Pit Droid Tinkerings

[savagecreature]

Any of you who have watched any of my other builds might have noticed a pattern in my methods. I almost always build a computer model first to work out the details before I start building for real.

Hence . . . . it begins:



If anyone sees any inaccuracies, that I'm missing some detail, whatever, please feel free to chime in and help me make it better.

[kresty]

Yea, I noticed a small detail, the bottom's missing

[savagecreature]

As you may or may not have seen (things have been mighty quiet lately) I've collected up more reference in the Ponderings thread. Thought I would share some of the fruits of those labors:

As kresty pointed out above, there were some parts missing below the dome so I thought it might be a good idea to add some of those. 




I started out fairly low resolution and then continued to refine the shape and contour, carefully checking against my reference to be sure I was getting it as accurate as possible.  I used every reference I could find. I looked at all the toys I could get my hands on, I carefully viewed The Phantom Menace a hundred times, including the special features, making screen captures of anything that looked helpful, I did extensive internet searches reading forums and blogs and book reviews to see if I could glean any clues or find the names of other sources that might help and when I found the titles of books that might be helpful, I went out and bought them. I even hunted down the few models of the Pit Droids that had been made for video games.

It was a slow process because at each step I would find a new resource that showed me I had done something a little bit off and I had to go back and correct it, but eventually it started to take shape.



As some of you may have read in the the parallel thread, Ponderings, I found that  Star Wars Chronicles: The Prequels had the next best thing to orthographic renders of the pit droid in them.  I sent out some e-mails and a friend was able to send me back some images from the book.  These were incredibly helpful, enabling me to carefully check my proportions. I brought them into my 3D software so I could make direct comparisons.

      

As you can see in the above images, there were some inaccuracies here and there, but the droid was taking shape surprisingly well. I continue to adjust things as I went, and started to add new parts and details.

Legs came next. They look deceivingly simple but they have quite a bit of detail and a number of non-rectilinear shapes that make them more of a challenge than expected.  Next came the upper arms and I realized I had forgotten toes.

 

Then forearms and hands:




Looking fairly pit droidish if I do say so myself!  I still haven't been able to find good reference for the underside of the dome and all the detail that lives there, but I continue to hunt for it. I also need to add some sundry details; panel lines and rivets and such pretty much all over the droid.  But it's getting very close to complete.

Here's a view of my mesh projected on top of the ILM render for comparison.



Now you, my fellow droid builders, might be thinking to yourself, "this is all well and good, but why do I care about a CG version of this cute, little, utilitarian droid? What good does this do me?"  My answer; Plans, measurements proportions and even 3D prints can all be generated from a 3D model such as this.  The more droids we have accurate CG models of the more droids we can accurately and much more easily construct using any of a number of awesome methods. 

As a terribly incomplete example (but it's just an example, right?) I present exhibit A, what could easily be the start of a set of dimensioned elevations of our little friend, which was generated without much effort from this new CG model.

[savagecreature]

Kresty thought I should include this, and who am I to argue? Exploded view of the model, so you can see it's multiple party goodness





can you even tell what's what?

[kresty]

Cool! Now someone needs to print one!

[kresty]

It's cool!  Yea, it's a bit hard to see how all the bits end up in the full thing, but it's cool

Kresty thought I should include this, and who am I to argue? Exploded view of the model, so you can see it's multiple party goodness





can you even tell what's what?

[kresty]

Printed the head "quickly" at 25%, thanks Savage!









It's reasonably decent.  My printer has a hard time printing upside-down arcs, like the bottom of the eye, and the greebles make it need a lot of vertical supports, but it seemed to print pretty well.

I think I'd print the top bit as one thing, the eye as another (with lens up), and the greebles as a third.

Also, the eye seems to have a box inside it, so it printed mostly hollow instead of with supports.

[schubertrr]

That's some snazzy pit droid printing there!  I'm looking into printers, Kresty, mind sharing a bit about your set up?
Thanks!

[kresty]

So-as to not randomize Savage's thread, I posted about the printer here: http://www.rebeldroids.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=124

[schubertrr]

Good idea. I'll swing over there...