Ape Marauder 12-26-10 Final-ish

Well, the work on this model and it’s textures have gone as far as I want to take it for now. Any changes I make to the textures from here on out are going to be subtle, small ones. I managed to get all the textures for this to fit onto two 2048X2048 UV maps. There are things that I am still not happy with. I used a lot of mirroring in the textures to keep the number of uv maps reasonable, and you can see it if you really look. I’m hoping that when I put the model into some interesting backgrounds and give it some action poses it will be less obvious.

Ape Marauder 12-20-10

I’ve been meaning to put up some progress shots as the texturing has progressed, but I keep getting distracted by the actual texturing. It’s coming along pretty well. Trying to find that sweet spot between too much wear and tear and not enough. Btw, the pin-up art on the left shoulder comes from http://www.bawidamann.com/

Ape Marauder 12-08-10

Finished with the modeling on this thing at last, other than a few adjustments and bevels I might add as I go through texturing the parts. All in all, fairly happy with the results. Here are some renders.

Ape Marauder

I made some progress on the Marauder over the last couple of days. Got the lower legs built to the point where I am 85% happy with them. Still need to built the rocket thruster on the back of the leg. Also built the belt buckle/codpiece whatchamahavit thing.

Back to Blendering

After taking a long break from working on any of my models I felt I was ready to jump back into it. Started where I left off, working on the Ape Marauder. Working on the lower legs and feet now. Really want to get the modelling done on this so I can move on to something else.

Ape Marauder 6-30-10

He’s got half a leg to stand on now.

Ape Marauder 6-28-10

A little update with the progress I’ve made (what little of it there is). He’s got hands now, and a pelvis. Pelvis looks really small right now, but I’m pretty sure it’s right. I’m sure it will look better once I start adding in the hips and uh, belt buckle . . . thingy.

Ape Marauder 6-22-10

I got big arms, ‘cause I drum, right.

I figured out the elbow joint enough to make me halfway happy. I don’t think it exact, but it will have to do until I find that one screenshot from the show that shows me exactly how it’s built.

Ape Marauder 6-20-10

Progress is going very sloooooooow.

Spending a lot of time tinkering with each little piece and it takes quite a while before I am happy with it. Also spent some time going through all my episodes of Roughnecks and bookmarking the scenes with good views of the marauders various parts. It took me quite a while but I finally found a shot showing the shoulder joint. It’s almost always hidden by the armor plate over it, so it was a little frustrating trying to figure out how it was supposed to be put together. I imagined it must be complicated, like the hip or knee joints, maybe:

Turns out it was just a simple sphere:

I also found some straight on front views and after doing some measuring in photoshop I discovered that I had been off on the dimensions of the cockpit. I had built it too wide. I resized all the parts and I think it looks better now. Here are some screenshots of how it is coming along. As you can see, I am working on the parts for the arms right now.

Ape Marauder 6-15-10

Progress is going a little slow on the Marauder model. Got stuck on the roll cage for a while but I think I finally nailed it. I’m always learning new tricks with Blender and this model is really teaching me.

I’m spending a lot of time staring at scenes of the Marauder in Roughnecks videos one frame at a time, trying to figure out what each piece is and how it’s put together. A lot of parts I’m just going to have to guess at. There aren’t a lot of good shots of the interior, especially below the window line.

Here are a few links to some other people’s SST modeling and fan art:

In this forum thread someone is making a trooper from the movie, including the movie Morita rifle.

Here's an Arachnid Warrior model by darth-biomech

and though it not 3d modeling, I still like the Warrior bug art on this page.

Ape Marauder 6-9-10

It may not look like much now but hopefully this will eventually become the Ape Marauder Mech from Roughnecks. This model isn’t coming into shape without a fight, but I’m getting it there.

BTW, I really didn’t like the Mechs from the third movie. Too bad they didn’t just borrow the ones from the series, they are way cooler.

Dropship 6-06-10

Ok, I’m done with the first pass on the Dropship, and I think I’ll work on something else before coming back to add details. Kind of sick of looking at this thing for now:)

Dropship 6-01-10

I can see the end from here! The end of the first run through on this thing. Nearly all the parts are complete on the low poly version of the Dropship. Then I can go back adding bevels and details. Finished the guns and it looks like a proper carnivore now:)

Built the rear end of the cargo bay.

There are other pieces that go on the rear end when the ship is going to drop marauders, but this is the only view I was able to find of them in the entire series:

so I have a very limited idea of what they are supposed to look like. The rest of the times the ship is on the show, those parts aren't there. So I'm not building them.

Built the vertical thruster engines and swing arms. Again, there aren't a lot of good views of where the swing arms connect to the engines so I just had to make the best guesses I could using what reference I have.

The rear swing arms and engines are simply a matter of copying the ones up front, flipping them and resizing them.

All that's left now is the back rudders/engines.