Olitech Industries

More refining and contouring the roughed in parts. Some hidden styling on the central reactor/thruster so the bottom of it contours to the leg thrusters. Also some hard surfacing and contour styling of the chest plate. Minor refinement on the wings. It's reeeeealllly hard to avoid the detailing at this point. All I want to do is start chopping panel lines, but it is taking all of my strength to avoid it for now - I want to remain focused on the shape of the overall plane, and how the different parts relate to each other - then style the crap out of them.

More.

Refining the legs.

More speed modeling - blocking in the intakes, turbines, etc.. Starting to look really familiar! I really missed this canopy bubble on the V1 model. Truthfully, I restarted this model just for that detail.

Yes! Much better! Feels right.

So a stronger start for V2 than I anticipated. A long way to go, but I think the bones are right!!! I'm now tracing off of Kawamori sketches instead of the technical illustrations. This one seems very photogenic at all angles. I'm now rendering in metal so I can place the focus on surface fidelity as I go. I like it already. It has the contours I was hoping to see. If the rest of it goes this well, this should be fire. This is the way.

The hands look huge because it is an attempt at foreshortening. I always felt that it was the roundedness that made them look cool. Only thing that disappointed me with all my toys and models was the squareness of everything. I'm sure part of that was due to manufacturing limitations and scale.

Yep. Look at this. The arms and shoulders must have atrophied. They are now both the width of the head. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Hmmm...hard to trust this now. =/

I mean, look at the proportion of the fuselage to the legs.... Looks like one of those steroid dudes with the massive upper body, and puny little elf legs. Just saying.

So....a lot of people seem to make a big deal about the VF-1 Master File. I'm just going to say it. It is obviously very, VERY flawed. The proportions are NOT Kawamori at all. It is definitely a CAD 'interpretation'. The width is short visually, making the length proportion appear too long. Battroid looks horrible in profile. Battroid/gerwalk legs look dumb AF. fighter jet rear is so tapered in the top view, that no wonder the arms must be toothpicks. There's no room for that sweet 'inner calf' roundedness that Kawamori drawings all have. In fact, the soul of all the Kawamori sketches/drawings are the roundedness of all the edges, etc. I'm definitely going to cannibalize the masterfile orthos for overall dimensions, buuuuut no way that will be the look of these valkyries. I mean, come on - the master file fuselage is a larger mass than the neclear turbine engines!? That's why the whole thing looks awkward. I believe this flaw is only in the translation of the original proportions - not the flaw of the original valkyrie design. I know that's a lot. Guess I'd better put my money where my mouth is!

Yes!! This is perfect, great work. I am going to use a lot of these.

LOL! Hope you're ok. Gonna need that jaw for what's coming. This is EXACTLY the discussion I was hoping for. I know this has been discussed many times in these past 3 decades. Since the "thicker" components are better for the Battroid and Gerwalk, I think the final proportions of the fighter need to follow this. 2 out of 3 modes win imho. In the olden days, we would sculpt a car out of clay to get the shape we want. And THEN came the CAD. But typically those designs were somewhat limited by the CAD operator's ability (or inability) to achieve complex shapes. Thankfully these days, I can sculpt right in 3D and value engineer it later. =)

I got seriously inspired recently by a GIF by ui artist Marnick Lammers: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Xrlmw So...I decided to deculture his incredible F-16 HUD gif, then (very, very crudely) recultured it into the main VF-1S MFD. We need to find a person to do this MFD screen animation properly. =) If there are any motion graphic artists out there who would like to help on this, please contact me. This is not a paying job. It is for the glory of our cause. =) My mograph sucks, so I've been waiting a while to find something I could hack together. If you were to leave that part to me, we could be waiting a while... Just saying. This animation is free to download copy, distribute and literally stare at for hours if you wish. VF1S_MFD01_TEST_01.mp4

The whole thing. The canopy cross sections are not the shape I want. It's waaaay too wide at the rear. No. This has to be perfect from the beginning, otherwise minor errors at this stage will be glaringly obvious at the end. Also, if you look at the metallic fuselage above, certain contours are just not clean enough. Puckering geometry around details - amateur hour. =( I also want to spend more time choosing the 'perfect' Valkyrie proportions before I commit to the model. I was hoping some of you could point me in the direction of the "Perfect" Valkyrie proportions - has to look like Kawamori San's drawings - in all 3 modes. Which line art or model kit proportions are the closest? Combination? I want to nail this down in 2D before I begin the 3D. Any takers??? I would be grateful for any help/advice. best, O

Now that I'm looking at this with fresh eyes...um....I'm going to rebuild this. The detailing got carried away to the point that the actual contours are just so-so. This needs to be PERFECT.

I know, right? Well this model will be crazy high poly. So it will need to be optimized and baked to get it into DCS.

Your insight serves you well... Look for my other posts. I started the fuselage/canopy previously, but I want to rebuild them properly.

Thank you! DYING to get back to this.

Thank you! Going to revisit the side stick next. This thrust lever kind of stole the show...

Ok since I was fixing the buttons anyway... Better styling on the thrust lever. Looks way more pro now. It was getting to boxy and clumsy-looking. A smidge more ergonomic, and a whole lot sexier. Looks like you wanna hold it now.

The thumb buttons kept bugging me. Detail on the tops were cool, but the form just didn't feel Macross enough. These ones are much better. Will detail them later. Made some cooler knobs for the base plate. Still all placeholders. Hope you're all ok with bokeh!

Dude, time to render this bad boy. Message me. I have a render farm.

Rodavan, amazing work!!!! how do you feel about getting these models rendered up???

Today's candy: Instrument panel shrouden wirken. Hmmm... just noticed some funky smoothing groups. Will fix it properly later.

More stick-work. Finding the correct proportion/size is tricky without real measurements. Anyone have any references for sizing/dimensions for the controls? Even ballpark would help tremendously. I'm using my best (educated) guesses for most of this.