Catapult from Mech Warrior Online Complete (12/1/2012)

[LeoFirebrand]

Been a fan of the Mechwarrior and Battletech franchises most of my life and while the catapult was not my favorite mech to pilot (I like my assault class) It has always been my favorite Mech design. Recently I found out that the franchise is having a resurgence and while I dont care for the fact that the new game is "free to play", I do love the look and feel they have captured. I included a concept art drawing below and you can find more pictures along with the orthographic I am using as my blueprint here:

The PA Report - The incredibly detailed, beautifully illustrated, insanely intricate birth of a video game Mech

So far I have been working on the main body and have gotten most of it complete. I still need to finish the detailling on the backside and build the cockpit interior. Also I should point out that I am building this entire model using 110pd cardstock paper.

 

[Sigma-LS]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

You should send some pictures of that to Alex when you get it finished. He would be touched that someone brought one of his concepts to scaled reality.:thumbsup

 

[Aegis159]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Fantastic start Leo!

One of my most favorite kits I put together back in the day was the Battletech Madcat in 1/35 scale. The thing just screamed "Customize me!" especially with it being in the same scale as most military models. But before I even got started tearing it apart from my vanilla build someone offered me a really nice number for it so off it went!

Are you planning on skinning this or just leaving it as a papercraft piece?

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

You should send some pictures of that to Alex when you get it finished. He would be touched that someone brought one of his concepts to scaled reality.:thumbsup

Is Alex a member on here? Would love to send some completed pics to the art team and get their impression. I love what they did with all the mech re-designs.

Fantastic start Leo!

One of my most favorite kits I put together back in the day was the Battletech Madcat in 1/35 scale. The thing just screamed "Customize me!" especially with it being in the same scale as most military models. But before I even got started tearing it apart from my vanilla build someone offered me a really nice number for it so off it went!

Are you planning on skinning this or just leaving it as a papercraft piece?

Paper is my prefered building medium but I have developed some painting methods that work really well to hide the fact that it's paper. You can see an example of what my end models look like from my Y-wing thread http://www.therpf.com/f11/my-y-wing-build-complete-9-2-a-157242/.

 

[Wes R]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Looks great so far. I'm a huge mecha fan so anything like this gets my eye.

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Small update. I finished the backside of the model and the cockpit area. I lucked out and found some concept art for the cockpit area that was effectively an orthographic as it has a right and top down shot. This let me scale it to fit my cockpit and use it as a floor plan. I was not able to include all the detail of the concept art, as my scale means some of these cuts are already less than a mm thick.

So what do you guys think does it have enought details on the cockpit or should I find a way to add more greebling? I have a tendancy to go overboard so would love some opinions.

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Got alot of work done this weekend. I finished up the Missle pods and got started on the lower torso. The pods proved a little difficult b/c I did not have any reference photos for the side profile so I had to draw my own. ultimately I think it worked out pretty well.

 

[Tyranneix]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

That is awesome! Love the detail work on those pods!

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

I lucked out and someone who was following my build ripped a 3D file of the ingame model that I could use for reference. I am still hand building and designing all the parts to match the orignal concept art instead of the in game model, but the 3D file is proving very helpful in seeing those aspects of the geometry that are hidden in the screenshots and reference photos.

This allowed me to finish off the torso with much ease as it was the area that I had the least amount of reference for. I also did a test fit to see how everything is looking so far, but keep in mind the parts are not glued in place so the allignment is a little off.

 

[ShowCraft]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Big fan of cool mech design and I like this one. Glad your making this.

 

[opal1970]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Awsome Job! I have always been a fan of Mechwarrior, the catapult being one of my favorites.

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Well it was a holiday weekend here in the states and I got the build done. The legs were pretty easy and I have been using the same method I did with the main body. I built a basic shape and then attached boxes to them. Once that is done I can use strips of card to fill in the gaps between the two and make the beveled edges. I ended up using some wire for the ladders on the back of the knee and the front of the foot. Over the next week I will be painting the whole model so I should have finished pictures next weekend.

