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Made in us
Drone without a Controller





Michigan

Recently, I started down the process of creating the next miniature for my tabletop game Legends of Kalidasia and I wanted to document the entire process.

Last week, I started with the top down view concept art. This summary video goes through the basic thought process for this phase.




The recording of the complete one hour live show, which contains a detailed rationale for my various choices, can be found on that youtube channel as well.



Over several iterations, I went from a very basic shape to lots of details and other notes. Throughout the sketching process, I referenced several other warship miniatures from the same faction as well as following the rules for how the various pieces technology work in the Kalidasia universe. This was to ensure a consistent feel across the faction's miniature line. I also had to take in consideration as to how the miniature was going to be created and the placement of the engines was heavily influenced by the requirements of resin casting. Each of the engines will serve as a resin fill or air vent in the final model and they were placed in locations where air bubbles were likely to get trapped. Even the vectored thrusters along the side were slanted in way to reduce the chance of air bubbles collecting. Finally, I labeled each of the sections with a number to indicate the relative height of the various armor panels. These numbers will be useful as I put together the concept art pieces for the other views of the Peregrine.

Tomorrow, 5/18/2017 at 8PM Eastern Time(GMT-4) is the next episode of the design process on my Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/rockorobotics

Sometime next week I will update this thread with a running total of my progress.

Creator of the Kalidasia Universe - http://www.kalidasia.com/ 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Cheltenham, UK

This is really interesting reading. Thanks for posting. I look forward to reading more about it.

   
Made in us
Drone without a Controller





Michigan

 precinctomega wrote:
This is really interesting reading. Thanks for posting. I look forward to reading more about it.


Thanks for the comment. Here is the second video in the series:




For part 2, I continue the concept art phase, but this time, I created the front and side views of the miniature.



These two views were created by lining up the top view art work in such a way that the basic dimensions were approximately carried over to the other views. At this point, the exact dimensions between the different views are not critical. That gets figured out in part 3, which I have started in the above image.

By creating the other views as concept art, I am solving two problems in a format that is much faster to change than either a detailed ship plan or a 3D Model.

First, I am making sure the warship will look as I imagine it will. With only a top down view, it is very easy to imagine a 3D object which is either impossible to exist or one that is not actually represented by the top down view.

Second, these pieces of concept art give me a good idea as to how the mold for the miniature will be created. For the Peregrine, I wanted to make sure that it could be cast as a single piece. Thanks to these concept art pieces, I can be fairly certain that it will be able to be cast as a single piece before the miniature design gets into a more permanent form.

Thanks for reading. The third part will be live streamed tomorrow, 5/25/2017 at 8PM EDT.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/05/25 02:12:13


Creator of the Kalidasia Universe - http://www.kalidasia.com/ 
   
Made in us
Drone without a Controller





Michigan

I just released the summary video for part 3, which covers the creation of the ship plans:




The ship plan step is all about formalizing the concept art into a series of views that have matching and accurate measurements. I built my ship plans in Photoshop, but the Gimp can be used as well.

The first process is to scan each of the pieces of concept art into the computer and arrange them in one large image. Try and align the images as close as possible. By using guides and drawing lines I create precisely measured versions of the concept art. Throughout this process, I have mentioned that the various dimensions of the concept art pieces approximately matched, but after this step, they will match. It is important that all discrepancies between the various concept art views are worked out during this process.

In an ideal world, the end product of this step are ship plans that will perfectly build a 3D model. Since I have already completed the 3D modeling portion of the process, I can tell you that is not exactly the case, but I came very close. By far, the time spent on the 3D modeling process was much less for this miniature than for any of the recently redesigned Kalidasia Miniatures.

Thanks for watching, and tomorrow on Kalidasia Live, I will cover the 3D modeling process in the last video of this series.

Creator of the Kalidasia Universe - http://www.kalidasia.com/ 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Cheltenham, UK

This is genuinely fascinating stuff. I've done a bit of semi-professional concept design for miniatures (I used to work freelance for Chapterhouse before they imploded - sadly, although my designs made to a sculptor, none of them made it into production before the end) but never seen the end-to-end process in 3d design.

R.

   
Made in us
Drone without a Controller





Michigan

 precinctomega wrote:
This is genuinely fascinating stuff. I've done a bit of semi-professional concept design for miniatures (I used to work freelance for Chapterhouse before they imploded - sadly, although my designs made to a sculptor, none of them made it into production before the end) but never seen the end-to-end process in 3d design.

R.



Thanks. I'm glad you've enjoyed it. If you have any questions about the process, feel free to ask.

Creator of the Kalidasia Universe - http://www.kalidasia.com/ 
   
Made in us
Drone without a Controller





Michigan

Here is the final video in the series. This one highlights the important parts of using Blender to create the 3D Model.




While the video is far too short to be anywhere near a complete Blender tutorial, I try to cover all of the big items and problems you might encounter building a 3D Printable miniature in Blender. In addition, I try to use the correct Blender terminology so you can look up the details that I don't cover in the video. Once I get this miniature printed and cast, I'll update this thread with the final version.


Creator of the Kalidasia Universe - http://www.kalidasia.com/ 
   
 
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