Chrono Cross: Lynx

Lynx Papercraft

Here is the first model I've ever done without folding, heh all this time I've been a big time folder and always paying attention to the mountain and valley fold indicators.  This is a very straightforward build, only tricky part is his collar.

FF12 Gilgamesh

Ahh yes, how long I've waited. The FF12 process that i'm working with is incredibly labor intensive and takes a long amount of time.  But it was the most feasible way I could get these models.  I've put in maybe a total of 10 hours just to get the model to look like it does now, and I haven't even cleaned the model of intersecting polygons.  In other news, in the next few days I hope to release the Lynx Papercraft, he's been sitting on my desk with just 2 pieces to glue left on his scythe.

But I think for poses I'll go with this pose from the bestiary.

Blades of Legend

A very long post...in other words (May updates on Projects)

First things First...

I don't have internet access at my house, as I sit here trying to install Starcraft II, the wireless in the lobby of my apartment is telling me that I have excellent connectivity, yet I'm transferring 0.0 kbps. That's right 0.0kbps! SO as battlenet tries toe estimate the time left, the hours just continue to increase and increase.  This setback is surely going to be impacted by the inevitable interruption of me not wanting to sit down here for the estimated "46" more hours until all 23 patches are completed.

So I've been left without any of my papercraft supplies except for software.  I've been tinkering with a few models, but at this point with no way to print things It will continue to be a while. Here's an upcoming teaser that I had mentioned a couple posts back regarding the Cecil models from the SNES.  For some reason I haven't figured out how people achieved the poses for certain characters in Dissidia...Mostly I've just been modifying the poses (painstakingly I might add).  I was informed of a way in 3ds where if I export the animation that I might be able to play it and pause it at a given moment, however I hae not figured out how to do such.  Ehh in the meantime I've just been posing as I have.  Here is a shot of the Cecil models I've posed.  

As some of you can tell I was trying to match the DLC poses, I think I got pretty close and as feasible as possible, as some of you know I'm always somewhat aware of intersecting polygons during all phases.  The armpits are the worst especialy when the texture areas in that region are detailed.  I have yet to really mess around with the decimation option when exporting.  I did it with the FF13 models, but those summons are nested so I have no idea how well it could have been working.  The Dissidia models aren't even that high poly, but at some parts it can be a real pain, even reducing the county by 10% while still retaining the aesthetic integrity of the model would be great.

So besides that here are some of the other models that I've been messing around with/working on.

Cuchulainn from FF12

I've moved him into pepakura and the layout is getting close to finished, but due to some of the more fine points of this model I think I'll need to rescale it.  He is an otherwise bloated model and i have him at 600mm, which would be ridiculously large, but the features on his head require some attention, perhaps when I complete the layout I'll scale him down, because we are looking at 50 pages or so.  ALL that is left is laying out the arms and the head.  But I worry too much about the plausibility of myself building him and placing him somewhere, he is far too large.

Multi-armed Gilgamesh

Ahhh how I have been slowly drawing this project out for ages,  I feel that in the end it will be very well worth it.  I'm just never satisfied with how I have him posed.  Posing 2 arms is one thing, but how do I make 8 arms look natural?!?!?  that and the weapons,  I have issues moving too many objects into 3DS to work with, and when I avoid that and work in Sketchup, rotation of objects is a big problem.  And then there is the issue of consistency of weapons source.  I would want the weapons that Gilgamesh holds to be the ones that he uses in the game, however some of these items are ridiculously large, why couldn't he just not be holding any weapons you ask?Don't be preposterous...  Seriously, the size of some of the weapons would have to be scaled down, but then I don't feel that it would have the same presence.

Perhaps what I'll settle with is just using the Dissidia multi-armed model with a lot of katanas.  That seems to be the most likely, however there is the issue of getting the katanas into his hands, since his 6 other hands do not open and close I will have to do a bunch of cleaning work in Sketchup to make it work.

Odin from FF8

I liked this version of Odin alot and would like to build him, but once again my semi neurotic tendencies have locked onto a pose that I like and I have not figured out how to pose him as such.  This sort of model will have to be build with a stand (6 legged horses are not easy to pose).  I'm going for the pose from FFTactics,...

