The Veteran Posted June 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Sure is Will put it all together a bit later when I have the rest of the walls finished. I ended last night with 5 still to go so I didn't quite make it Got a car to fix today so will have to see how long that takes but should be able to oblige by tonight at any rate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted June 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Ok, I lied last night about getting the walls finished (and definitely fibbed about the painting!) but now I'm happy to report both jobs are finished! To celebrate I took some pics of the whole project as requested so here they are for your viewing pleasure! Starting from the left here is our crash-site. I used a light grey for the hull so it's not all that noticeable but that's not a bad thing. The white piece is the unpainted door which I'm undecided on how to utilise...https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild186.jpg Here's a closer shot of the more detailed central area.https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild187.jpg And here as requested is an overall view of everything! Screen is plugged in here so this is pretty near it's final appearance, need a way to support the weight though.https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild188.jpg Just for fun I decided to take a top-down shot of the battlescape so it could be compared to the sprites I started off with to see how well I did. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't chuffed cos I've always hated Rob. I mean, keeping the lines right was difficult as I progressed. And yes the UFO IS facing the wrong way if you want to call it that. It's the way I've chosen to do it though so if you have a problem go make your own friggin' diorama And yes I'm aware that the squaddies will have trouble gaining entry to the craft with the door 2 meters in the air but it's better than having it underground huh!https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild189.jpg Finally, I saved my favourite shot for last. But first here's another one https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild190.jpg And here! Is my fave... Makes all the time and effort (and a surprisingly large amoutn of cash for what it is) I put into this case seem more than worth it. Even though it's not finished it's finally starting to LOOK finished. Next job will be to put a roof on the UFO (I'm going to retrofit the interior but I need a roof on before I can bury it and finish the field off) Then as I just said in brackets once it'll be time to bury the ship and finish off the field Still got to apple the rest of the trees and get the roofs (shouldn't this be 'rooves'?) on my barn and toolshed. Then it's just UFO interior, monitor mount and finishing detail on the surround and I'm done! Although I still want a name plate and new speakers+grills on the front panel. Plus it'll get a bit more stain before I finally call it a day. Oh and I want miniatures too but am still having no luck with them. So wait and see, there's still lots to do! Oh yeah and HERE is that picture I love so much! Hope you guys do too https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild191.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jman4117 Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Nice engine you got there How is the interior of the craft going to be? Blown out, or intact with the whole roof on and removeable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted June 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 haha thanks, that's my 3.0l twin turbo another of many projects but most expensive so probably last to be addressed! The UFO will be trashed, will add some damage from cannon fire as well before the end. You can already see where there'll be a hole in the floor and where the power source exploded. The pipes beneath that floor are what would've carried power to the four grav-wells and the visible dome is the main, central grav-well which is powered directly from the source. the brass rod carries the controls from the nav-stations. I need to add a few internal walls and am currently debating whether or not to paint the internal walls the same grey as the outside. The walls round the central chamber will be pretty much wrecked and the roof will be wide open in the centre for a nice view inside. Not decided on how to make the roof yet, or with what. It's my very next job though so will be sharing that info soon enough!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 Thanks for the pics, well worth seeing!!! Really really great. BTW, keep out of reach from children! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorondor Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 You're right about that last photo, Veteran - very, very nice! It seems to me the lighting is fundamentally responsible for that. Not only is oversaturation absent, but there's also a pleasant tint, most notably inside the UFO, that brings the scene a sense of watching this farm just as it is at sunset or dawn. Inside, sectoids yawn and begin to stir, vaguely annoyed at the uneven footing and the knowledge there's so much damage to repair. Towing service response times in this planet suck, so they're stuck with it... There aren't even any humans around to brain-snoop, puppeteer or play zappy-zap with. Total bummer! :: Keep up the excellent work! https://www.mentaljokes.com/images/sunny_smilie.gif Assorted musings:- UFO floor (as seen in the top-down view photo) is perhaps too silvery. I guess there'll be blackening and other such due to power source blast, but you should consider toning that shininess down.- that door would make for a decent impromptu UFO boarding access ramp; wouldn't you say, rookies?