Hot off the pc...

Yup, overheated my pc but hopefully it was worth it.
I rendered this in layers, I even had to shut down for a short time and use a box fan to cool off my pc to do the Liger render.

Stock assets I have on hand. I wanted to do a quick scene test with a little more oomph.

All the shadow artefacts that can be fixed have been fixed, I fixed the hoses, and moved the radiator. I even slightly downscaled the head. (for some reason it went up a third when I loaded it) The only thing left to do is the decaled dirt worn version. That's tomorrow's project unless I get distracted... by like another render. lol

Closer...

   I'm creeping ever closer to getting this done.
I've finished with the pistons, mirrored the left side... played with the textures to better match the stock liger from the first show... I still need to clean up the shadow artefacts and fix the hoses... and do all the bump maps and decals.

But... I can't resist doing a couple shots as a pat on the back and to see how it's coming together. :)

 

Getting there...

   Still working on the Blade Liger, though I have done a little writing on book 5 of the Wandering Engineer, "Plague Planet" this morning. I'm hoping I'll have the Liger done by the 1st of November but I dunno.
  To Do:
1 Fix the shadow artefact problem. That's a biggy and I'm not happy about it. With the Blue color I really only see 2 major problems, the booster covers. All those booleans.
2 Mirror parts for the left side
3 Finish fitting, rigging and such of the boosters. Texture same
4 Rig pistons on the wings and boosters.
5 Sort out the neck and hose rigging.
6 Finish texturing
7 Markings/decals
8 Dirty it up!

And now for some images:

Bottom most image is the latest version of course. :)

"...And I'll form... the head!"

    Yeah, that's been stuck in MY head since I started modeling the Blade Liger head. I finished it a short time ago, that finishes the fabrication side of the project. (Hurray!) Now I get to fix the proportions, clean up the artefacts and mistakes... all that lovely stuff. (BOOO) Then I can go on to set up the pivots and pistons, and cables and textures and... sigh

I know a few things are colored differently... there is a method to my madness. (I think) I color areas that need specific decals or what have you a different color. Or I goofed. Yeah, could be that...

Blade Liger update

     Getting there, almost done fabrication. I just need to reshape or remake the head and ruff and stuff and I'm done the first stage of construction. Then the headaches really begin.
     I spent the past couple of days roughing out the Mirage boosters. They aren't perfect, you can see a few errors I made, but they work for me for now. If I get the inclination I may go back and tweak things again. I dunno. Stranger things have been known to happen I guess. :)

I tossed just about all the blade liger bits in to see how they work with each other including the stripped down temporary head.

I'm using symmetry btw to mirror the wings, blades, and boosters as well as the legs right now. This is just a test after all.

I think the tail tip is too big. I'll look into it later.

Okay, that's it for now, I'm going to go have another cup of caffine and then get to work on the head! (Somehow Voltron keeps popping up in my mind right now... "and I'll form the head!"... nah...)

Blade Liger Mirage

      I'm making good on my self imposed rest break, jotting out some ideas for another book, a couple scenes here and there for future books... and oh yeah, the Blade Liger Mirage.
      I have modeled a few zoids, the Hellcat, Revraptor, Liger Zero, Liger Zero Panzer, Shield Liger, Command Shield liger... and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head. But this one has a lot of detail. Boat loads of detail.

     Mechmaster told me a trick to fix the shadow error you'll see in the renders. It's a lot of work so I'm leaving it for the last once I've got all the pieces fabricated.

       I've got all but the head and Mirage boosters done. The head I've stripped the Shield liger head down and I'm going to try to see if I can adapt it before starting from scratch.

 

      I am hoping I'll get the project done by the end of the month. Hoping. lol

Update...

   I've figured out Amazon, and I uploaded the 5th book today.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Chris%20Hechtl&search-alias=books
   Last week I took another look at First Steps and cleaned it up. I didn't add much to it, a dozen pages, but most of that was minor corrections and format corrections. I really should do a re-write but I want to move on.
   This morning I uploaded it, and I while I was at it I uploaded the newly cleaned and reformatted books to B&N as well. With the exception of Bootstrap Colony... that's still a mess. I need to fix that.
    But not today, or tomorrow or this week or next. I'm going to deal with some medical issues and then dive into the Blade Liger conversion project finally. I need to take a much needed break from editing and stuff.
  
   On another note, I started recieving parts for my PC rebuild, I picked up a new case, liquid cooling, DVD burner, and a new Graphics card. Using the DVD burner allowed me to repair my SSD and windows 7, so I'm back to firing on all cylinders.
    I should be getting the new AMD 970DS3 Motherboard, 8 core FX 8150 cpu, and memory around the first of November. :D Then I'm going to have a LOT of fun. lol Well, after I get through the headache of putting it all together and getting Windows reinstalled....

   And of course all the rebates to deal with. Anyone else hate them? Love hate relationship. I've got 2 coming in, and I even paid to have one processed in "5-7 business days" only to find out after I agreed and submitted it that it's actually "2-3 weeks to process once we recieve it." I'm soooo p-oed about that. More at myself for falling for it though.

    Mechmaster's Dalek Comic/graphic novel is winding up to the climax, he may be finishing this it this year. Check it out, he's retooled it:
http://www.mechmaster.co.uk/cg-lair/daleks_page1.htm