Some news

Hello all.

Well, it's been some time now since my last post, but this doesn't mean that nothing is going on.
After my wonderfull holidays, and some really good times, a nice little rush was waiting for me at the office and it was hard to focus on something else.
I still had the time to start some research on several stuff I want to try some day and on some ways to produce some of my stuff.

Nothing really concrete for the moment, but I really would like to try a bit more casting resin and experiment some stuff like complex molds and all.

Now that I have a more precise idea about all that, I've decide to go back on my sanding sessions. Yeah I know, I've already told this lots of times, but I hate sanding.....And right now I'm back on the clear Doublas, and the bad news is that I have to sand both sides of each piece to try to achieve the result I'm looking for. So, long evenings sanding and sanding even more.....

It's really the painfull part of this technic, of course I can ask for pieces that are already sanded but it almost multiply the cost by 3....So even if it's not time saving for me, it's highly cost saving to do it myself.

So, nothing to show really for the moment but you can expect to see some work in progress of this little guy pretty soon.

Once it's complete, I think I will do a break with the sanding and try to do some custom project and avoid 3D printing for a moment, even if I have huge projects for that in the future, it might be good to play with something else for a bit.

It's holiday time for me

Just a quick post.

After a rush on the mini vilains to be ready for the East Coast Chogokin Summit and a HUUUGE rush at work after that, well, I'm finally on holidays for two weeks and I'm planning to do:

Nothing

No jumbo project, no work, no 3D, no sanding, for once I will just enjoy my time and my familly.

But I've lots of things on my mind and on my to do list for when I'm back, so you can expect the final version of the clear Doublas M2, maybe an extra mini Vilains and some nice suprises.

Until then take care.

Mike

Repro Boxes

A little post with some repro boxes to start this month smoothly.

The good thing about Machinder collecting is that the toys are amazing but so are the boxes. Each one is a piece of art and beeing able to display them with their boxes is just amazing. Well I'm quite lucky to own a few original boxes but having them all boxed is close to impossible since it's hard to find and quite expensive for some pieces.

So, this is something I wanted to finalize for a long long time. A few years ago I was visiting a fellow collector also know as The Most Famous N.... and I was able to take lots of picts of his jumbo boxes. After a few month I had the time to put them together and have files ready for print, some picts were a bit blurry so there's some parts of some boxes that are not perfect but the overall feeling is there and it's nice to at least have that.

For the Ultraman Taro and Leo, the picts used to create the boxes were just picts from another collection, when I've take them I didn't had in mind to do boxes with them since I didn't had the two Ultras back then. After I've finally score both and looking at some of the picts I've take during my visit to another big collector I realized that maybe I can do something with those picts. The quality was pretty bad and I had to use lots of tricks to have a decent file.

The prints came out great and it's probably almost two years that I need to fold them and put them together. And finally I had some time to do them this week so this is one big thing less on my Jumbo To Do List.

The bad news is that the cardoard part is stronger than the original one and I can't put them in my display case, so I will have to find a new way of displaying my big guys, but already have an idea.

 

So, this is a bit different from the other stuff I usually show here, but hey it's my blog and I can show whatever I want here :))

Some real and some virtual pictures

Today's post is mainly pictures.

After rushing on the mini machinder to be able to bring them with me last week end to Boston, the return home was quite hard, full rush at work and no real time to do something else.

But when I was at the East Coast Chogoking Summit, I had the huge honnor and pleasure to stay at a friend's house, a fellow collector who as one of the biggest and mind blowing Jumbo Machinder collection. Since I had the Mini Machinder with me it sounded like a good plan to take a few pictures with the real Jumbo Vilains. It's not everyday that you're able to see a real Rokuron Q9, well not everyday for me, there's some lucky guy out there of course.

I first wanted to do quick pict and was looking for a nice background, when my friend just poped out a mini photo studio he use to take some pictures for toys he review. Woaw, that was just too perfect. I've jump on the occasion to take some picts of the mini guys only since I don't have all this at home.

As you might already know, it's almost close to impossible to get a real Garada K7 so the Mini Garada was a bit lonely but still stand out on the picts I think.

Here's a few picts

It's pretty cool to be able to get all those together.

 

 

Ok, so now there's a little something I was able to finalize quickly. A few weeks ago I've post an image with lots of Garada. Well, this was done with a work in progress model and with not all the little details. So here's the final version of this, now there's the little rivets, the two greens. It looks a bit better now.

 

I've see a few people use the previous image as desktop image, feel free to use those like a real Garada K7 fan.

Mini Garada K7 complete the infernal trio

Yes, finally the 3 mini Machinders are done but this little Garada was hard to finalize.

For the little story, I first send the 3D modeling to Shapeways as I've done the other with them, the resul this time was awfull, don't know why but it seems like the quality control there is really bad, there's probably no quality control.

Anyway, so I had to fight a bit with them for a refund and I've then send the file to Materialise, the guys with who I've done my big projects, they are a bit more expensive but at least they are real pro and they know how to use their printer.