- for adequately supporting the screen you might want to consider something like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted June 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 Thanks for the posts guys, it keeps me going I got some bits for the mammoth tank delivered today but given the support I have here I think maybe that can wait. I love you guys And SV it's totally not out of the reach of children but it has taught my son the words 'tree' and 'apple' so far so I can't complain! Of course he does want to pick the apples from the trees but meh I have more apples and his fingers are too fat anyway Thanks for the musings Thor, much appreciated. The floor of the ufo is made from real lead and I quite like the final colour of it (part of the reason I used it) You're right that it looks too shiny from above but in general it's not very reflective at all. Looking at it now, the only noticeable sheen is gained from the reflection of the interior walls which are still the original metal. I think what I'll do for the interior is get hold of some plastic bar or rod and use it for a sort of skirting board (to cover gaps between wall and floor) and also to accent the corners which aren't entirely tidy from the soldering! After those pieces are in I think I'll paint all of it (save the floor and underfloor) the same light grey as the outside to reflect the ingame sprites. That'll bring the interior much closer to being finished and also match it far closer to the game image than it currently is. I agree about the door, that's kind of why I left it in place for those pics. Another purpose it would serve in this location is to cover up the airgap between the metal floor and the lead tiles. It's about 2mm but it won't be visible with the door here! That screen support looks perfect for what is available on the rear of the case but it would only work in a fixed position so it'll be no good for this sadly as it'll never live in one place for too long... The mockups I've used so far are similar to plate stands and that works fine but I'd like it more vertical than that in the final build and also it should be fixed to the base somehow as well. Anyway, my next job is really to sort the roof out enough to bury the saucer and finish the field. Still not sure how to make the roof though so I could be delaying that a little longer... Thanks again for all the support, it's you guys that have made progress speed up so much lately so please don't let up on me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted June 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Ok back for another update and I have to say the images I finished on last time are going to be pretty hard to beat I'm obviously going to try anyway however so here goes... Been working on a few things today but it really all comes down to detailing the ufo so that's what we'll call it! Just so everyone knows what I'm looking to reproduce, here's a pic I dug up from the UFOpaedia site showing a downed large scout with 'minimal damage' from a blown power source.https://www.ufopaedia.org/images/thumb/0/0f/LgScout_MinDam_L0.png/800px-LgScout_MinDam_L0.png Internally, I'll be sticking to that image very closely. Externally however I'm cutting away a lot more from the roof so as not to hide all my hard work Nevertheless, it'll be difficult to see all of the detail at best, the small room in the wing of the craft being completely invisible... So anyway, I don't know if I ever mentioned this but I actually painted the entire hull not long after my last post. That means the metallic colour inside is gone and all the walls are now that light grey colour, inside and out. Here's what she looks like now, or at least how she did look this morning...https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild194.jpg The only remaining silver areas will of course be covered by other materials including the exposed conduits and the floor itself. Up until now my 'spacer' for this area has been a simple cardboard template so an important job was to replace it with 3mm styrene. Here are the pieces I ended up with to serve this purpose. The cuts exist to accomodate the walls (although the one at the back was unintentional as I cut the styrene to the shape of the floor which was too small!)https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild192.jpg On top of that goes the floor which has been seen before. Here it is hacked up into pieces though.https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild193.jpg Here's the spacer in place, I had to resize and shape all of these pipes to get a good fit when I made these pieces.https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild195.jpg And here's the floor laid down. This construction is pretty much final, though everything is still loose here and easily removable.https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild196.jpg And here for the first time are the interior walls! They aren't painted yet but that's an easy fix. The doors for these 3 pieces will be painted on as 2 will be almost invisible and the third one will probably look fine painted too. If not then I'll cut a hole and make it with a lead backing but we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it...https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild197.jpg Note that the floor remains unpainted though I'm now beginning to more seriously consider painting it... In the game it's the same colour as the walls but I think the whole thing needs a little contrast so I'm undecided. I've also made one piece of the roof now which is also unpainted lead. While I think both applications look pretty cool I'm still wavering as to whether or not to paint them and if so what