Back in action

Back from Houston, with a Christmas haul. Got a fancy new cutting mat (Gingher, ooh la la~) and plenty of materials to start playing around with sprite-stitch. Scored some new shelves (well, my mom found them in her garage when she moved in, was using them to prop up the Christmas tree, and let me have them after we took it down). Lord knows I can always use more shelves, and these are unfinished, so I may try a few spray-paint stencils on them. Attempted to make the Pirates of the Caribbean compass as a gift, but it didn't turn out so well. I'm not sure it's designed for cardstock. Maybe I'm just a failure, who knows. Also built Chamoo's new Vivi my first night down. Kind of went overboard on the staves...

I'm not sure I could ever buy Legos for myself, but I certainly enjoy when other people give them to me.

Anyway, classes start up again on the 20th, which means I've got twenty-one days to churn out as many models as I can. I'm going to be starting on the FFXI Moogle today, just because it seems like an easy way to get back into the swing of things. I'll probably finish the build some time tomorrow, then take the rest of the day to put the instructions together, so look for a release some time in the early hours of Thursday morning.

I got a few layouts done over the break.




Mojo's ready to print. Why Mojo? He's easy, and to a lesser extent, I always found him amusing.

Boogum!




Kid's just about ready for print. Still need to do the tabs and number the parts, but otherwise set to go.




Aerith's also ready to print. Went with the "flower girl" incarnation because it seemed the most interesting. Was a request, but really, I'll probably end up building most of the FFVII field models eventually.

Someone had the funny idea to try to make one of her getting knife'd by ol' Sephiroth.

Did I say funny? I meant horrible. That's a horrible idea...




A friend of mine wanted to build the baby chocobo as a gift for someone, so I thought I'd do a layout for them (yes I'm aware GoblinGuy did a layout of this as well, but, uh...yeah). It's got me thinking more about a long-term project I always thought would be fun: a massive Chocobo Pack.

Might do a testbuild for instructions and "release" it, might not.




Thought this would be funny. Little one-page Star Globe. Amusing monument to a useless piece of furniture (yes I'm also aware that it has an EXP bonus, but come on, has anyone ever actually used it for that?). I'll probably just upload this to the MediaFire folder; really not "release"-worthy.


So the moogle's up first. I'm not sure which I'd like to do after that. I've already got the Fahrenheit printed, but if I get a big response to build something else I've listed as "ready to print" in the next few days, I could be persuaded to change my mind.

As always, requests are welcome, yadda yadda yadda



Boogum!

Sephipalooza!

Get ready, this is gonna be a big one...




Sephipalooza!

I got bored waiting for a clear favorite to be declared, so I went ahead and did them all.





Sephiroth - Book
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=E2T7X0IN
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?4ycmytgz2ig

Included a little joke with this one.




Sephiroth - Combat Stance
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ATLFMX9B
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jli02njmulz




Sephiroth - Jenova's Head
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AVXOGKKA
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?c32mzyjbhbf

You can't really tell, but I went in and grabbed a screenshot from Advent Children for the nameplate on Jenova's helmet.




Sephiroth Pack (all three of my releases, plus Sane Person's original)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F8R77JZ4
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nlxxmwfnlmr




So, that's the Sephiroth pack. So much for democracy. You'd think I'd learn eventually. Any time I ask for the opinion of the people, I get little to nothing back, and just end up doing whatever I want anyway. In this case it ended up being all three. Honestly, the FFVII field models are so easy to fix-up/lay-out that there's no reason not to do as many as possible.

Anyway, as you can see, there's a bit of a height discrepency between my releases and the classic SP model. Turns out by scaling that first Cid model to .14 of the height listed in the manual, I shrank all future models to just a little bit smaller than SP's. The field models are all roughly the same height, so there's not a lot of difference between Cid (5'8") and Sephiroth (6'1"). Oh well, still good.



So, I went on a bit of a binge a few days back and tried to get as much stuff ready as I could. I'm heading down to League City for Christmas, and I wanted to keep busy, but I don't want to have to print on my mom's printer.

So here's a preview of some stuff you'll be seeing very soon:




FFX Airship - The Fahrenheit

I really wanted to keep this one a secret until it was 100% built and ready to go, but whatever. Thought this one would be really cool as soon as I found it in the model data. It's already printed, ready to build.



