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Post by Christopher Roe on May 20, 2009 1:15:22 GMT -9
I FINALLY got around to doing something I'd been meaning to do for ages now--I recolored the Terra Force Soldiers and the Stalkers to fit a more Aliensy theme. Here's a photo: I didn't cut 'em out as well as I would have liked, so it seems I need more practice making small cuts. In fact, the vanes on the Stalker's back and tail completely ate my papercrafting lunch, so I just lopped them off entirely. Heh. The TF soldiers took me quite a while to recolor--about an hour and a half, I think. I started from the uncolored black/white version, then added color layers, one layer for each important color. I also used a desaturated copy of the full color version with a high-pass filter applied to it to re-introduce Jim's shading style, and blended it with the color layers. To be honest, I was kind of dreading the idea of recoloring the Stalkers at that point because of how much effort I had to put into recoloring the TF soldiers already, but it turned out to be the easiest recoloring job ever. I just opened the blue version, desaturated it, tweaked the levels a bit, and then just painted the figures in NATO Black (one of my Ebbles palette colors, it's actually a sort of very dark desaturated purple-gray). That's it--Jim's original Stalker shading did the rest of the work. I also downloaded the blank bases, picked the octagonal kind, and then textured them with a shadowbase material. I have to pick up the special weapons set for the flamers. I'd be in heaven if there were a smartgun-style machine gun somewhere in one of Jim's sets, but all I could find were autocannons and miniguns, so...I guess that means I probably have to draw the smartgun myself. ;D -Mel
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Post by Aestelon on May 20, 2009 1:25:48 GMT -9
That's brilliant! I love those desaturated colours; they definitely give an 'old movie' kind of feel. And since Giger's aliens weren't particularly 'spiny', getting rid of the vanes actually really works for them.
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Post by Slick on May 20, 2009 2:45:27 GMT -9
I agree Aestelon they look Great. Nice job Mel they should fit in with your stuff perfectly.
Nate
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Post by squirmydad on May 20, 2009 2:49:15 GMT -9
Very cool. I should have the vector versions of the Terra Force figures up soon, and I'm sure a smartgun can be created from those. I'll up[load some part sets after I get another figure set released.
I still intend to do a few sets specific to Gun Crawl. I'll be making them from the Video game trooper style designs, like some special Ops types, commandos, some armored guys and some Gyn Crawl aliens.
I'll be sure to post some previews in your forum. JIM
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Post by squirmydad on May 20, 2009 2:51:33 GMT -9
Oh, and you should definitely submit them to the HOARD if you do a set.
And I can also do with some more base textures from you if you want me to expand the range of those next update. JIM
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Post by luckyjoe on May 20, 2009 5:57:24 GMT -9
Looks great, Mel. It's good to see you getting some time for some fun stuff. Luckyjoe
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Post by kane on May 20, 2009 6:11:37 GMT -9
Very nice, Mel! I kinda like the smooth look bug. Much easier to cut out, too!
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Post by stevelortz on May 20, 2009 6:26:13 GMT -9
This thread is sooooooo cool!
Reading conversation between Mel and Jim is like watching to titans stride together across the landscape!!
Have fun! Steve
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 20, 2009 7:25:29 GMT -9
I'm glad you guys like them.
Recoloring Jim's sets and having them keep almost 100% of his signature look and feel would be an absolute breeze if Jim did shaded grayscale versions of his figures alongside the uncolored ones. (Imagine an unpainted plastic figure--it's all a medium gray color, but the gradient shading and definition would still be there--all you'd have to do is add color layers above it, paint in the colors you want, and set their layer blend modes to Overlay or Hard Light. Wham, you suddenly have an uncle named Bob.)
All I have to do now is a machine gunner, a flamer operator, and maybe a medic and tech specialist. I'm thinking I can probably just graft a longer barrel onto the minigun figure as an interim measure.
-Mel
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Post by squirmydad on May 20, 2009 7:47:21 GMT -9
I have thought about this as well. try taking the colored figures and turning them into grey scale, this way you keep the shading and tonal values. Then just color on a layer above using multiply, overlay or hard light. JIM
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Post by onemonkeybeau on May 20, 2009 8:10:17 GMT -9
So, so great!
