain model, Gabranth will be printed eventually, and then I'll try to get the Cuchulainn model out, but at the current rate I'm working at Gabranth will probably be months down the line....

Updates: Dark Kain Template

Slow but steady wins the race right?  I've run short of time, so my projects are going slow, but hopefully I'll finish Kefka this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.  But in the meantime I finally finished the template for Dark Kain, I've been slowly building him little by little so expect him soon.

Updates: Multi-armed and multi-tasking

6/1/2011 Update

I've repositioned the arms to be closer to the reference picture, it was laborious, but I think I'm getting a little closer.  The hard part is getting the two right hands aligned to hold onto the sword.

older version 

 This is not in any way an homage to Captain Morgan :o)

I started messing with the pose I have for Gilgamesh's EX mode, Right now I'm posing him with the default weapons, which in my opinion are a bit bright for the general color scheme of this model.  I am considering pulling different weapons from the other characters. (mythgraven blade, tournesol, durandal, and great axe, and the masamune)  Most of those are from the Vaan model.  But these weapons are not as bright as the default weapons.  I figured this way, once I build the multi armed sprite version of gilgamesh the two models won't be holding exactly the same weapons.  I still need to re-position the arms so that the weapons don't end up hitting each other. and figure out how to design his base. (in the mean time imagine a rock underneath his foot. But I figure that I'd see if anybody had any opinions on the matter.

I started Dark Kain, I'm pacing myself with Kefka.

For some reason when models require me building small parts (fingers, faces, etc.) I lose my motivation, this is probably why I like big models.  Either way, I've shifted gears to Dark Kain.

Updates: Kefka God of Magic, Multi-Armed Gilgamesh, and Dark Kain

I'm working on Gilgamesh's instructions at the moment, but in the meantime I spoke with Zinarei, and he said he didn't mind if I took over Kefka God of magic.  Anyone interested, I believe Zinarei/Kaizo/Aaron have posed him in the "Did I get him?" position as mentioned in the Dissidia process video post.

I went with the iconic Kefka God of Magic pose

 

Of course I took some small liberties due to the size of the gown material that was available. I didn't tip his leg as much, but I still tried to maintain the same Kefka-esque-ness.  One thing I should point out that I have done and will continue to do with the models that I pose is that I would like them to look realistic in terms of their balance.  Center of gravity is important, as well as the plausibility of limb placement/joint rotation.  Of course when you're dealing with models that don't have restrictions on movement, and they have appendages/ parts of clothes that interfere with the model building process, it is always necessary to find some middle ground.  I was looking at doing a model of the DS version of Cecil's Dark Knight, however the pose I was looking at doing did not seem practical for a battle stance, nor was it an iconic pose so I decided to leave it alone for the time being.  I've got these models which are more immediate on my plate.

I've also handed over the FF12 version of Gilgamesh to ACE.  He's been working on cleaning up the model, so hopefully in the future the community will have another Gilgamesh model.  Speaking of Gilgamesh Models, I've started to work on the Ex-mode of gilgamesh.  A couple posts ago, I posted my progress on the Ex-mode that is based on the FFV sprite, however I have been unable to settle on the exact pose.  The model is different than the sprite, the "main arms" of the model are a lot larger than expected and the secondary arms do not bend at all, they are pretty much fixed, I will return to it eventually.  Square-Enix has a picture of that particular EX mode holding all of the weapons, however given that the model would already be 700 mms tall, and the spear would be a lot taller, and his holding of weapons would make shelf space ridiculously limited.

So for the Alternate EX-mode I'll be going for the following pose

 Which is based on the Masters Creatures pose of him, but as I mentioned before there will be some liberties taken because of the inability to move some of the joints in the alternate arms.  This can be remedied by converting to editable mesh/poly as Ace taught me, however once I can only do that once I'm positive on the pose at all other joints. (For some reason I can't figure out how to go back to bones from an editable mesh/poly model)

I could have gone with this pose that SQENIX already provided, and maybe I will.  I plan on doing the sprite based models eventually.  Of course I plan on doing all of the Gilgamesh models eventually, currently I just wanted to try my hand at Kefka, and because of people's concern with shelf space, I thought it'd be appropriate to try my hand at a hanging model (like the Highwind or Fahrenheit), and that is why I will be putting out Kefka.

In addition to Gilgamesh I've been working on cleaning up Dark Kain, I based his pose on another Amano pose, which incidentally is the pose that they have Kain in anyway, however I widened his stance, and corrected some of joints so that there weren't any "awkward" intersecting polygons with his chest.

So these are the next three models that I'm working with.  As usual I'll keep you posted along the way...