Threw together a simple stand for it as well. Should also make the build process a little easier (give you a stable platform to work on).




FFXI Moogles

Finally got around to laying it out again after I lost my old one when I cleaned up my papercraft folder. Pictured is the custom texture I'm going to use for my build (you know how I am about black and purple...just look around). The model is the same for house moogles and nomads, just need to apply textures as necessary. This one's also printed and ready to go.


I started thinking though, the drive to League City is about 5 hours, and I usually pack my car with all kinds of crap. I really don't want to have to worry about delicate paper models getting messed up on the trip back home, so I probably won't work on the airship or moogle until I'm safely back in Denton (probably around the New Year). That means I'll be working on lots of models I've got in the works (editing the 3D stuff, getting them laid out, etc.). As such:

I don't usually like to do this, but here's a run-down of the other stuff in my "current projects" folder.




FFVII Tiny Bronco

This thing will build much more like the kind of model airplanes you might see in a hobby store. I'd like to try getting the big "Tiny Bronco" logo on the wing, as it appears in renders, but that's a worry for later. As you can see, it's still very much in the development stages. It's likely going to be massive, just to work around some tiny little polygons I don't really want to simplify. I may change my mind later, but right now it's set to be pretty God damn big.




FFXII Balthier

Still an ongoing process. I think I'm getting close to a satisfactory pose. Just need to clean some stuff up and get it all into Pepakura. Don't worry about his head texture, this is just a version I had laying around and used for a screenshot.




FFXI Goblin Pack

This is something I've been wanting to do for a good while now. As this blog can attest, I got started with FFXI models, because they were the easiest to get into Pepakura, and because GoblinGuy did his original goblin, and got me interested in making more. As such, I've always wanted to do something of a tribute to his original, seeing as how it's pretty much responsible for all the crap you see on this blog. So, I'm planning on doing a massive goblin pack.

See, goblins can be broken down into three basic components, the head, the body, and the backpack. Each component type has various permutations (standard head, mercenary head, poses for each), and each permutation has various textures (moblins, goblins, etc), but everything fits with everything else. Thus, if so inclined, you could stick a mercenary's head on a caster's body, with a moblin backpack. My plan is to lay out each component style, texture them with everything available (or just provide the base with all the textures), and let the end-user play mix-n-match to create whatever kind of goblin they like. Also planning to lay out a bugbear and some weapons for good measure. Everything will, of course, be set to the original GoblinGuy scale.




FFVII - Zack Fair

Speaking of tributes, as many of you know, Chamoo232 is working on the Crisis Core incarnation of Zack Fair. I figure it'd be fun to throw together the oldschool field model of Zack as celebration for her release. Like I said, these things are so simple, there's no reason not to do as many as possible.

Also looking forward to the imminent release of Urashiman's FFIX Model Converter. Chamoo seems to have called dibs on doing the player characters, but I'll find something fun to do.

I've also got a lot of requests for more Chrono Cross models. I'll likely look into Kid and Glenn first, then see where it goes. Proably get plenty of that kind of stuff done during the holiday.


That's about it. I probably won't have anything new to release until I get back around the end of the month, so happy building,
always open to requests,
contact any time,
blah, blah blah,

you know how this crap works.

Harle

Harle
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8HKUA6RU
http://www.mediafire.com/?qtmzhm0dz2z

Finished her last night around midnight, but I had my first final this morning, so I figured it was prudent to get some sleep, rather than stay up and make instructions.

The problem with making models like this, and from any of the games I've made models from, is that you spend the entire build reminiscing about the game. Normally it's no big deal, you may end up digging through your library and revisiting it for a bit, but in the case of Chrono Cross, there can be some side effects to the nostalgia...

You end up thinking through the plot again, and saying things like:

"So wait...the antagonist was actually the protagonist's father...but merged with some kind of cat-demon that attacked the protagonist when he was a kid? Only the antagonist was neither of those...he was really a giant evil computer who needed to inhabit the body of protagonist in order to access himself.

Oh God...I think I need to lie down..."

Don't get me wrong, Chrono Cross was, and still is, one of my all-time favorites. It's just that the act of explaining the plot once lead me to develop my general theory of SE games:

"If you don't sound like a crackhead trying to explain the plot, it isn't a Squaresoft game."



