Back up to speed

Back up to speed. Took the opportunity to go ahead and check out Vista (since my old XP install wanted to do nothing but fail). For all the negative press, I rather like it. Still getting the last few necessary programs installed, and copying over files to my awesome new terabyte hard drive, but otherwise I'm good to go.

I may have taken the whole theme thing a bit too far...

Anyway, I've got a lot of work to get done this weekend (don't you just love how professors heap it on right before a holiday?), so definitely no new releases scheduled any time soon. I'm hoping to get some work done on a few 3D models over Thanksgiving. Once I get back, it's pretty much finals then winter break. Which means:

omgfreetimeoverloadwargarbl~!

Ahem...

So the next few items I'd like to get done are as follows:


Heidegger



I'm not sure why, but I really want to do this one. I'm taking both modern philosophy and modern political theory next semester, and I'm really hoping we cover the other Heidegger (you know, the Nazi-philosopher one), for no other reason than so I can take this model to class with me. He just needs the same basic correction other FFVII field models need, then I can throw him together in about a day. Might even get this one done over Thanksgiving.


Harle



She'll be my first excursion into non-Final Fantasy models (though still Square...what can I say, I'm a one-note guy). She needs to be posed, which some preliminary fiddling shows shouldn't be too hard, and cleaned up in a few spots (there are actually little pink legs under the puffy blue pants). Little higher poly count, but I'm planning on doing the Chrono Cross models in roughly the same scale as the FFVII field models. Should look pretty good with the smooth no-fold look. It's likely that I'll hold off on doing more Chrono Cross models, just because I'd rather use legit animation poses, rather than some nonsense I have to do myself. No word on when the animation data will be available to use, but I'll keep you apprised of any developments.


Finally...
Sephiroth



Ok, so the general consensus seems to be that I should keep the puffy pants (but also do the battle model for awesomeness' sake). So the question now is, which version? My favorite's definitely the crazy "I just cut some black-cloaked follower in the back" pose, but they're all good. The First would basically be Sane_Person's model revamped, with the hands switched and a decapitated Jenova cranium...for zest. Second is a generally awesome combat sort of thing, which will definitely require more work to fix up, but will be worth it (I think). And the third is, though maybe a little underwhelming, still very cool; Sephiroth pouring over the labnotes of professor Ghast, slowly losing his mind in the Shinra Mansion basement.

I'll leave it up to you decide.




I also noticed that the original S_P model wasn't as modified as I thought it was. Seems his skinnier legs are actually in the big puffy pants, but they intersect. I'd basically just cut the skinny legs off at the ankles and attach them to the pants. Really that's just technical details. Thought I'd clarify for anyone who'd seen the models up close and was wondering what the Hell I was talking about when I said "edited." I'm also going to want to change that silly open mouth thing he's go going. I'll probably just use the standard mouth texture from most other models.

You may have also noticed that I made a few...mysterious remarks recently. Like so many others, I was trying to guess what the "secret project" of master papercrafter Ninjatoes was. For quite some time, there was no doubt in my mind that he was working on another version of Lady Luck (which would fit almost every clue he'd given, and would coincide with the other FFX/-2 models he's done). Every clue up until he revealed the textured hands. Well it was actually American McGee's Alice, and good sport that he is, he apologized that he couldn't dispel my misguided assumptions sooner.

So to anyone I told to hold off on building Lady Luck, there's nothing stopping you now. Go for it, and try not to tear out any of your own hair while attempting to build hers.

Good news, everyone!

Also bad news. So I'll start with that to get it out of the way:

My PC hit a snag and kind of ate itself. At the moment, I'm wrestling with a handful of different Windows installations, but they aren't playing ball. I'm stuck with my laptop, which was an econo-model when I got it many years ago. Needless to say it's hardly a viable workstation.

So, it's highly unlikely I'll get any real work done on anything until I've got the PC working properly again, which, if Lady Luck is smiling upon me (and the last few days have proven that no matter what tribute I pay her, she laughs at my ridiculous behavior), I just might have a solid foundation tomorrow morning, from which I can get started reinstalling all my normal whatnots.