Mel! Awesome to see you here and those recolors are ACE!
REally looking forward to building a whole set (or 4) for my games... do you think they might be released in the next HOARD?
onemonkeybeau
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Post by Aestelon on May 20, 2009 8:22:13 GMT -9
Recoloring Jim's sets and having them keep almost 100% of his signature look and feel would be an absolute breeze if Jim did shaded grayscale versions of his figures alongside the uncolored ones. Granted they're not all midtoned, but I find you can get a pretty decent approximation just by dropping the saturation down to nothing and jiggling the brightness and contrast controls... Whack on a few Colour and Multiply layers, and yeah, Robert shares a parent or two with your sire, as you rightly said.
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 20, 2009 8:35:10 GMT -9
I have thought about this as well. try taking the colored figures and turning them into grey scale, this way you keep the shading and tonal values. Then just color on a layer above using multiply, overlay or hard light. JIM Yep, that's what I'm doing for now. Desaturate the color layer, high pass, auto levels, gaussian blur 0.5, then add noise 2%. That becomes the shading layer...it isn't as good as a purpose-designed shading layer, but it works okay for this purpose. I also use the uncolored line art in a layer above that, set to multiply. The camo needs the bolder line contrast. Below that is a layer set, overlay, 90% opacity, containing one layer for each color. I've got the main uniform color (a camo pattern I knocked together, then flood filled), boots/gloves (very dark gray), armor (a medium olive green), weapon main color (a lighter olive drab), weapon accent color (gunmetal grey), and a flesh layer. Below that layer set is a neutral gray (rgb 128 128 128) layer created by flood filling a selection generated from the black outlines, then contracted by 2px. I bought the special weapons, heavy weapons, and also picked up the auxiliaries today--I'm currently recoloring these sets as well. Take your time with the Guncrawl stuff--I know how you are, and I don't want you to get burned out or anything like that on my account, so just keep on doing what you like to do, and these recolors will work great for me in the meantime. Heck, I'll be more than happy to color any Guncrawl figures you do myself if it'll take some of the load off your shoulders. *grin* So, so great! Mel! Awesome to see you here and those recolors are ACE! REally looking forward to building a whole set (or 4) for my games... do you think they might be released in the next HOARD? onemonkeybeau Thanks! I don't know about the Hoard--I don't work at 300dpi (for technical reasons, my artwork's always at 256dpi) and I sorta didn't even have the Hoard submission guidelines in mind when I started doing this, so I didn't clean it up or make it pretty. I do have to say that I'd feel weird submitting such a large amount of free recolored content, so more than likely I'm just gonna email Jim and see if we can work out something simple and painless that doesn't cut into his bottom line. (I don't want a cut or anything like that, I just don't want Jim to lose any sales to free downloads.) -Mel
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 20, 2009 8:37:00 GMT -9
Granted they're not all midtoned, but I find you can get a pretty decent approximation just by dropping the saturation down to nothing and jiggling the brightness and contrast controls... Whack on a few Colour and Multiply layers, and yeah, Robert shares a parent or two with your sire, as you rightly said. Yep! Works nicely with figures that are predominantly a middle tone, like the TF figures and the Stalkers. -Mel
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Post by squirmydad on May 20, 2009 9:16:06 GMT -9
I have no problem with you making a nice sheet of them as make them available for free on your website, just have my logo and website address on them. Or ,you can just send me whatever you feel like finishing, and I'll give to the HOARD guys to add to that.
I have no problem giving away recolors, although if you do a complete set, we might as well put it up to sell and both make some money from it. I just need a complete layout similar to how the sets are configured now, red line, tabs, etc...
I'll be designing other TF sets in the future. I am getting better with the figure proportions, and will eventually replace the existing TF soldiers.
When I release the parts ,they will be in vector format ,so may be a bit more useful for making the figures in sections ,then mixing and matching them the way I do now.
