guyxxed

Not sure if this is what you mean, but let me know if this gives you what you're looking for. I hear you on the learning curve, it took me a good while to get over the initial hurdle of figuring out where things were and how they worked. Blender is an amazing piece of software, especially because it's free, but it is NOT intuitive at all, and the insistance on keeping most functions in shortcut keys rather than context menus doesn't help. That said, once you get the basics, it really does blossom out pretty quickly. And believe me, for all my fiddling around, I only know the basics! 😉 Two things really helped me get some momentum with it: first was that I stopped chasing the latest version and just stuck with one of the stable ones (in my case, I use 2.83, which is ridiculously out of date now, but it's stable and was around forever so there are tons of version specific guides and tutorials out there), and second was that I finally got smart and picked a very simple project to do my learning on so that when I finally figured out what I was doing and realized that everything I'd done was crap, starting over again was actually fun and quick and not a giant frustration. On the subject of tutorials, you're absolutely right: there are a million hour long videos out there by well meaning people who have no idea how to convey simple instructions. By far, the best one I've found is Royal Skies on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRoyalSkies/videos He specializes in 3-5 minute videos that focus on one task so that you don't have to watch someone build an elephant just to learn how to bevel an edge. Most of his stuff is on animation, but he has modeling videos, too. If you get serious about trying again, let me know and I can put together a set of links to good beginner tutorials that helped me. The Designer Note book is actually pretty amazing and a great insight into the man's process. Here's a page of 31 head designs, and I'm still digesting the pages of concepts he came up with for the 25. A lot of fascinating ideas in there that are a million miles from where he ended up, even though you can clearly see the seeds from an early stage. Fun stuff!

I feel like I need to get you a copy of Blender so you can play with these crazy ideas yourself! 😉 I like the idea of a badass heavy gun for the 24 (which is why the 11 gunpod was the one that came to mind first), and also appreciate having a lineage from that to the 25 armaments. I'll look to come back to it in a bit and play with some new ideas. I also just stumbled into a copy of Kawamori's Valkyrie Designer Notes and saw his development sketches for the 25, which include a pile of rejected head ideas that now make me want to go back and try again on those, too. In the meanwhile, I threw pieces of the 25 and 31 super packs onto the plane to see what ideas it might spark, This mix feels like the direction I want to go, though I might add in some of the armored parts as well. Also struck me that rather than edit the 25 parts to fit the extended back and shortened shield, this might be an opportunity to give the 24 a full size shield that extends the buckler and makes the super pack actually useful in a defensive sense. We'll see as I play with it more.

It's a fair point, especially since the gunpods are made by different companies than the planes, so it would make sense that fleets would buy "off the shelf" weapons to equip their mechs with. New stuff is more fun, though. 😁

Very minor update, I kitbashed the gunpods of the 11, 11d, and 25 to get something that looks more "Macross appropriate" than the Gundam thing I had it holding before.

I appreciate it, otherwise I might cry. 😉 It's definitely not a perfect model, I tend to go fast and loose to get results quickly and prevent myself from getting frustrated or bored with a project. "Good enough" but don't look too close at the edges. I'm sure I'll keep working at it to keep cleaning it up and moving it closer to "right", but the calves will have to wait for the moment. I'll also remind folks that the model (the updated one as shown above, both fighter and battroid) is available at the link below for anyone to pick up and put their own spin on. I'd love to see other people's takes on it. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MEqAULkJDzBoGyFBrgRHBX7C7_ZVdfcg?usp=sharing

Well, how about that? I honestly never noticed the different calf. Well, add it to the list for future improvements. And ,yeah, the "hump" is just leftover shading, that area by the shield is flat on the model, but the texture still includes some form following features. What can I say, I'm lazy. 😉

I suspected that the white contrast would help the head come together, but I didn't expect how much the rest of the plane would clean up with the brighter colors. A lot of the Macross 30 textures are dark and muddy with a lot of weathering effects, so the grey job I grabbed from there was contending with that, but still... Maybe I'll come back and do a "clean" grey version at some point, but for now I think I'm on to super parts (maybe, there's another project I'd like to tackle that may come first since it should be fairly quick). Not sure what you mean about the calf. Not one of the parts I edited at all, so I suspect you just don't like the 25 shape in that regard? Unless I'm missing something.

As it turns out, not that much. 😉 The rifle is a place holder (stolen from another mecha game) until I can find or make something better, but I think it fits for now. And, as is only fitting for a formal "ending" to a project, I splashed a new coat of paint on the thing to make it look more like a Macross plane. I think the bright colors actually help it pull together some, but your mileage may vary. I'll update the files in the link I posted before to make at least the base model available. Hope others can have fun and find some use for it!

I'm with you. While this more or less matches what I had in mind, it's not super exciting to look at, but it's good enough for now I think. Like I said, once I complete the rest of the model, I'll probably revisit and see if I can come with anything better. Or, who knows, maybe someone else will come up with something in the meanwhile. 😁

A few more tweaks to proportion and some recoloring/shading, and I think I'm done with this head. Don't know if it's great, but it at least hits what I was after and isn't the 25 head. 😉 I will probably revisit with some other design ideas I have, but for now moving on to other parts of the model. Will hopefully be able to wrap it up this week.

So, all I have to do is paint everything bright red and we're good to go! 😉 It's a good point about the colors and the top looking separate. I like the feature of the black stripe around the edge, but as soon as I saw it in place I knew it was probably going to have to go. That space behind the eye and under the brim (the temples?) needs something as well to help tie the two spaces together. Don't know if I can just add colors or stripes there or if it will need an actual feature, but it's too blank right now. I'm also less than enthused by the front view, and want to find a way to give that profile some more shape, but it may also just be the stripe working agianst the flow again. The shape looks okay from the side and 3/4 views (in my opinion), so we'll see. It will be funny if in the end, I just give up and slap the 31A head on it. 😄 Appreciate the feedback!

A quick update today after a few tweaks and remappings. A bit further along on the head and all the body parts swapped out for something like the intended battroid mode. Plenty more to do, but getting close! Feedback and ideas welcome!

Minor update. Still working on colors and proportions, but here's the completed new head in place. I like the overall feel of it (though that black eyeball needs to change), but think it might be missing something, or is maybe too helmet-like. Will continue to refine as I get the rest of the battroid together and see how it looks as a whole. Bit by bit...

Appreciate the feedback, all! And, I agree with the observations that the 24 head seems to be narrower. It seems the helmet design is getting the most votes, and after trying a few more things I think I'm in agreement. The Zentradi head is a bit too bug-like for a Valk, but when I combine it with the helmet, I think I tick all the boxes. The helmet gives me the heavier/armor look I had in mind, the NJ eye gives it some distinction from the 25 and 31, and the combo still (mostly) fits the profile seen in the art. I'm stitching things together now and working on propotions, and I still need to add the sensor bubbles to the top, but I think this looks like a winner (at least for now). Added bonus: it's both a cyclops AND a visor, since it has the Zentradi squint! 😉

Pretty much every model is available through the links in the Battlecarrier thread a few lines down from this post. This post has the most recent links, which give access to game models from Trial Frontier, Macross 30, and others.