Work In Progress on the paint

It's good to finally see some colors on that guy. Here's the first images of the painting process, just for my fellow followers , still a few details on the head to add and the varnish to fix everything. Thursday evening it should be dry, I will also get all the metallic parts for the launcher and the spring.

I'm quite happy with the colors, as usual it was a nightmare to try to get the right one and I think that even if it's not 100% accurate, the look is there.

Here's two picts of the members during the paint in the paint cabin. The guy helping for the paint is really talented and all parts are just perfect.

And here's two images of the big guy put together for a check. Just need to finalize the lines on the mouth and the dark red on the eyes.
Still hesitating about doing the stickers on the sickles, I will see once it's finish.

Next post will be the final version with everything, and maybe a little video is things are going as plan :))))

Rivets and cleaning

The end is closer and closer.

All the rivets are done now, each piece is clean and ready for paint and normally the paint is schedule to start tomorrow. So this is probably one of the last post before the completition of this project.

Here's a few picts with the rivets, it's hard to see of course as the material is quite translucent and those little details are hard to get.
Always tricky to do those rivets since once you touch the surface with the driller, you can't really do anything but drill. Each touch is a rivet and even if I've trace everything before, there's still a few stuff here and there that are not aligned, but I don't really mind as it's probably even more off on the real one.

Ok ok it's another batch of white Garada in front on a white wall, but since he's spending almost all the time in a box is separate pieces, each time I put it together for a check, I can't stop staring at him and take pictures.

I know, you don't really see the rivets here, but this guy is so hypnotic...

Here's a few in high resolution, those tiny rivets are visible.

A few more just for pleasure

And a last one because it's not just always against a white wall. This was drying time after a big wash to remove all the dust from sanding and drilling and to prepare the surface for paintng.

It's the first time the two prints are united again since the print. The other one was sanded and prepared by my friend as I'm not crazy enough to spend double time on the sanding.

It's going to be hard to sleep tonight, tomorrow at 7am I'm on the road for the painting. Can't wait to have that guy finally over.

See you soon for the final chapter.

Frankenrada

Here's the begining of the next step: the rivets.
On my previous big project, the Rokuron Q9, I've drill all the rivets a bit freestyle and it ended quite well, but there a tiny details that I didn't like. Like on one leg a set of rivets was slightly higher than on the other one.

So for this project I've decide to fist trace everything before drilling.
It's really hard to say on the pict but I have the impression the the space between the rivets is a bit too big. I guess that I will have to spend hours in front of all the reference images I have and compare with my placement. But it's hard to evaluate that on those picts. Of course it doesn't need to be super accurate, but I would like to be as close as possible.

Here's the picts, at one point it reminded me of Frankenstein with all his little marks on the connections.

The fingers looks correct, I have more a doubt for the feet, maybe the rivets needs to be more close to the edge, and with less spacing between them.

Garada is smoooooth

Yes, finally, after lots of evenings of sanding, all pieces are clean now. The boring part is behind me and it feels sooooooooo good.
Still two evenings to find to drill all the little rivets, a good washing and it will be ready for painting.

I've take some pictures but it's hard to see the difference, well the print layers are gone now, everything is super smooth, almost like a baby skin. You can see that the surface is a bit less glossy now, that's mainly because of the sanding. You can see also some residue of the dust from the sanding, but all this will be gone after a good wash.

I haven't sand the sickles yet as I'm not sure I want that, it's the only part that doesn't require painting, and sanding it will remove the little reflection that makes it look like plastic. So for the moment I keep it like it is, the prints layers are not visible on that piece, there some structure in it, but it's not disturbing.

So, here's a few picts of the work in progress, even if it's not super obvious, but it's always good to look at this guy :)))

Curious to see if the little rivets will be visible on the picts, I guess it will be the next posting.

Experimentations

Today is the day of experimentation.
One of the biggest 3D software company have a little application that can create 3D models based on pictures. The concept is pretty simple, you just take lots of pictures of an object, or a building, a sculpture or even a human. You shoot from many different angle and the soft compute a volume based on that.
Sound simple but it's impressive, since you have nothing to do, the software manage to get interesting result.

I came up with the idea of trying to use that to create a base reference for the Hasami Jaguar leg and finally had time to test it. Well, the result is impressive but far from usable. There's holes in the 3D mesh and there's some strange shapes. So nothing like a good set of pictures and some dimensions references. I wanted to share the result, since with the texture it's really impressive, but when you look at the mesh it's another story.

