Get ’em here:
Podtel 6 and HL 300 released!
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Category Archives: Paper Models
Checking into the Podtel
(Recap: A while back, I challenged myself to create a complete paper building in 24 hours or less, while following some pretty strict rules. I succeeded, it was well-received, and I put it on my release workbench. You can read the original post here.)
I’ve been spending time getting the Podtel ready for the next release slot in August. In particular, I spent an unusually long time bouncing around box art renders with the rest of the WWG team, and after several rounds of feedback and ideas, this is what we ended up with:
You’ll be able to admire the full-size version once it’s released. I had a lot of fun just playing around with the base render in Photoshop, adding the various lighting and haze effects, and the guys at WWG are a ton of fun to throw this stuff around with. It’s a good environment for me.
I’ve implemented a lot of the ideas brought up in the original post’s comments and in the WWG dev environment. Here are the highlights:
- Added 6 variant balconies with trash piles and blood splatters.
- Added 24 new side walls and 6 new capsule shells with various combinations of graffiti, damaged glass, and poop-smeared rants against fornicators and sinners.
- Added 2 new variant toppers. One has a peaceful mountain vista, the other is deactivated.
- Added 2 variant doorways with dodgy escort service ads and pizza/takeout ads, plus screenglass displays in open for business/closed for business flavors.
- Added 3 new side-mount advertising panels. One of them has a “Sleep Like A Log” advert running, the other 2 are broken.
Some of my favorite details:
- The tarp-covered doorway. That was my first use of the Puppet Warp tool in Photoshop, and that was a “Where have you been all my life?” moment.
- The foil-lined sliding door and the foil-lined capsule window. I like to imagine that a conspiracy theorist lives there.
- The blood-splattered balcony, the poop-smeared rant, and the tarp wall together make for an awesome “What the hell happened here?” crime scene.
- The escort service ads. That was an awkward Google search, I’ll tell you that right now. I had to do the layouts and stuff for real, then shrink them and paste them onto the glass.
- Oh, and I didn’t leave the ladies out of the fun, either–I did a couple chiseled-abs beefcake ads for the fictitious Meat and Gigolocious male escort services.
- The pizzeria and Chinese takeout ads were fun. Shame I can’t bill fictitious businesses for my graphic design services!
The Podtel is tentatively scheduled for an August 15 release, alongside the HL 300 taxicab. I will also be releasing a few more old Ebbles sets that I had the opportunity to complete a while back–the Itoyo 950, the Handyman 350, and the Robot Repair Team. (Yes, with machine-cutting support!)
Ebbles Labs
My old catalog is finally starting to come back online. (This post is kind of overdue, actually, but I’ve been really busy lately!)
WWG have added a section to their catalog juuuuuust for my oldie-but-goodies. You can take a peek here: Ebbles Labs
I started with the UD-41, M722 LEV, and Convoy, as they didn’t require any extra work. I also combined the 4×4 GPV, the 6×6 APV, and the weapon ring pack into a new set named Patrol, because convoys need protection.
Just a few of the things I’m working on updating:
Updated LV86 Onager with cargo trailer
Updated LV86 Onager with tank trailer
Updated Field Camp WIP (125% larger, refreshed textures)
In other news, the HL 300 and Podtel will appear on the WWG storefront sometime in August.
And my baby takes her first tottering steps into the wild…
The new WWG storefront is finally live!
http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php
Denny has posted a thorough overview of the new shiny blinky bits here:
http://www.worldworksgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10010
Oh, and the Brio and Interceptor are now available alongside Streets of Titan as well!
The HL 300 and the Podtel will follow sometime in August.
The 24 Hour Challenge
I put on a little challenge for myself over the weekend: design a scenery item, from start to finish, in 24 hours or less. The rules:
- The model cannot be just a simple box build.
- The model must go well with the other projects I’ve been working on.
- The model must cover at least one full 6×6″ tile.
- In order to successfully beat this challenge, the model must be ready to build before time runs out.
After 23 hours, plus change, this is what I ended up with:
Podtel 6. Helping space hookers spread space herpes since 2136.
It’s a seedy capsule motel belonging to the Podtel 6 chain. There are 24 efficiency-sized pods, each with its own balcony, stacked in 4 rings of 6 pods. The rings aren’t glued on, they slip over the core structure like doughnuts on a stick. I imagine each pod is basically just a single open space containing an airplane-style bathroom, a small closet space, a nasty bed that probably hasn’t been changed in weeks, a really tiny table with burn marks on it, a couple of mismatched chairs, and a slightly dented flatscreen on the wall for watching overpriced softcore porn and so forth.
It looks the way it does primarily because I didn’t want to do a boring box build, so any practicality or realism issues that I overlooked can be blamed on that. I’ve included a taxicab in the render for scale, so you can see how big the thing is. I also took a few minutes to accentuate the obnoxious glowing animated advertising screens and blinky lights on the thing in Photoshop.
It’s in PDF format and ready to build right now, the instruction graphics have been rendered, and there’s at least one “box art” style render for it. I didn’t think I was actually gonna beat the clock, but I surprised myself. I also don’t think I’m gonna give myself another one of those challenges for a while, because that was kind of intense.
I also haven’t decided what exactly to do with this thing yet. I’m gonna have to think about that some, since it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind during the challenge.