I feel that it is incredibly dynamic and would be great to work with.  However the file is currently being posed as a DAE file, with no named for bones and the hierarchy appears a bit different than I'm used to.

Cecil the SNES Dark Knight and Paladin

As you've seen above...I have posed but just need to clean up the models in sketchup and then get the layout done.  Since these models aren't that tall and not too detailed I hope the layout process will be fairly quick.  These two will probably be on my top priority to get completed quickly but of course I'll build the  Dark Knight first.

Hopefully I can find a suitable printer and get them out in the near future.  I'll be in access of my old printers in about two weeks so that does bode well, however I'll need to get the layouts done ASAP.  I'll try and re-locate the printed out models that I had before the move in order to finish those up. However I say this as Diablo 3 is about to be released, so we'll see how much actually gets done 

February Update: No news is good news?

Hey team,
  I apologize for the lack of papercrafts recently, but its not like I didn't warn you.  I'm still trying to finish up Lynx, I have Irenes printed out and I may or may not have time to work on her. I'll be sorting things out in the near future and will hopefully be able to release Lynx before the end of the month.  progress always runs slow when I have to construct the head.  With that being said, and Irenes being a smaller model, it might take a while for me to get around to her.  I have her printed out and ready for building but i wouldn't know how to make the instructions just yet so I'm not going to build her.

But check out Ninjatoes, and Crisiscraft...Oh yeah and is ACE making a comeback?!?!?!

December: Coming Soon...Chrono Cross models

Hi team,
   I believe that Chrono Cross has been released on the playstation network, so if you haven't already done so, go out and purchase this great game.  Hopefully this'll send a message the the people at square that people are demanding another addition to the series.  I waited over a decade to play this great game.  Anyway in the spirit of this great game, I plan on building some papercrafts from the game in the next coming weeks.  This is to carry off where Kaizo left off.  However I'll have to see about being able to include stands with them.  For some of the models it is feasible, because their legs are close together, however some of the models appear that it won't work.

So I'll start with Lynx in his battle ready pose and Irenes.  I'm going to try the no-fold approach for these models.  They appear to be low-poly enough that it can be done, but we'll see.  Starting off these models are a little bit bigger scale, but I'll try and reduce the scale to match the scale that Kaizo set up in the first place (but we'll see because of productivity limitations)  I would love to do the Time Devourer, yet another model that Kaizo mentioned but never did, however the and issue with transparency will be difficult.  I'm thinking of the final pose for it, which would ideally make it a hanging model, but I think I'll need to make a stand for it (I'll need to go back and make a stand for Kefka, since when I move may not be able to hang him.).

Garland's Helmet and my one year anniversary!!!

I think I'll start unfolding a series of wearables for the cosplayers out there.  I'm not test building these so I'll need some feedback from people who decide to make them.  This helmet and two others are from Kaizo, so they follow the same scale as his head...

Garland's Helm

As far as other updates go, I've passed one big hurdle and venturing on to face many more.  So my papercraft productivity will continue at the pace that it has been going at for this past half year.  However in this past 12 months I have enjoyed sharing some of my favorite FF characters with you.  Six characters and two wearables.  I've spent many pointless hours posing models over and over again, only to realize that those models are enormous projects that would take a long time. Unfortunately my limited attention span takes over and I lose interest in working with the model.  I've been wanting to do ff12 models for so long, but they take so long to work with just to end up with a model that doesn't have bones.  Scratch posing can be a pain.  I have several dissidia models which I've been posing and have started to lay out, but there is probably going to be some span of time before I get around to them.  I've had AaronVFT's Tidus model half build on my shelf for a year, and ACE's Cloud model printed out but just collecting dust.  Ive posed and unfolded Gabranth for another model with an "iconic" pose.  I've been waiting to print him out, but when your schedule is incredibly busy, there seems like little point in printing out yet another model.  I'm working on posing another Gilgamesh model, but it'll take some time, I'm debating which model to work on next.  I'd really like to get a Chrono Cross model out there, but we'll see how things go.

Only time will tell how much more I produce in the upcoming year....