colour?? Also missing right now are the walls of the central chamber which will be battered but present as in the image above. I'm undecided on how much roof to use right now and also how to install these wall sections without having them touch the inner floor so it's something I'm yet to finish. Anyway, that was only half of today's progress I'm pleased to say. I've been thinking about the navigation panels for some time and been dreading how to make them. In the end I decided to just dive in and used a few off-cuts off plasticard and a lot of paint and patience to achieve something as close to the sprite as possible without good detail brushes or the ability to shrink to one tenth my original size... I used the thinnest sheet I have to make the flat panels here and then cut and shaped some nice thick 3mm stuff to create the consoles. I turned to my trusty citadel colour paints again but had to mix most of the colours to satisfy myself with a close enough match. The purple and blue were particularly tricky as I had no similar paints to begin with. Mine came out far more pink than purple and a direct comparison with an in-game sprite is shocking but in any other context they came out great! https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild198.jpg Next I scratched off the areas that needed the funny blue colour on and built up the centre consoles. They should be starting to look more recognisable now!https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild199.jpg The final push with the detailing took a surprising amount of time and cursing but I'm pretty pleased with the end result (even though once again the pictures don't quite do my work justice!) If you're wondering how close I managed to get this to the original, do me a favour and try to figure it out before checking in the above picture. I'll be amazed if anyone can tell me what I got wrong without a direct comparison, and even then I got it 100% as far as my giant brushes and fat fingers allowed!https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild200.jpg The darkness behind the green is actually just a darker green I used first but it's practically invisible. I used a little artistic license on these images of course but if you check the sprites I think you can see a curve in the middle and lines on the right so it's good enough. I also added a little 'text' to each image which you can just about make out. The blue lines on the left should be rows of dots but I kept screwing it up so allowed myself a compromise. The red lines above should run from black-red-yellow-white but hey, gimme a break, they're 4mm long... Finally the wierd dotted array on the right turned out ok but it was always going to be hard to get a uniform result. As far as I'm concerned it broke in the crash and is now displaying static!https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild201.jpg Here's a shot of the navigation systems temporarily in place. If I did a good enough job it should be quite similar in appearance to an in-game sprite by now. You can see the light and dark grey colours I have in this shot and I'm wondering whether I should try painting the floor and roof in the darker one (used on the console surrounds) Let me know what you think. And yes I know, in the game everything is all the same grey but that's a bit crap...https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild202.jpg Here's a final shot to leave you with of my mocked up interior so far. It'll look a lot better just after painting those interior walls and adding some doors but that's not a job for now... Next time though for sure! It's my very next job, after which I'll sort out the central chamber's melted walls and then glue it all together and put a roof on! I can't believe the ship is nearly finished but it really is! https://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa460/Tim_Munt/X-Com%20Case%20Build/CaseBuild203.jpg Let me know what you think so far, cheers for looking EDIT : Oh and the chairs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Strike Posted June 24, 2011 Report Share Posted June 24, 2011 I was looking at that, and I was thinking where are the doors? Then I looked again, and I thought he just hasn't done them yet. And will get those done soon enough. It looks awesome so far. And if my memory does serve me at all right now, I do believe that the interior, depending on time of day, is lit differently, and can cause slightly different colors on things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted June 24, 2011 Report Share Posted June 24, 2011 And if my memory does serve me at all right now, I do believe that the interior, depending on time of day, is lit differently, and can cause slightly different colors on things.Aaaahhh, some kind of interior lighting to lit it up at night would be really nice! @Veteran; nice idea on removing more roof, it would be a huge shame to hide all the hard work! BTW, have you thought about using coloured sticker paper to "paint" the interior as collage? The edges would be much sharper and colour much more uniform than one can achieve with a brush. