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.