 

[Wes R]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

I wish I could do stuff like this, for some reason i always feel overwhelmed. This thing is coming along amazingly. You planning on anymore mechs when you're done?

 

[SofaKing01]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

DANG! Great work so far!

 

[lizzaredrunner]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

How do you pump out so much work so quickly? I have trouble cutting out and assembling pre-defined cardstock models in a sensible amount of time. Tips?

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Well it might not be as sensible as it seems. When I start a new project I get pretty sucked into it. I work on my projects from the time I get home till the time I go to to bed while I watch television and a good chunk of the day on weekends so I probably put 50-60hrs a week into it. Even at that rate it takes me about a month to build a project. So this project will likely comprise somwhere between 210-250hrs.

That said alot of practice will help improve your speed. I have got to where I can cut/draw/score almost perfect straight lines without rulers just because I do it so much. If you do alot of pre made cardmodels you might also want to consider moving away from tabs.They take much longer to cut out and actualy distort the model. It's better to use a small brush and put glue along the edges and bond your models that way. It takes a little practice but is very much worth the effort to master.

If you like borderlands you can download my ClapTrap model from my website wich is designed to teach people the different build methods of a hand drawn kit vs a computer made kit. Computer kits make alot of things more complicated then needed and the techniques can be quite different in some cases.

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Some progress updates today. I got the base coat down and I am beginning the weathering process. Also here is a website where I learned many of my painting techniques BrushThralls.com. It is for pewter minatures but many of the techniques cary over to scale models.

The first picture is all the completed parts laid out on my workbench. This is always my favorite picture in a build as I can finally see the whole model.

The next Picture is my least favorite picture in a build. The base coat always makes me worried I ruined the model because everything looks so bad without weathering. In this case my model looks like it's made of chocolate. typically I base coat based on the percieved color. For instance, when we look at a person we considerthem to be one color but in reality there are 100s of subtle color variations so you have to base the model in what color we percieve it to be and use additional coloring to make it look like it really does. When the percieved color is light like the yellow I tend to start with the lightest color and darken it, while with darker colors like the brown I like to start with a dark color and lighten it up.

Next I determined what paints to use to weather the brown areas so I can make it look like we actually see. Looking at the concept art I determined that the brown areas have alot of tan accents, with a hint a olive green, and then aluminum where the paint has rubbed of and the metal is showing. If you can't do this by eye you can use the color picker tool in a paint program to help you scan the image and get an idea of the color ranges.

Next I did a test weathering on the left front side of the body to make sure my assumptions where correct. I still need to darken the panel lines and add detail but I am happy with the color comparison to the concept art.

The last photo shows me starting the weathering on the rest of the model. I started with the tan color as it will cover a large amount of the surface of the model. I dry brushed the tan color on using almost no paint on the brush as this will hide the brush stoke better on the larger areas. You can see the before (right) and after (left) below on the missle pods.

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

I made a good deal of progress last night.

Pic 1: Recently I came accross some water slide decal paper you can use in an inkjet printer. You just spray it with a clear coat and it works just like ones that come with a model kit. Since this model had a lot of very detailed and small logos on it I decided to try them out. You can see them in the first picture. I decided to use my website's logo instead of the one in the concept art.

Pic 2: Next I did a light bit of drybrushing with the olive green. It may be hard to see in the photo.

Pic 3: I then added on the metal weathering.

Pic 4: After all this, the weathering tends to be a little to much in some places so I went back and touched everything up.

Pic 5: I then used a watered down graphite color to bring out the panel lines and make them look grimey.

Pic 6: I started weathering the yellow by dry brushing a mix of the yellow and white and also some tan highlights. It might be hard to see that in these photo since the light is so bright.

 

[FSURobbie]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Wow, that's amazing. I really wish I could scratch build...

 

[LeoFirebrand]

Re: Catapult from Mech Warrior Online

Well after a late night last night I finished the Catapult. After all the weathering I went back and painted all the little small details on the model. I am especially happy with how the cockpit turned out. I even photoshoped in small decals like warnings, computer screens, and a pinup picture on the dashboard. Hope you like it. You can find all 95 images include 30 final pics and 65 making of pics on my website:

Catapult