Knocking out the head first since it’s pretty iconic
Category: modeling
Jazz Hands
Yep. Working on a new hand model that I’ll use as a base for all my other mech hands.
The difficulty in modeling hands for mechs is that they are not flexible like real hands. There is no flesh to have give and take, so you have to build gaps in for the mechanics of it to move around.
Yes, mechs use myomer muscles and all that, but (as we can all see from the drawings) there are still mechanical actuators involved so that has to be part of the design as well so we have gaps. Those gaps need to be protected too so we have overlapping plates that would be part of an armored hand, but it still needs the actuators to have a skeletal structure to work from and depending on the mech there might not be that much armor to start with. Could be thin stuff that has lots of exposed pieces so I have to think about that too on my basic design.
The last thing I will need to do is see if everything bends and moves for posing the way it should. I fudged it for quite a while on my old models, but now it’s time to step that part up as well.
So I’m getting a good, basic foundation set up that I can then build from to make other designs.
Making an asset library. Most of these I had already (the weapons and equipment) but I have been setting up a file of greebles to make tricking out my mechs with details a little easier.
By having it all in an asset library, I can just drag it from the library into the scene and that will speed things up a bit for me.
I hope everyone had a merry and peaceful Christmas. My kids got (in order of age) guitar, ukulele, xylophone, and drums. Yes, it is a circus around here. Yes, we did it to ourselves but it was totally worth it.
No Place Like Home for the….
Almost done with the Hollander. Let me know what you think in the comments. This one was fun and a bit unusual since the drawings weren’t really good to use as any sort of reference except in the most basic sense.
I am still working on the Sabotai. It is going slower since it is all in subdivs and I have not worked in those very much. It gives a much smoother body shape, perfect for aerospace, but it means I have to do things a lot different, especially since it is an Omni which means swapable parts.
Let me know in the comments what you think