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted June 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2011 Everything but the detail is sprayed so it's as uniform as it'll get, there is that one corner which has about 1mm overhang which sucks a bit though... If you compare the sprite above to shots of the build you'll see that the game uses a much more bluey-grey for the walls but I'm not bothered about that as I already have these 2 greys in spray cans! As for the lighting, again you can see the big difference by looking at the sprites. In the game there are panel lines and a skirting rail around the bottom of the walls which I'm not entirely sure how to address at the moment. It's certainly one of the things that won't be replicated perfectly but I'll do my best. I definitely want to add the skirting for a little extra detail, and it'll cover the joins between floor and walls too, but I'll need some plastic rod for that as I don't fancy hand making a metre of the stuff from the plastic stock I currently have I may add the panel lines but I'll need a detail marker or something as there's no way I can paint it and have it look good. There's always a balance between making things accurate and making things good in situations like this. The left part of the control panel was one of these areas as every attempt I made at creating dots just messed everything else up more and more. In the end I compromised and went with sliders instead of buttons and it doesn't detract from the end result at all. So basically what I'm saying is, I'll do the panel lines but only if I can make them look good... As for lighting, it would certainly be cool as it's not easy to see into the cockpit even with the small roof I'm using there. What would I ligh though and where? It has a blown out poer source so there's no power left anywhere in the craft. On toop of that I'd also have to figure out how to light it and remember this is a lappy not a desktop so that's easier said than done! Laptops have very few wires after all... Will get the walls and doors painted today and quite probably start gluing everything together. I think I'm going to keep the lead colour for the floor and possibly roof too as it's the only real contrast I'm going to have in this whole build. Next I need to sort the skirting, decide how/if to do panel lines (I'd like to) and get working on the walls for the central chamber. So I may be back later with more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted June 24, 2011 Report Share Posted June 24, 2011 What would I ligh though and where? It has a blown out poer source so there's no power left anywhere in the craft. On toop of that I'd also have to figure out how to light it and remember this is a lappy not a desktop so that's easier said than done!In the movies there is always enough power for emergency lighting! This is an alien craft so I guess you can pick whatever colour LED you'd like. Ehm... I know nothing about how you are doing the power connections so I am quite eligible for a huge kick in the dark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorondor Posted June 24, 2011 Report Share Posted June 24, 2011 Those panels and navigation consoles turned out pretty cute actually! Sure, the tone is a little off but they still look the part perfectly fine. Besides, you get bonus points for putting in the effort to achieve all that visual detail in interface and displays. Well done, Veteran! The now-painted walls do suffer from the absence of panel divisions, which makes them perhaps too featureless to retain interest for the eye. Still, the ceiling will likely obscure this for the most part and it's not mandatory to painstakingly detail the whole interior in such fashion. Regarding the floor, and thinking it through, I get the impression the end result of painting it would indeed dull it in the end. It's apparently a tad too shiny for its own good under some lighting circumstances, but, hey - it's also flashier! :: Not so sure about doing the same with the roof, though. I guess you'll have to play 'dress-up' with your UFO to find out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Strike Posted June 24, 2011 Report Share Posted June 24, 2011 What I meant is, when you play the game at night, and you left part of the UFO without a soldier remotely close, all the sprites get darker. And even with soldiers, it's not all that much better, unless they are all close together. I wasn't thinking about lighting, but just painting the floor different shades, and even maybe give it a contrast, and perhaps a slightly more 3D effect too. Not paint all of it, but parts of it. And around high traffic areas, make it a little more dark and dull. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted June 25, 2011 Report Share Posted June 25, 2011 Crikey! All these years I thought I was the crazy one... we've got a bona fide nut job lurking in our midst all the while! Awesome work TV, just amazing. So I hate to ask, but when are you going to model the Battleship? j/k - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted June 25, 2011 Report Share Posted June 25, 2011 Just popping my head in to say "keep up the fantastic work"! This really does look awesome Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Any news on this front? https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/dance.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2011 Well I got a new camera for my birthday so I'm guessing there should be some better pictures from here on out That aside I've been pretty busy but I finally managed to cash in on all the potty training I've been doing lately! Will finish off the walls and roof of the ufo soon but think I need to get some more lead first and I currently have less than no money so may be a brief delay while that happens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted August 18, 2011 Report Share Posted August 18, 2011 Soooo... Vacation over? Any development? Still testing the new camera? Come on, this is a project so awesome you could be posting the same pic over and over and I'd get excited every time anyway! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted October 12, 2012 Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 We've all seen you around, Vet! We haven't forgotten this case of yours. Any pics yet? Still working on it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now