Had a friend link me this thread. And wanted to say that this is some genuinely brilliant stuff. Sculpt looks spot on and I love the backpack mechanic. Keep it up, you really got something here.
Thank you. I'm definitively intend to finish this one but my attention keep shifting between something like 10-20 projects. I also have a problem printing during winter as my ventilation solution consist of having the balcony door open. I may have one or two solutions on the way but if they don't work progress will have to wait for spring.
I definitely feel you on the multiple projects thing. I have 4 concurrent ones now with several others I want to do. I'd advice to focus on one or two, but hell, I know even that can be hard. Either way, can't wait to see what else you will put out.
Sorry for the late answer but I had the opportunity to move and have been very busy. The good news is that I will be able to print now and if thing work out long term I may even buy a resin printer. So in a few days when I'm all set up you should start to see some more progress (sadly I got derailed working on other projects so I don't have any Arcee files ready to print yet)
Finally I'm set up for printing again! As I hadn't prepared any files earlier I started with something easy and printed the legs. And here they are with the rest of the figure. Ok, so there are a few parts missing but the hip-joint is a bit complicated. I'm working on it but thought I should get something simpler printed first. And here are some bonus parts I did work on earlier and could now print while working on the new stuff. I watched a tutorial for making tires with Blender and then started making super detailed tires for several of my project. Seriously, the large wheel is for various armored vehicles whose robots hardly have been modeled yet (but they have sweet tiers and it was fun modeling them). I modeled both the rims and tire tracks to mach the real cars even if it wouldn't come out in the printer (have I mentioned I'm a perfectionist). The rims lost some details but the tires came out pretty good. It's getting really tempting to buy a resin printer tho. Not only would I get all the details in the rims but it would print the tires so mush faster (and without the printer shaking violently).
I dont see anthing worng with the assembled copy... The tires are great. Is that sunstreaker's back tire in the picture? Good luck on getting this project completed!
Thank you and yes, it is a back tire of a Lamborghini Diablo for Sunstreaker. The other wheels are for a VW Beetle and (without tire) a semi truck.
I have finished a prototype hip joint. There is still more work (like design adjustments, print orientation) the prototype is just for proof of concept and this one needed both lots of sanding and glue to work. Good news is, now I can show of the articulation in the torso. Waist swivel is 65 degrees in both directions. Ab crunch is 30 degrees forward and 15 degrees backwards (and doesn't leave any gaps). Hip tilt 20 degrees in both directions. Here is how the parts connect to achieve this. About the not yet finished hip joint. In the past I have built a few Gundam kits and some time ago I also bought a few model kits of “anime girls in armor” for, lets call it, research purposes. After carefully studding their crotches (no, it's not what you think) I have figured out a design for Arcee's hip joint. I noticed that the anime figures can slide the hip joint down for more articulation while the legs can still sit flush to the hips when slided up. I wanted Arcee to be able to adjust each leg separately but there isn't enough room in the crotch piece to allow rotation and sliding. If I used a ball joint in the hips it might work but I wanted another design to adjust the friction better. In the end I came up with this solution. The two hip joints are connected on an axis (with a nail) and a ball in the center to avoid sliding sideways. Both legs can now move up/down but each leg can be adjusted by tilting the axis. This design also gives a bit of extra side to side rotation. Finally, as I write this I finished printing the prototype knees and this is how the figure looks now. (a bit taller then before) (sorry, I have no Transformers figures with me to compare with)
So I've been quiet for a while now (for various reasons) but a while ago I started back up again. Sadly I don't have that much new things to show you (yet). Instead of picking up where I left of I went over my old parts and adjusted tolerances and print setting before re-printing them in the correct colors. So far I have made a door inset as the old door by itself looked a bit weird. I also finally printed the car front in the new scale. Here you can really see the difference between a prototype and a finished more refined prototype. (The reason it's purple is because I only have a small amount of pink filament.) As you probably see, the print orientation make a huge difference for FDM printing. Even if it wasn't going to be in different colors I would still split it up to makes it easier to optimize the print-orientation (and therefor get a better look). Here is the latest front (with a chest piece to fill out the hood). In the later (pink) I added a grill pattern to front. The black and silver is made with hobby pens (I suck at painting with brushes). I have made some more parts (almost everything shown earlier) but I'm waiting until the whole figure is complete in one piece before I post it. Hopefully it shouldn't take that long.
Well, here is the figure "in one piece” (but still missing a few pieces). At first I planed to wait till it was all done before posting but once again I have gotten sidetracked by other projects (the one in the pic will get its own thread “soon”) I will still finish this, it will just take a bit longer.
I haven't been able to work much on this lately but here is a small update. Finally I managed to print the helmet properly. I also separated it even more so now the face and eyes can be printed in different colors from the helmet. Ultra Magnus was the first one to get hands and now I'm in the precess of shrinking and distributing them to my other projects. And the whole figure (minus most car parts) It was a long time since I modeled the overall proportions and now something about them doesn't feel wright. Not sure if it's because this is real (compared to the 3d model which is distorted by my perspective settings) or if I'm just imagine this. I mean, the proportions actually (somehow) look better on the figure itself than in the photo. I tried comparing it to FansToys Rouge. They are actually very similar in size but I adjusted the picture a few percent so they lined up even better. It's almost uncanny how close they match so it's probably nothing wrong with the overall proportions. The biggest difference is the hand size so I played around in Photoshop to see if that would improve the look. Well, it do look better but as I worked I also tried adjusted the arms. This may be even better but right now I will print a pair of smaller hands and see if that's enough (less redesign/ printing that way).
