New 10th Doctor Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote
- Thread starter Darran
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That's good to know (that someone has tried to change it that is) as I wondered why it was in inaccurate. So frustrating that it is changed back. Have another go and perhaps link that info a site with the proof. May make the person see reason. Any computer genius out there can can find out who changes it so we can politely contact them direct and point them in the right direction?
Oncoming Storm
New Member
The accurate information is up as of right now, but it reads as [citation needed]. Does anyone know a reliable source we can cite there? It'll help keep it there and keep the misinformation from spreading.
Yeah I believe Purple Blancmange has detailed all the info somewhere on his blog. It has been mentioned on a thread here somewhere, but it was an age ago. Anyone remember where and when?
themeinside
Member
Very good spot- I knew I'd read it somewhere.
This is the blog in question: The 9th and 10th Doctor?s Sonic Screwdriver (Updated). | PurpleBlancmange
PurpleBlancmange said:
NakedMoleRat
Legendary Member
As much as Chris is one of my favorite Doctor's his sonic, well, is rather ugly, and attempts to hero'ize it only make it more ugly. The huge button slider is just ugly. The accurate 8mm channel is ugly. So the only thing I would want in a 'conversion' would be the black and red wires and leave the slider as it is.
I quite like the ridges on Chris's Sonic round like Spark plugs not the squared off or cone-like ones on the two Tennant versions. Shame they didn't get rid of the wires (either set) and hide them with blue tubing as seen on the original artwork. Would have tied in much better with the blue strip.
adderinternet
New Member
I've always preferred the classic designs (back when the sonic wasn't used every 2 seconds for everything) but I'm still so excited to get this. I won't mod mine because it's pretty much everything I've ever wanted but it'll be great to see what everyone else comes up with.
Oncoming Storm
New Member
Why have a slider at all? With a slider (any style) it's too close to the Tennant to justify having two for me. But the Aztek, I feel, is stylistically different enough to justify the expense. And I'm pretty sure it was supposed to have been the main prop anyway. Wasn't the slider version just used specifically for when it had to be seen extending?
I remember reading from a page in the massive soup of sonic descriptions on the web that one of the aztecs was cannibalized and re-used to create one of the D.T props, while anothe D.T was made from scratch. Anyhow, I just remembered this from like, 2 months ago!
phez
Sr Member
I remember reading from a page in the massive soup of sonic descriptions on the web that one of the aztecs was cannibalized and re-used to create one of the D.T props, while anothe D.T was made from scratch. Anyhow, I just remembered this from like, 2 months ago!
I think all of the new hero's have Aztec heads on them (I don't think they made any new heads, just the bodies).
Richard B
Active Member
That certainly looks like the same head as was on the Sonic we borrowed from David Tennant.
I'm no expert on the history of this prop, and I don't want to reignite any of the old arguments, but I believe that is correct.
Richard B
Active Member
I stand corrected. Apparently one of the props ended up with a non-Aztec head. Apologies for contributing to any confusion - as I said, I'm no expert on the history of the prop, so I'll just stick to talking about our product.
Speaking of which... we popped down to London a couple of days ago to catch up with Forbidden Planet and Firebox (our launch retailers for the product here in the UK). Firebox took some new photographs of the product, which you might find interesting - their style of photography is a bit different than ours, and it looks like they've not Photoshopped the images at all - you can still see specks of dust in some of the close-ups:
Firebox.com: Tenth Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote Control
From these photographs, you can clearly see the inaccuracies that have already been discussed earlier in this thread. This is still one of the prototypes that we showed at Comic-Con (and I think the same one that our Chris photographed for the product shots you've already seen) but there are a couple of minor changes compared to the earlier pictures:
- The case lining is now the proper squidgy moulded foam rubber - as I mentioned before, we only had a 3D-printed mockup for the previous pictures (and the sample in the cabinet at Comic-Con).
- The black end cap is now moulded from polypropylene rather than TPU. As you can see in Firebox's closeup shot of the end cap resting on the stand disc, the mould flow isn't great around the tops of the castellations (so they're getting a bit rounded off) – hopefully we can improve on that, but in the worst case it'll be as you see in that photo.
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AnubisGuard
Master Member
Thanks for the great replies! I think you're actually being more anal about this than some of us are; I can't even see what you're talking about with the end cap.
In another heresy: I think the crackle pattern on the proto actually looks nicer than the one on Tennant's scanned sonic. The original pattern is so tiny that it blurs into a mush when seen from a distance, but the proto paint job has a really nice scale to the cracks. I wouldn't mind if the production version looked like that instead, honestly...
Richard B
Active Member
Yes, that's correct - in the prop we borrowed, the ridges were slightly asymmetrical, but it was definitely a different prop (or a rebuild) compared to the one that MFX photographed (and shared on their Flickr site) back in 2007 (www.flickr.com/photos/mfxreplicas/4687819353/in/photostream).
Thanks very much. That is already the ABS moulded body, just with Nick Robatto's paint job on top. In Firebox's photo showing a close-up of the slider, you can see where I ran a scalpel blade along the inside of the slot to remove the overspray (and where I slipped slightly with the blade about half-way along).
To be honest, we feel the same way. Chris spent 40-odd hours painstakingly tracing over every single crackle line on the Tennant prop - it was never going to be possible to crackle-paint every one individually at the price point, so copying the pattern on the Tennant prop seemed like a good idea (rather than just making up a similar-looking pattern, or copying the pattern from a CO toy or some other replica). However, after we'd had the painted prototypes in our hands for a few days, we decided that we preferred the slightly less dense crackle of the prototypes. By that time we'd already put out the marketing message that the crackle pattern was going to be copied from the Tennant prop, so we couldn't just change the pattern completely, but what Chris has done now is to merge some of the "islands" in the most dense areas to make it a bit more visually appealing. Hopefully this is still consistent with the idea that the crackle lines are copied from the prop, and won't upset anyone. It's too late to change it again now - we kicked off the pattern etching process on the tooling last week. The flat test etching looked pretty good - we chose a depth of 50um for the pattern, which looks a fraction deeper than the cracks on the real prop but they'll end up shallower after the darker paint has been wiped into them (and the clearcoat lacquer will level things out a bit too).
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NakedMoleRat
Legendary Member
Just speaking for myself, I have always been more of an 'idealized' prop guy than every wart and wrinkle that's on the real thing! The teeth in the gears may end up niggling at me a little, I'll have to wait until I see it. But for the price point this is an awesome deal. Like Funky Jedi has always said, "You take a prop replica and show it to 100 people and they will ohh and ahh over it and say how awesome it is. Only 2 or 3 will point to a specific area and say..."That's not screen accurate."
Richard B
Active Member
In case you're interested, here's a quick photo of the test etching for the crackle pattern. Ignore the colours - this is a flat bare steel plate, etched with the pattern and with white paint wiped into the cracks, just for us to check how the pattern looks and whether the depth is appropriate for holding the paint. As I'm sure you know by now, the real thing will be grey ABS plastic with dark paint wiped into the cracks and a clearcoat lacquer on top.
As I mentioned in my last post, we were thinking of simplifying the pattern a bit further, but it's too late now as we had to start etching the real tooling with this pattern last week in order to meet the product launch timescales. So, like it or loathe it, this is that pattern that you'll get on our Sonic.
Cheers,
Richard
As I mentioned in my last post, we were thinking of simplifying the pattern a bit further, but it's too late now as we had to start etching the real tooling with this pattern last week in order to meet the product launch timescales. So, like it or loathe it, this is that pattern that you'll get on our Sonic.
Cheers,
Richard
