Banshee's Valkyries

[VF-15 Banshee]

Breaking into the world of Valkyries by starting with some re-colors. Let me know what you think!

Edited November 12, 2015 by VF-15 Banshee

[Frogze]

On the launch ramp dude, nice recolors

[TehPW]

The overhead sholder lights/sensor thingies are supposed to be yellow on the Kazaki(sp?) VF-1S... and id just make the skull go away for something else [really? Kazaki(sp?) as a command element?] other than that, nice astetics.

[Mr March]

Very nice colors. I really like this variant. Incredible!

[frothymug]

Very nice colors. I really like this variant. Incredible!

He lives!

[Mr March]

LOL! Yeah, I'm still around

VF-15 Banshee

If I can have your permission, I'd be honored to include your color variants in the fan art section of the Macross Mecha Manual. Full credit will be provided to you, of course.

[VF-15 Banshee]

Be my guest sir!

[Mr March]

Thank you.

I rebuilt your custom colors using the original PSD file for the VF-1J in Photoshop. The lines are much smoother. Is there a name you want for this variant? I noticed the name "Robert" in the JPEGS.

[VF-15 Banshee]

You can call it the Knight Squadron Commander's variant.

[VF-15 Banshee]

And now I present my VF-25F!

I based it off of Cliff Secord's Gee Bee Z racer from "The Rocketeer"

[VF-15 Banshee]

Finished the better version of my Knight Squadron VF-1J battroid. Thanks to Mr. March.

Edited September 13, 2012 by VF-15 Banshee

[Mr March]

It looks good, but what excatly did you change? I can't really tell. In fact, I can still see a little of the "white" layer still there.

[VF-15 Banshee]

Oh, for whatever reason I couldn't mess with the white layer (probably because I have PS Elements) so I just manually filled in the white.

[jvmacross]

reminds me of this Joon's.....was probably the nicest one they made....

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

[Mr March]

Oh, for whatever reason I couldn't mess with the white layer (probably because I have PS Elements) so I just manually filled in the white.

Oh my gawd! I'm so sorry to hear that! You should have messaged me and I would have helped. If you want copies with the placeholder layer removed, just let me know and I'd be happy to give them to you. That layer is only in place to make fan-made color variants easy. Say if I wanted to build a black colored VF-1J Valkyrie, you just turn that layer black and then adjust the other layers to suit. The placeholder layer is there on all my "white" mecha, just in case.

[VF-15 Banshee]

OK, thanks for the info.

[VF-15 Banshee]

In honor of the 30th Anniversary, I present the Iron Valkyrie! This is a specialized VF-1 built by a company by the name of Stark Industries. They refer to it simply as the "Mark III" for some reason. For example, instead of the regular space metal frame most Valkyries are built of, this fighter is armored with Stark Industries' patented Gold-Titanium alloy. Red paint was added so it wouldn't look too pretentious...

This is actually a WIP. I was hoping I could get some help for this from Mr March?

[Mr March]

You guys are killing me with your fan art requests I have to get the GERWALK done for the VF-14 Vampire first and then I can help with your Iron Man Valkyrie

[pfunk]

Like the Iron Man valk,, very cool man!

[VF-15 Banshee]

You guys are killing me with your fan art requests I have to get the GERWALK done for the VF-14 Vampire first and then I can help with your Iron Man Valkyrie

It's 'cause you're so awesome.

[VF-15 Banshee]

I gotta find time for F-15 Banshee's Iron Man VF-1J Valkyrie too. That will be a sweet piece of fan art with proper shading and highlights

Aye, there's the rub. I'm still not very good with photoshop, so I haven't yet attempted to do any of the shading or anything.

[Mr March]

Recently my free time has been consumed playing X-COM Enemy Unknown, so i've not had much of a chance to do website work. However this morning I got a jolt of inspiration and decided to work on the Iron Man color variant for the VF-1J Valkyrie. There's a lot of experimentation in this picture, trying to find a lighting theme that feels right. This may not be the final version. Dare I say, we call this the MK I (or MK I.5 since my edit)? LOL

Edited October 12, 2012 by Mr March

[VF-15 Banshee]

Well if we go by the film then this would be the Mk. III.

Dang that's looking good. How DO you do all that shading and those effects?

[Mr March]

Glad you like it. I think it turned out rather well.

As for the coloring, I'll avoid repeating the big post I wrote about it recently and instead post a visual tutorial to describe the process. Keep in mind this is NOT the only way to color, just the way I do it (which works well for the simple style of the anime). Here goes:

Tutorial Picture 1

Here we have a simple progression showing the work from start to finish. The color works in layers, placing one layer of color on top of the other. In the example I've shown, the basic red layer would be on the bottom while all the subsequent "red" layers would be placed on top. So the basic red would be Layer 1, the red shadow would be Layer 2, the red highlights would be Layer 3, and so on. In the second step you can see some areas of the line art were not colored basic red, mostly due to laziness. Honestly, if a certain part of the artwork is always going to be in shadow, there's no need to have a layer of basic red underneath.