That being said, here's the good news:



Faustwolf and Luminaire85 over at ChronoCompendium are letting me help with some of the grunt work in making their Chrono Cross battle model database. I'm just doing simple conversions in Blender, but it helps speed up the process, and I can get it done even on my woefully underpowered laptop. They haven't gotten into the animation data yet, so until then, all poses will be custom, which means more work on my part. Obviously the models need some editing, apart from the poses. I can get them into Sketchup on the laptop, but the textures come out looking better as .OBJs, which I can't play with because I don't have 3DS Max on the laptop.

All the same, the models and textures are in good enough shape to be manipulated and crafted.



There also seems to be growing enthusiasm for the idea that I should remake the classic Sane_Person and Jamis models. If I do make Cloud, Vincent, Sephiroth, or Reno, I'll want to make alternative versions. My aim is not to just stomp all over respected classics, but to provide alternatives for people who were a little frustrated by the layouts. Above is an example of a few different versions I could do.

The biggest question on my mind is whether or not I should follow S_P's lead in modifying Sephiroth. As you can see, the original model depicted him as right handed, with exceptionally puffy pants. With Advent Children and Crisis Core, Sephiroth was a little more developed. We got to see that he was actually a "lefty," and of course even high-res versions from the original game showed him as wearing a long coat with legging underneath. In the Sane_Person model, he was edited to have thinner legs with a skirt type piece hanging over them, to mimic the coat. Well I'd definitely want him to be a lefty, just because it's too easy not to be accurate in that way (and I'm kind of proud of my own esoteric nerdiness for catching that detail when I built S_P's model). But it begs the question: if you're going to modify something for accuracy, why not go the whole proverbial "nine yards" and just make him look as good as possible (i.e. with the long coat and thinner legs).

I'll leave it up to you to decide how much I should modify him. If it were up to me, I'd leave him with puffy pants, just because I like the look of them, but whatever. If you want to see him more accurately (and remember, there's always a full-size battle model, which would be much more accurate), let me know.




Apparently this is hilarious.

For comic effect

This is just getting silly...

I'm not planning on building them all, but they are all potentially buildable.
(There are many more than pictured, I just got bored of importing so many files)

Also it makes for a hilarious screenshot

Cait Sith

I'm beginning to wonder if I should check into a clinic or something...

Cait Sith
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=844NV0Z5
http://www.mediafire.com/?zl4mmnbnqzy


But then I'd end up in front of a crowd and say something like, "Hello, my name is Kaizo, and I'm addicted to papercraft."
Then Bob Saget would say something about it not being a real addiction unless you've sucked "toes" for it. Then some crackhead would tell everyone to boo me, then my Half Baked joke would run its course and I wouldn't know where to go from there...

Anyway, yeah, Cait Sith. If it isn't slowly becoming apparent, I've always had a thing for the Gambler job classes in Final Fantasy. Always wanted to model the Blackjack as tribute to Setzer, or maybe do his Kingdom Hearts incarnation. Then again, Nomura really messed with the character design for that one. And there's always FFVI DS coming. That could yield some really fun models. I still need to see if I can't get some OpenGL capture stuff going for FFIV DS.



Maybe I'll do Barrett next to get a little party going.

I would've had this done a little sooner, but I couldn't crop the photos for the instructions. A word of advice: if you've got Fraps installed and aren't using it regularly, disable video capture. Nothing like accidentally hitting F11 and finding out two days later that you recorded about 95gb of South Park running in VLC, and filled up the last free bits on the hard drive PhotoShop uses for scratch.

Anyway, I think I'm done with releases for now...at least for the next few days. Requests always welcome, as usual. Contact me if you need anything, or just want to babble at a random stranger.
Whatever, shop's always open.

Cid

Remember what I said about taking a break, like...36 hours ago?
I'm a hopeless addict...
Anyway, here's Cid:




http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8P3PRBW4
http://www.mediafire.com/?z3iyk1nxyz2

In my defense, I did do the lined version, on 65lb paper, which is kind of...relaxing?...ish?

Anyway, I made a point to scale him according to Sane_Person's FFVII models.



As in I actually whipped out the instruction booklet, looked up Sephiroth's listed height, measured my finished version and got a ratio. Turns out Cid's listed as being about as tall as I am~
Poor short bastard...

Apparently I lost that layout of the FFXI Moogle while cleaning up my papercraft folder. It'd really only take a day to get it back where I want it, but...laziness. You know how these things are.

Anyway, I might release something else soon, I might not. At this point, I don't know what to expect from myself.