The print came early this week and since then I've spend all my evenings sanding it. On Doublas I had to re-sand it after the first layer of paint as the print layers where still visible. So for Garada I wanted to avoid this and spend enough time on the sanding. It was clean this morning and since I had a full day off, well I decided to paint it. The print layers where still a bit visible even after all this sanding but it was not that bad so I've decide to keep it like this. The first layer turned out great, but then the green was just a mess. I don't know why but I was mixing some colors to get the green but when adding the thinner it started to make some little drop when sprayed. I was thinking that my airbrush was maybe a bit dirty so I've clean it and redo the same mix. But it turned out the same way, again little drops. I've clean everything one more time and this time I've decided to use water instead of the thinner and yes this time it was working.
Since it was a bit painfull with the green, I haven't paint the body with the slightly brighter green, but with the same color to avoid more troubles.

After a few other accident, the Garada was painted and glued. Ok you have to know that I'm doing all those stuff in my basement with a crappy light. And when I went upstairs with this little guy, I've discover that the green, that was looking ok down there, was a bit too funky pop green. Damn, I've build a disco fluo Garada K7. Well it's not that bad but it's slightly off and feel a bit weird. I will have to watch out for this if I do a full size one. I also noticed one thing, the head might be a tiny bit too small when looking at the general proportions.

But at the end I'm quite happy with those three little guys, they look pretty nice together and at least I will be able to display them at home since they don't take much space.

As usual, here's the picts, enjoy!

Next mission: Finish the clear Doublas M2. ARGLLLL even more sanding......:))

Mini Garada K7 work in progress

Today, early in the morning I went to pick up my latest 3D print and the third of the mini Machinders serie. A mini replica of the famous and obscure Garada K7. My original plan with those little guys was to do at least those 3 and maybe an extra one but not in the weeks to come.

So here's a few pictures with the raw print before any post process. I guess I will have to spend some evening to sand it, I'm a bit afraid to loose some details as I've been soft in the modeling like the horizontal lines on the body. You barely see them and I hope that after the cleaning and sanding they will still be there. I might have to redo them once the print will be clean.

I've also work a bit on the design of the boxes so here's a few pictures of the mini Garada and the infernal trio with their boxes.

 

 

 

 

Mini Doublas Painted

A good post to start this month.

The mini Doublas is finally painted, after long long evenings of sanding, airbrush and paintbrush, this little guy is finish. You can see on the picts that I'm probably not as good for details as I used to be in the past. Everything is not perfect, but hey, at one point the originals are not perfect either, so it's more or less consistent with the real one.

Now I have to finalize the boxes for the two mini Machinders and after some big mess from Shapeways regarding the print of little Garada, I had to order a new print in a more reliable company like Materialise. I will post picts of this later but it's interesting to see that everything is not going smoothly all the time.

Anyway, here's a few picts of the little Doublas M2

 

 

Clear Doublas is for real

After playing with some rendering test with the model of Doublas and seeing how a clear version could look, well, I've decided to try to do it for real.
It was hard to find a way of doing it with a great result at the end, and I came across a printable transparent resin. The company who offer that is Materialise, the same company I've already work with on the big Q9 and the Daltanious head, but didn't know they had such a material.

I've decide to give it a try even if it cost quite a lot, the idea of this clear Doublas with paper inserts is too funky.

Just picked the print today and as you can see it's not crystal clear yet as I need to clean it myself, sand it, polish it and varnish it. I was able to reduce the price by doing the post process myself but it's still hard for the wallet.
Anyway, hope the end result will be great.

Here's a few crappy picts done with my cell phone.

 

You can check the size on this last picture, he's 25cm high, so a bit bigger than the other print as I need to be able to polish the inner parts as well, and damn it has to be bigger.

More about it soon.

Garada K7 Final Modeling

After spending some time discovering the pleasure of wet sanding this week, it was time to finalize the modeling of Garada K7. Well, at least the main shape as now I have to do the whole technical part as usual to make it hollow and ready for print.

Here's some images of the final modeling:

 

Hey but seriously, wet sanding changed my life. I was just writing the other day that I should spend more time on the sanding of my models, but with this technic, it's way more fast and accurate. I learn new stuff every day doing those little guys.

Mini Machinders update.

Here's a little update on the Mini Machinders.

The good thing with those projects is that it really involve a lot of different aspects, from 3D modeling to print, sanding and cleaning and finaly painting. I just realize that this combine almost all my passions together. Well, except maybe the sanding which is the boring part.

And you can see on the pict below that I maybe need to spend more time on that part as you can still see the printing layers on some parts of the Q9. This guy is almost finish and it was quite fun as I was doing all the paint brush parts tonight, I really had the impression that I was doing the same thing as on the bug one I did two years ago, same tricky parts but smaller.

One thing is sure, I'm getting older and my eyes are not as accurate as before when I was painting Donjons & Dragons figures.

I also just receive today the 3D print of Doublas M2, and he's looking pretty cool. On that one I've try to put the smallest wall thickness possible for this kind of print, something like 1mm and on this size it's maybe too thin. The model feels far more fragile than the Q9, so it's cheaper as price is calculated regarding the volume but it's a bit risky.

So, here's a pict with those two big guys, well not so big, but cool anyway.

 

And here's another one where you can see a bit the table with a plastic glass in the back to have an idea of size

 

Lots of stuff are happening lately, as each one is at a different stage but things are moving and it's good.

Oh, and I already posted this image on TBDX but it's good to have everything together at the same place, so here's an image of lots of Garadas,  just wanted to play with it a bit and make an image of something you can only dream of, or use as a wallpaper like a good friend :))