I'm pretty sure that there's a better way to take pictures and optimize all that, I might try that in a couple of days to see if I get something more accurate.

So, here's a little turnaround of that thing, enjoy the red carpet :))

I guess that once I will have finish my big project, it will be time to focus on his leg, he's been waiting too long with this spray can as a leg.
Talking about the current project, well, still in sanding process, more or less at the half of it. I really hope to be able to finalize it for around mid June, but I'm a bit too busy day and night with "real" work. It's hard to manage all that.

Jumbo Voltes V restoration finally over

Since it's not always about the bad guys, here's a little post about a project I've start years ago.

I've receive from a very good friend and junk body of a Jumbo Voltes V. He actually bought one trashed to use some parts to complete the one he had. And he was really kind to let me use his to cast a repro head and a chest piece.

Here's a picture before/after

 

I've first use some Daimos fists and grey stickers, but it's just recently that I've been able to finalize it properly. The original one come with some special fists, with black hands and blue sleeves. One of the member of the Robot Japan  board is doing some great work with repro fists and I've ask him to make a special version of the Daimos fists with the blue sleeves. I've receive them yesterday and was completely blow away by the quality of his work, they're just perfect. Another member of that board is doing some great work with stickers, I've send him the files I had to get real metallic stickers for the belt, the legs and the ankles. Those stickers came out really perfectly. I've search for years for making stickers like that but never succeeded.

At the end I think that I've a pretty good looking Voltes V that didn't cost me a fortune like an original. Well I still dream to upgrade to an original one but with that one upgraded like that now, I can wait a few more years before trying to get a real one.

Tiny Doublas

Since the super tiny Garada was so sweet, I've decide to do a little Doublas and it turned out pretty well also. I don't think that I'm going to paint that one, I like the clear look of it and I've order another tiny K7 so that I have both in clear version.

Tiny Garada Painted

As a continuity of the multiple posts about my Garada obsession, here's the tiny version painted. As you can see, for that one I went for paintbrush instead of airbrush, it's too small to start playing with masking tape and all that and since it's in one single piece, it's even worst.
I've use the same technique as I used for my little D&D figures that why he's go that little dirty look, but it suits him pretty well I think.
In really close up the texture is a bit grainy, that might be because of the primer that was a spray can, but even with some sanding after, the grainy texture is still there. But that only visible on close shots.

 

Here's a picts with him next the first mini Garada I've done. Colors are off but the first one was really too flashy. Also with his little box but little inserts. Ready to go.

 

And to get a better idea of size, here's a couple images with the full size version, a few family shots. Now that the tiny guy is finish, the main focus will be to finish the big guy, still a lot of work on that one....

Before and after

When I did the little fake Garada commercial, I've done a little side by side movie  with before and after, so that the people who don't know the original commercial can enjoy the joke a bit more.

I wanted to upload it but it never worked out and I just realize right now that it did work out but didn't know.

I should have maybe spend more time on it to be perfect, anyway here it is:

Split and details

Today we have a little "behind the scene" post.

I've disconnect all the parts of the Garada to bring him home to start the post process job on him. I've take some pictures to show all the separate parts. It's actually exactly like on one of the 3D render you can find in a previous post but now it's for real. What I'm really happy is that, except the little plug at the back of the head, everything is connecting properly and stand firmly.
Since all this is prepared virtually and you don't really have real constraints in 3D, it's always a surprise when you launch your print. On previous smaller prints I had to sand a lot some parts and adjust them to make them fit inside each other, but not here.

 

And this last one is the little "attention to detail" picture, as you can see I've push the detail to have the writings under the feet like on the original. The little holes next to that are for a technical purpose. The 3D print technique used to do it is with a bath of epoxy liquid that cure under UV lasers, so the liquid needs to be able to escape and those holes are there for that.

It's funny because I was showing this picture to a friend today and he pointed the fact that it looks like the little holes under the SW figures, maybe I will leave them like that.

 

 Those writings were a total nightmare to model, and the first modeling version was not really clean, I've try to take some shortcut and was hoping that the printing software will be ok with that but it was far from ok and I had to spend a few nights to optimize all that. Anyway, it's a nice detail to get.