Anyway, great to see you apply your color style to some of my figs. I'll be sure to keep you and your games in mind when I get into Sci-fi mode, but probably not until this winter at my current rate. JIM
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Post by kane on May 20, 2009 9:42:14 GMT -9
Forgot to ask, Mel, what exactly did you do for the bases? Shadowbase? I require more info!
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 20, 2009 10:14:04 GMT -9
I have no problem giving away recolors, although if you do a complete set, we might as well put it up to sell and both make some money from it. I just need a complete layout similar to how the sets are configured now, red line, tabs, etc... That's what I was thinking--I'm pretty much recoloring like 80% of the Terra Force sets, so I don't think putting them up for free is kosher. Instead, after I clean 'em up, I'm gonna export 'em back to PDFs, package 'em up, and send them on to you. I'm using your current layouts pretty much as-is, and I didn't move anything around. Don't worry about giving me a cut. I hate dealing with bookkeeping, accounting, and all that crap, and I like life to be simple. I'm happy with a little co-author mention, being able to use the figures in Guncrawl game photos, and being able to simply say "You can get these exact same little fellas from One Monk" when people invariably ask where they can get the guys and gribblies in the photos. Now you tell me. *grin* That's okay with me--I can get a lot of mileage out of the figures I'm recoloring in the meantime. Forgot to ask, Mel, what exactly did you do for the bases? Shadowbase? I require more info! Same thing I did for some of my flyers a while back--I just did a really dark shadow material so the bases would look like blob shadows (figures) or silhouettes (the planes). Shadowbases can be used with any scenery, while I don't really like grassy bases on a desert or desert bases on an urban battlefield. Easy cheesy shadow material recipe: 1. Flood fill a layer with a very dark gray (rgb 64, 64, 64) 2. Add noise, 2% 3. If you want more visual interest, run a cloud filter on a new layer using black and white, set its blend mode to Overlay, and tweak the opacity down to around 20-25%. You can experiment with dark blue-grays, dark purple-grays, and so forth. -Mel
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Post by squirmydad on May 20, 2009 10:36:01 GMT -9
Cool, I'll use any income from the sets to buy more of your models. So there! JIM
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Post by kane on May 20, 2009 11:27:00 GMT -9
Thanks, Mel! I think that may be the "universal" option I've been searching for. Round, flat shadow bases should look good. Will give it a go and report back...eventually. (Gods I'm lazy sometimes)
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Post by tugunmojo on May 20, 2009 11:38:55 GMT -9
Heck, I'd buy this set again just so I dont have to do my own recoloring--not something I'm really good at anyway! ;D
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 20, 2009 13:10:50 GMT -9
Cool, I'll use any income from the sets to buy more of your models. So there! JIM *grin* Done with the special weapons troopers! I even cleaned up the Stalkers and the first batch of TF soldiers while I was at it. (Since I originally did 'em for my own use, I didn't care about the red/blue lines or the text on the page. All 3 pages of figures now have the original text and the multicolored score lines.) I didn't recolor the auxiliaries, though, since I didn't need any of them straight off the bat. I can't believe I just recolored 26 figures. I have even more respect for what you do now. *grin* I also changed the guns of the regular TF soldiers to black rather than olive drab so there'd be more contrast with the green armor. I'll zip it up and send the PDFs to you later on tonight. -Mel
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Post by magpiestear on May 20, 2009 13:20:25 GMT -9
Oh Great! Just when I thought that I could be good and resist the urge for more of Jim's stuff!!! You go and do a fabulous recolour!! That's it Mel, I'm not buying any more of your current releases!! (actually I think I've got 'em all!! )
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 20, 2009 15:03:09 GMT -9
Heh. I'll be remedying that soonish.
I was about to cut out the figures when I decided I didn't want to faff around with hobby knives, what with it taking me 20 minutes to cut out a single figure and all. I formatted the figures for my Craft ROBO instead, and created the cutting data. Takes the thing about 4 minutes to cut out the whole page. *grin*
I wanted to see if the Craft ROBO could handle something as intricate as Jim's figures, and they came out beautifully. Normally I wouldn't have bothered setting up the cutting data for something I didn't need a lot of, but I do need a lot of Stalkers, and I sure ain't cutting out a couple dozen of these things by hand. Cutbert can do the monkey work, that's what he's there for. *grin*
I'm gonna be setting up the cutting files for the rest of the figures, then I'll be spending the next couple of days assembling them. By the time I'm done, I ought to be able to put on a decent bug hunt.
