Friday, November 30, 2012

Production Update 7

It will soon be time to start collecting data.

=== The surveys have NOT gone out yet. ===

We will be sending them out beginning NEXT WEEK! I will be posting another update with more pics of the Babes that are done at this point between now and then. This will give you an idea of what to expect from the other pieces not yet completed. That way we can go ahead and start scheduling our production runs.

Assorted Sundry

Keri turned in the final art for Dusty!


Bearing in mind that there are lots of other things to do in addition to sculpting the Babes themselves, I was able to knock out some of this side work and get that wrapped up. There is still a lot of lead time on some of the digital and resin pieces that will require printing and silicon molding. In order to accommodate that I have finished these up first in order to get those off to the contract casters.

Here are the Sidekicks that are finished so far.



As posted previously, I made a 3D sprue for the base tabs on the figures with the Bombshell imprint. This file has been printed by the vendor and it will be going to mold next week to test the viability of the printing resin in the vulcan molds.

The base accessories have been completed and are off to the caster. Here are some shots of the ammo base insert in progress.







I needed to also make a couple of larger base inserts for The Atomic Punks creature and Shunkaha.

The next batch of digital files will include Maelee's wrench and Sally's rocket pack. This will allow me to put the parts together for the Sci-Fi sprue and have that mastered.



There are still some details to add on the rocket pack. So far I've learned a fantastic amount about ZBrush. All of these skills will come into play next in putting the HS38 Rocket Bike together. Once these parts are printed they will be going off to Valiant for molding.

NEWS

Many of you are aware that over the holiday weekend our male cat Shas'tan had a medical emergency requiring hospitalization. We brought him home today and he's finally eating and passing fluids properly. Thank you for all your well-wishes as we endured this traumatic time.



Due to both the holiday and our family emergency, I was not able to complete the pieces and get them out to Reaper for molding as expected. Over the next few days I will be playing catch-up at the workbench and posting new pics of what I can before we start sending the surveys. If all goes expected, we should be making our first masters later in the coming week.

~Patrick
The Sculptdude


Saturday, November 17, 2012

Production Update 6


Many of you have asked

=== The surveys have NOT gone out yet. ===

We will be sending them out once more sculpts are completed at the beginning of December.

Kickstarter recommends sending the survey near the shipping stage of fulfillment in order to verify everyone's address is up to date. We will have to send it considerably sooner than that to get an idea of how many copies of everything to order.

We are at the half-way point of the Production Process


I would like to say that half of the work is done, but that's not really an accurate way to describe the schedule curve. As we get closer to fulfillment the amount of completed work will increase exponentially. Hang in there.









I'll have more cool stuff for you next weekend. For those of you in the States. have a great holiday!

~Patrick

Friday, November 9, 2012

Production Update 5

We got some preliminary color roughs in from Keri and the final painting on Professor Karrick and Thulle from Patrick McEvoy.





Other progress is coming along for making things.


The girls are all lined up and ready for me to give them some putty lovin' this month. I also need to finish out a whole batch of accessories that will need to mastered as well.




The first batch of digital files are just about ready to go for a test print. The base inserts should be ready to go to mold this coming week. I added some client tabs on there too just to cut down on the repetitive work a bit.


The Experiment


Sally's helmet has been in my head for  couple of years now. I know Naismith did some big helmets for the Cobalt-1 figures several years ago and I think the idea is sound. I have wanted a space girl figure with a bubble helmet since the first Chronoscope pieces I sculpted for Reaper.



I laid out some of the basic shape profiles in order to create a mold for the vacuform. The various proposed shapes will lend themselves not only to helmets but also other pulp sci-fi designs like robots and brain tanks!



So, the vacuformer arrived along with some clear plastic stock and over the next few weeks I'll be making a few test forms for the helmet shapes. I don't even know if it will work yet, but the theory is sound.

Thanks for hanging in there. More next week!
Patrick


Saturday, November 3, 2012

Production Update 4,

Sculpting is coming along. Nowada is almost finished and the anatomy on the Sword Maiden is blocked out.



Several new armatures are posed and ready to go on the next batch of Babes.



Kevin also completed the iSlug Sidekick.



I have been noodling with ZBrush and go the basic structure of Maelee's wrench blocked out.



NEWS


The next round of sculpts will need to be completed as soon as possible to get our first batch off to the master mold maker. As you can see from the mold layout there is space for several more Babes and quite a few Sidekicks. The plan is to get this mold pressed before the end of the month.



More stuff next Friday. Lots of new things on the schedule for this week.

Patrick