VFX Freak
Sr Member
This is fantastic Dave !
You can be proud of what you achieved.
Thank you, Julien! That means a lot coming from the Studio Scale AT-AT master.
This is fantastic Dave !
You can be proud of what you achieved.
sweet! Man that model is nice! Makes me look at my MR and think it needs repainted.
Looks great!
Can I offer some constructive criticism on your photos, though?
Try bringing the white point up in the background - almost to the same white as the foreground, but not quite.
This should make it look a bit more natural, since there's quite a lot of sunlight on your model.
View attachment 514455
(that's just a quicky I did using the magic wand tool to select the background.
I'm sure you can do much better since you've probably got the fore- and background on different layers, and the luxury of time)
And nice work with the model - it looks HUGE in the photo. I was surprised by how small it actually is.
A couple more details...
I don't like the kit's rubber band method for attaching the head. Someday the rubber band will break and it would be a pain to replace. I decided to use magnets so the head could still be re-positioned, or simply removed if I want to make changes or repairs. My LHS has lots of magnets in different sizes and these worked well:
View attachment 514452
I had to saw off a little of the neck on either end for clearance, and then I just used super glue to hold them in place.
Helpful tip! Make sure your magnets are properly aligned BEFORE gluing them in. I suggest marking the sides that will attract each other with a Sharpie. I didn't and I glued one magnet on in with the wrong orientation and the head was repelled by the neck. Duh. That was a pain to change because super glue really works, and super glue remover will strip off the paint. Ask me how I know... :rolleyes
Another thing I didn't mention earlier is that I scribed the little shields on the cheek guns. I made the lines a little too big; but it's still better than leaving them blank.
And one other thing that I think worked pretty well. What's the best way to do cockpit glass? I was planning on painting clear gloss over black or maybe even red (there's only one shot in ESB where a Walker has a red illuminated window. It's the first hero shot of them approaching. Did they give up after that because the lights were battery powered and they caused problems during animation? I'm curious if anyone has any insight.)
I saw a tip in an AFV modeling magazine that suggested using a pencil to give glass ports on a tank a reflective sheen, so I tried it on the Walker:
View attachment 514453
I think it's pretty effective, and it's really easy. The only tip here is not to rub too hard with the pencil or you will scratch away the underlying paint. I did that a little bit but I think it just made the port look like it had taken a hit, so I'm okay with it.
Looking at this photo I can see I should have drilled out the barrels of the cheek guns, but when I was gluing them to the head I hadn't yet gained enough confidence to do it correctly. Now I think I could and it would look better.
Also notice the color variations on the head. In this case it's mostly because of ambient light. There's green light bouncing off a nearby table and blue light reflecting the sky. It's really important to control the light hitting your model when it's time for the hero shots, which these aren't, so I didn't really care.
Thanks again for looking.
David
I've got two of these waiting to be finished! Finishing a Boba helmet right now.I'm so proud that this AT-AT turned out so great ... to think just some time ago it remained in a plastic bag in my dark and spider cob webs filled attic and now look at it ... almost ready to being animated ... would you like to take on another, David ... I've still got the ROTJ version of this MPC AT-AT :
[url]http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/zz258/Sym-Cha/AT-AT_zps4rfny2az.jpg[/URL]
[emoji38]
Chaim
would you like to take on another, David ... I've still got the ROTJ version of this MPC AT-AT :
http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/zz258/Sym-Cha/AT-AT_zps4rfny2az.jpg
:lol
Chaim
Hi VFX,
Your model and camera work is fantastic, it really blends well with the background. Excellent work and this is for you to enjoy.
View attachment 514474
Looking forward to your revised background shots and have a good day.
Oslm
Thanks, Chaim! Believe it or not, I was so sure I'd screw something up that I bought another kit myself when I started this one. It's still in the box. It may get built someday, but I'd really rather see Bandai come out with a more accurate and detailed kit. I'm ready to take it on now!
David