Well between work, and procrastination on my OTR project, I decided to give 3D modeling another go.
My 3D skillz are pretty limited so I'm going to attempt a Kelvin Hand Phaser from Trek XI. These don't get much if any screen time, but they're cool.
Since I have the best handle on it I'm using Wings 3d.
So Step 1: I grabbed photo ref. I found about 12 pics online and emailed one guy to get a couple of nice top down pics he had that he didn't post on his blog.
Step 2: I decided to use this 3D phaser I found online (Tony Oliveira's from XCalPro.com) for size reference to get the basic shape started... (ignorance showing) since I don't know how to set up an image reference box.
I moved it to zero and locked it.
And here's what I have after my first hour.
Posts
I only found out they made a phaser for the Kelvin crew when I saw pics of props they displayed. I really don't think they got any screen time, but they're cool adaptations of TOS equip. I might try to do the communicator, but I have no clue as how to rig the cover to open & close.
So Update!
Now with emitter. Another hour's work. I took a little liberty inside the emitter, from the shots I have it looks plain.
Next I think I'm going to tackle the pommel and trigger.
I have no idea what that thing at the back end is supposed to be. Heat sink sounded better than "brass tube greeble thingie on the arse end" or "tail pipe".
Great work on this!
Your 3D model is coming along well, especially from such limited reference material. Instead of that thing at the back (which looks suspiciously like a CO2 canister) being a heat sink, I'd suggest that it's some kind of "plasma container" which holds whatever the phaser uses to generate its energy beam. When the trigger is pressed, the "plasma" is injected into the phaser body, passes through a series of focusing crystals and/or lenses that focus it into a powerful, cohesive energy beam.
Does that sound good, or have I given this way too much thought?
If you're referring to the "canister" as the power cell, remember in TOS, the handle itself was the power pack - although the handle in this phaser doesn't look very "power pack-ish," so maybe this was supposed to be before they integrated the power cell into the handle.
Shortly after starting this my comp started acting "twitchy" and if you remember Ash from Alien, you've got a pretty good idea. Stopped burning anything, would reboot and lock up, would reboot and forget there was a keyboard, would reboot and USB ports stopped working... Robot bastard!
After fighting with the damn thing for months and getting two hacker buddies to take it out back and "smash the fonts". One declared it fixed, handed it back to me and it ran sweet!
Until I updated IE then it crashed the motherboard.
My wife and I are now dragging my 6yr old lappy around the house since the "new" battery will only hold about half an hour of charge in snooze mode. Less if you have the screen open and are trying to do anything. Also the dang thing will play about four minutes of video from Utube before it turns it into a slide show with audio. (I swear, last night it started adding those "pong" we remember from grade school when it changed slides).
Anyway... Comp guy 3 is building my new system which should be here this week. Yippie.
On subject anyway...
Yeah, I think these phasers are cooler than the "flip-tip" that we got.
I'd buy one!
As far as a heat sink, exhaust, powercell, CO2 canister... Who knows. It looks like a tailpipe on a motorcycle to me.
I'm still sweating the silver phaser 1 on top of the thing. With my limited skill and all. (Building this in Wings.)
It's Back!!!
I started over from scratch and I'm down to the grip, the tail pipe, and details. Hands down, it's the most complicated thing I've tried to build so far, and I only know how to use Wings3D.
The only thing I've added to the model is a pointy thing in the center of the emitter. Other than that, I'm trying to be as accurate as possible.
Here's how it looks so far.
Now i just need to go in and fix a few vertexes.
And if anybody knows how to lock the rotational axis in wings3D so they don't turn when the model does, I'd appreciate it. (I think I asked this before... but I can't find it.)
Pub, this is a build of the built but unused (at least I never saw it on screen) Kelvin era phaser from ST09 (see photos on page 1 for the actual prop). Except for a couple of details, it's pretty accurate. I added the point in the emitter, and two silver bars under the phaser1. The object at the top of the third pic, is a second phaser1. When I release the mesh, as poser-ready objs, I plan on offering both the phaser1 & 2.
I'm planning the communicator next, then maybe a more TOS looking phaser. After that... I might tackle a bridge!
Is there a screen shot of the phaser on the Kelvin?
http://www.startrekpropauthority.com/2009/05/star-trek-xi-prop-and-costume-exhibit.html
http://www.startrekpropauthority.com/2009/06/abrams-star-trek-xi-uss-kelvin-pistol.html
and auctioned off:
http://www.juliensauctions.com/auctions/2010/star-trek/highlights/star-trek-08.html
The communicator looks like this:
http://www.startrekpropauthority.com/2009/06/abrams-star-trek-xi-uss-kelvin.html
Any suggestions?
Here's the shaded view in Daz and the wireframe in Wings.
While I'm hoping for some feedback to aid with my mesh issue, I started on the Kelvin Communicator.
I decided to keep the phaser gunmetal color for the case rather than the traditional black.
Yikes! was that inset tough to figure out. Now I just need to figure out the punched metal surface. (yipe!)
I don't know how to rig it to open and close in Poser or Daz... so right now I have 2 versions of the antenna.
I'm thinking about adding some details inside the antenna, based on what we have now. I think a communicator should have a display screen. I mean... our phones do. Right?