Isn't it awesome how many pages you can get out of an ink cartridge your printer claims is "empty?"

Lady Luck

Lady Luck
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VKRRMXSM
http://www.mediafire.com/?tmquwtzowry

Well, here she is. Standing about 30" tall, I'm quite certain this model was a way for the gods to test my faith. I've got a colossal rasterbated poster I really wanted to put together for the release, but I'm just about out of ink (understandably), so it probably won't happen any time soon.

As you might expect, after this, I need a break. If I can force myself to release anything in the next month, it'll probably be FFXI Moogles and FFVII Cid, but don't hold your breath. I've got school work to worry about before Thanksgiving, and some videogame consoles who are starting to get jealous of my papercrafting tools. Before I face some kind of inanimate revolution of sorts, I figure I should just try to relax and spend time with the games I neglect (ironically to make paper versions of the characters from them).

Anyhow, to the three or four people who might actually consider building Lady Luck: Good Luck, and I hope the instructions are useful.
To the rest of you: yeah, I didn't expect anyone else would actually build it. Looks neat though, right? . . .

If my suspicions are correct, I'm not quite done with paper incarnations of Lady Luck, and I'm not referring the poster I just mentioned...I'll let you figure out what I mean.

You may have noticed I've dropped the Rapidshare link. Well, apparently they've become even crappier, and will only allow 10 downloads without a subscription. So yeah, no more Rapidshare...uhh...deal with it.

With that, I think I'll go do something about the pile of dishes I've been desperately trying to ignore since I started the build over a week ago...

Edit: Turns out I had just enough ink left to get the poster out, as well as a little 4-page Tira picture, just to fill some empty wall space (the plan was to eventually have giant posters of Paine, Balthier, and Tira. I figure that's a triumvirate of win, but it was a struggle just to find space to stick the Lady Luck poster, so I figured settle for smaller Tira, or settle for no Tira at all).





I think she makes a nice complement to Fran on the opposite side. Still planning on seeing Balthier in this arrangement, which should really help the whole "hermit-nerd paradise" thing I've got going in my apartment.

Anyway, back the dishes I'm still trying to avoid...

Deviations and Minutiae

Say hello to the new site mascot: I call him Harlequin. Get it? 'Cause Joker was Karaha-Baruha's personal guard? Then Ajido's? Joker...court jester...harlequin...
Oh why do I even bother.

Anyway, I'm not releasing the model, simply because I've already released the Cardian and this is just a custom texture. And as I've said, I'm happy to help provide the necessary stuff to make custom versions of anything I've previously released.

In other news: I recently opened a DeviantArt account so I could post a reply thanking Mr. McDermott for posting the PDO of his Bebop model, so I could modify the layout a bit. I figured, seeing as how one of the most responded to posts I've made was just a collection of images of my collection, DeviantArt would be good place to keep pictures of my finished models, without cluttering up the blog. Sure it's self-serving, camwhoreish, and utterly pointless, but come on; what is this blog if not cry after cry for attention. If nothing else, filling out the profile section was a chance for comedy.
Does anyone seriously consider themselves a "pornographic connoisseur"? Seemed like a funny title to me...
Anyway, I've got a DeviantArt page now, where you can find finished pictures of everything I've built. If anything catches your eye, don't hesitate to ask where I found it. I tried to include the names of the designers for everything I could, but if that isn't enough, I'm happy to help people find anything obscure.



With my little side-project done and a new ink cartridge, I'm poised to begin work on Lady Luck construction. At the moment, I'm trying to throw a makeshift tripod together to keep my camera stable to get consistent shots for instructions. If I can really push it, I should be able to get her built by the middle of next week.

On a side note: It has come to my attention that printing methods aren't entirely obvious. Every one of my releases includes a locked PDO and a PDF. The PDO is included solely as reference, to check corresponding faces and use a rotatable 3D model. I include PDFs to print from, which is why I go through the effort of making both lined and lineless PDFs. You'll notice (unless you happen to have the Final Fantasy Elements, Wolf's Rain, and Beech fonts installed) that you have a font-related error when opening the PDO, resulting in text overlapping texture, and oddly placed gibberish. The PDF has been printed and checked to be exactly as I intend it to be. Put simply:

Always print from the PDF, never the PDO.

And with that little public service announcement, I'm calling a night.