-Mel
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Post by agelessone on May 20, 2009 15:35:34 GMT -9
Heh. I'll be remedying that soonish. I was about to cut out the figures when I decided I didn't want to faff around with hobby knives, what with it taking me 20 minutes to cut out a single figure and all. I formatted the figures for my Craft ROBO instead, and created the cutting data. Takes the thing about 4 minutes to cut out the whole page. *grin* I wanted to see if the Craft ROBO could handle something as intricate as Jim's figures, and they came out beautifully. Normally I wouldn't have bothered setting up the cutting data for something I didn't need a lot of, but I do need a lot of Stalkers, and I sure ain't cutting out a couple dozen of these things by hand. Cutbert can do the monkey work, that's what he's there for. *grin* I'm gonna be setting up the cutting files for the rest of the figures, then I'll be spending the next couple of days assembling them. By the time I'm done, I ought to be able to put on a decent bug hunt. -Mel Tell us more about the Craft Robo thing...it looks like a printer..
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 20, 2009 16:31:29 GMT -9
There's not much to tell, really. You give it vector data, and it basically cuts the vector paths out of whatever sheet stock you load into it. I posted my impressions on the machine somewhere on this forum a while back, but I can't find it. I guess Jim purges old threads regularly.
-Mel
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Post by squirmydad on May 20, 2009 17:16:55 GMT -9
I got the files! I'll be getting these in the store this weekend, right after I finish the Cave Monsters! I'll get both out. Mel's re-colors will be released as a discount bundle. Right now I'm thinking $6.95, but it only has one color of stalker figures, so maybe a little cheaper for the stalkers, TF soldiers and TF special weapons.
I USED to clear out old topics, but now I'm not allowed to , I put godofrandomness in charge of that so I don't accidentally delete like half the topics in the forum, AGAIN. JIM
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Post by agelessone on May 20, 2009 19:23:56 GMT -9
I am on the site now checking it out. looks pretty cool and may save time
Since I have now sold about 5 armies and most of my metal minis on Ebay over the last few weeks
Embrace the Paper!
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 21, 2009 13:01:23 GMT -9
The Craft ROBO formatted version of the Stalkers came out nicely. I was a bit nervous because of all the innie and outie cuts and their tiny size, but apart from slowing the machine down, the cut quality wasn't affected much.
I also got the formatting process down, I think. I just do a separate figure sheet that contains only the black silhouettes of the figure fronts--everything else is erased or painted over. I also shrink the outlines by a few pixels to guarantee that the cuts will stay within the black border.
In ROBO Master, I use that sheet with the Autotrace utility to create the cutting paths, then I copy the paths, paste them, flip them horizontally, and move them down to create the cutting paths for the reverse side. (I import the full color sheet and send it to the background to use as an alignment guide.)
Once I have the paths where I want them, I delete the bitmap in the background and save the paths to a GSD file. The paths aren't as clean or as optimized as they would be if I had traced them by hand, but the black border around Jim's figures hides a multitude of sins. *grin*
I got errands to run in town with my wife, so I gotta run. When I get back, I gotta cut and assemble 16 Stalkers.
-Mel
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Post by Christopher Roe on May 22, 2009 11:35:21 GMT -9
Photos! The Terra Force squad I'm using as marines: And some of the Stalkers, standing in for xenomorphs: I still have to build a few more Stalkers. It took longer than I expected because I had to find a way to glue laminated surfaces together, so there were some victims of experimentation. *grin* The figures are all laminated, so I had to use superglue to join parts together. I think I'll try something a little more premium than cheap nasty dollar store superglue next time. -Mel
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Post by kane on May 22, 2009 12:12:23 GMT -9
Those look SHARP, Mel! Very nice work. So are those CraftRobo-ed? Judging by the empty paper shells behind them, I'd say thats a big yes. Could we convince you to do this for all Jim's sets and yours so we can have perfectly cut minis like you? ;D
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