Tutorial Picture 2

Here we have how to color. Simplest method is to select the line art layer, use the Wand tool to select areas, switch to a color layer (in this case basic red Layer 1) and then use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the selected areas with color. It's much faster than "coloring inside the lines" by hand. After the basic colors are down, then comes the hard part: shadows and highlights. Some areas of shadow can be filled completely, but more often than not one needs to build a custom lines for the end of a shadow or highlight. To do this, use the Polygonal Lasso Tool and zoom in closer to create curves. Once the selection is complete, select the next layer (in this case red Layer 2 designated for the shadow) and fill with the Paint Bucket tool. Instant shadow. The Highlights come next, which are all done with the lasso by hand because they require the most customized shape. Once the selection is done, fill again, this time on the red Layer 3 for highlights. Repeat until done.

Tutorial Picture 3

Here we have a picture of the layers for our finished line art. On the right you can see how each layer is arranged and named for convenience. The top layer is ALWAYS the line art and always set to Multiply so you can see the color layers underneath. For each color group, we see the basic color layer on the bottom, the shadow layer on top, the highlight layer on top of that, etc. Very simple and easy to follow.

The VF-1J Battroid line art I currently have built is 8,745 x 5,690 pixels and 31.8 MB in size saved in the Photoshop .PSD format. The multiple layers create large file sizes, but I've always had plenty of hard drive space devoted to my work so I've never cared. I run my computer at 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, so when you look at this VF-1J Battroid at 100% zoom, its about 7 times the size of my monitor. It pays to plan ahead

Edited October 14, 2012 by Mr March

[VF-15 Banshee]

And a quick question: How would you do a shiny black Valk?

[Mr March]

Glossy black metal would be done the same way as shown above. The only difference is "simulating" black rather than using the actual color. The VF-17 Nightmare art currently on my website is a very good example of how to color for black by using a very dark shade of another color (in that case, deep blue). Adding gloss would simply be a matter of adding a layer of highlights, just like the red highlights shown above. Depending on the darkness level of the "black" that you are going for, the highlights will be lighter or darker. So far, I've noted it's best to use blue colored highlights when doing light reflections for a black colored mecha.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Mr March

[VF-15 Banshee]

I'M BACK.

[Mr March]

Wow, where did that drawing come from? It's fantastic. Not so sure about the colors, but the line art is amazing.

[VF-15 Banshee]

The lineart is from a guy named Mwulf over on MechaTalk. The colors are supposed to be based off of Tony Stark's mk. XLVII armor in Iron Man 3. I call this the Iron Valkyrie mk. XXV.

[Mr March]

Cool. Went over there and got it. Thanks!

[Zinjo]

In honor of the 30th Anniversary, I present the Iron Valkyrie! This is a specialized VF-1 built by a company by the name of Stark Industries. They refer to it simply as the "Mark III" for some reason. For example, instead of the regular space metal frame most Valkyries are built of, this fighter is armored with Stark Industries' patented Gold-Titanium alloy. Red paint was added so it wouldn't look too pretentious...

This is actually a WIP. I was hoping I could get some help for this from Mr March?

WHEW!! I thought you were going to call it the Basara VF-1.... *chills have stopped running down my spine...

[VF-15 Banshee]

I'M BACK!!!!

Since the new trailer for The Force Awakens drops tomorrow, I thought I'd give Luke his own VF-1. So here is Luke Skywalker's Red 5 VF-1J. :3

(line art courtesy of Mr. March of course.)

[Mr March]

"Just like beggars Canyon back home"

[spanner]

I'M BACK!!!!

Since the new trailer for The Force Awakens drops tomorrow, I thought I'd give Luke his own VF-1. So here is Luke Skywalker's Red 5 VF-1J. :3

(line art courtesy of Mr. March of course.)

NEW-vf-1j-skywalker-fighter-HIGHRES copy copy.jpg

Very cool!

[Mechapilot77]

I'M BACK!!!!

Since the new trailer for The Force Awakens drops tomorrow, I thought I'd give Luke his own VF-1. So here is Luke Skywalker's Red 5 VF-1J. :3

(line art courtesy of Mr. March of course.)

NEW-vf-1j-skywalker-fighter-HIGHRES copy copy.jpg

nice....now wonder what it'd look like with rebel alliance symbol replacing the un spacy kite