Anyway, I put together a simple stand reminiscent of the classic Black Mage 001 stands. Got the textures for it from the album art and that iconic image of the Frozen Flame.

Skele-kitty had the funny idea to re-color Heidegger to make a Santa model. Took about 2 minutes to recolor him, so here you go:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?yygzxjiwmea




I'm going to wait a bit longer to see if there's any more feedback on which Sephiroth model to do. I'm kind of surprised by how much support there is for option #3. They're all good models. Cast your vote for which you'd like to see.

Heidegger

Heidegger
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U8NV2M3I
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nl5w5ymowmw

Probably could have had him done a day or two sooner, but I took the build pretty casually. The funny part is I ended up scrapping the work I'd done on him weeks ago, and edited the model from scratch to a nearly finished layout in about 3 hours.


It's like some kind of messed up Shinra board meeting...





Anyway, Harle's next on the list. I've been trying to get my hands on animation data to give her a proper pose, but the game just hasn't been broken down like others have. Not yet anyway. I'm going to have to pose her manually. Ideally I'd want her in the game's battle stance, but I'm beginning to learn you shouldn't aim too high when installing bones yourself.



With Balthier, I wanted to get him into the pose pictured on the right. The reality is, without animation data applied to the model, I'm going to have to settle for about what I've got (on the left). It'll match Steph's Fran a bit better this way, but I must say I won't be as happy with it as I would be a legitimate animation-based pose.

I'm planning to get some request delivery done soon. I still need to resize that Axe, and maybe throw together a layout for Reeve that someone requested in passing. To the person waiting on the axe, I'll upload it to the shared folder and put the link in the chat window, but I'm not going to post it in the main section, because the last time I posted and untested, experimental non-"official release," it ended up on Paperkraft.net and got about 300 downloads. (I wonder if that troll from the /po/ thread that started all this is reading...if so, I'd like to think I learned my lesson pretty quickly, and am still trying to adhere to it.)

Finally, speaking of requests, I've already got a Sephiroth on my shelf (Sane_Person's), so I'm not making the new model for myself. As such, I really want to make sure I build the one that'll satisfy the most people. Not that I can't just do others later, but yeah, I'd sooner get it as close to right the first time as I can.
So, I'll make this very simple. The following image has the three versions I'm considering (you've seen them before), with numbers marking each. I'll keep a simple tally.

Reply to this post with the number of the model you'd like to see.



I know the vast majority of you people are just lurking, but if you have any interest in building a new Sephiroth model, speak up.

An update of miniscule proportions

(Couldn't think of a related picture, so here's something cute by Capsicum)


I've been thinking about putting together a Final Fantasy Papercraft compilation archive for a while now, so here it is:

Full: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JVYOH8MX

Part 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?amwnoxjmedn
Part 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?hj1dom2wjeh

I get a lot of questions about people looking for all the awesome Final Fantasy models by other designers out there, and I've made reference to my meticulously organized papercraft folder before, so I figured it was time to make another big compilation. I would actually recommend using MegaUpload this time, just because the .RAR is in one piece (MediaFire only allows 100mb per file, and the whole thing is about 125mb).

So, short update on where my own projects stand: I was in League City all last week (about 300 miles from my usual location, Thanksgiving and all that), so I haven't made any real progress on anything. This week is "dead week," meaning review time, and next week is final exams. I'd like to get some work done on Heidegger this week (which isn't unreasonable...I've never been one to study), and maybe get him built this weekend. Once finals are over, I'm pretty much free 24/7 for a solid month, which means I'll be aiming to churn out as many models as I possibly can.

I still haven't gotten much of a consensus on which of the Sephiroth models to choose, so if I get there before any solid opinion is formed, I'll likely go with the battle stance. However, the field models are mighty easy to set up, so it's entirely possible that I'll try doing more than one.





Edit: Almost forgot. I've managed to convince myself that this would be really fun. Need to run down to a craft type store to get the necessary materials, but otherwise I'm ready to give this a go. After spending the week with my family, the bizarre similarities between housewife and gamer hobbies are becoming apparent. To them "papercraft" means scrapbooking. To us "cross-stitch" should be referred to as "pixel art." A little unsettling, but whatever.

First attempt is gonna be Setzer.

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...