ShimmeringSword

Elemental Concept Sketch

Because of the amazing patron turnout we've seen in mere months, and the gracious pledge upgrades last week, have an Elemental!

Now be warned, I've had zero locked in CGL feedback on this one yet, so it may be subject to a lot of change. I expect the Elemental design to be polarizing, but I historically have a passion for power armor outside of Battletech so I hope this keeps.

Feel free to give impressions all around, but I'm curious what you think about me lengthening and "de-ugl...

Awesome Funding!

Big thanks and welcome aboard to all the new patrons who joined up up this month.
Welcome to the super secret special club :P

This month was the second best so far for number of people signing up, and has almost matched 2 months ago for money growth even though this month has been largely base pledges. Quite impressive.

On that subject it's TIME TO BEG!!! With technical details.
While a mountain of $2 patrons is the main long term goal, I ask if you can afford the base $2, w...

Vulture Concept Sketch

You were pretty sure it was coming, so here it is, the Mad Dog!
I grew up on the MW4 Vulture, so I'm biased towards its looks, and you'll notice I've closed the gap between it and the original here. This, much to the reeeee of some of my art crew haha, particularly around the nose.
I at least accept that everyone probably wants a slim Vulture rather than a fat MW4 style one.

So lets hear it from you lot! Do you like the left nose or the right nose?
General feedback accepted...

Viper Concept Sketch

Everyone welcome Harri Kallio to the mech design crew. He's fairly well known as Bradigus online, having done a lot of his own mech redesign sketches in the past, and a bunch of MWO based meme images. I recruited him for his first official work in the Shattered Fortress book and he churned out the best illustrations of the lot for it.

The next big hit? I'm training the lad up on emulating my recent design style and having him contribute to the Clan mech redesign pool.

First to sho...

Clan Prototype Prints

Josh, one of our CGL printers, is hard at work pumping out an army of prototype print miniatures. Only missing the Stormcrow and Shadow Cat in this shot. We need a lot of them ready for some con season surprises.

I'm loving the Dire Wolf in physical form, so chunky.

By the way, what are your thoughts on the poses?
Good variety?
Too uniform of a variety?
Wish some were more extreme?
Wish some were more neutral/brace stanced?
Relaxed non-aiming poses?

Cougar Concept Sketch

Cougar anyone?

As vague as the recently posted kickstarter announcement looked compared to what ye patrons have seen so far, it clearly hinted at more than what I've shown here so far.
Henceforth, more mech designs are in progress, and I've got quite a list!

The Cougar has always been a cool looking mech, just with an underwhelming miniature. The Matt Plog TRO lineart looks nice, and several videogame renditions hold merit too. As such I've just taken all those elements and mix...

Atlas Concept Sketch

Ok I've held out on you long enough, here's a mostly completed Atlas concept. Lower legs and feet being the least retouched (since I started from an old piece done for The B33F).

There's so much art for the Atlas out there, and almost every one of them has something great about it, and also something derpy about it. There are many versions of specific areas like the cockpit that look great, so it's tough picking what is the best option at times.
I've also got to content with the fact...

Summoner 3D Sculpt

Did I forget to show off proper Summoner 3D renders? I think I only did the sketch and prototype.

This model has a few more details, particularly on the missile launcher and brand new toes.

Capellan Mechwarrior

Here's the other of the two Mechwarriors I recently illustrated for CGL.

This one is a Capellan from warrior house Daidachi. Being from a warrior house I gave her above average equipment, so more than a basic chest cooling vest. Intense life long training has also resulted in a hardened body with scars to show.

Her disdain that you even dare look in her direction is evident, you pleb!

Solaris VII Mechwarrior

You guys don't make this easy, 80 voters and the final count within 2 votes haha.

Here's my envisioning of an assignment to show what a well equipped Solaris mech jock might look like. Deep sponsor pockets, experimental equipment tested in arena battles.
She's got a high tech cooling suit that covers most of her body with overkill coolant tubing.
Gave her Maori/pacific styling as a call to my birth country. I've also noticed female Maori characters are almost non existent in games...

Pick Your Mechwarrior

I'm still a little lost that I teased both new mechwarrior art AND a new Atlas design a while back and no one flinched haha.

Now, which Mechwarrior do you want to see first?

Scout Lance

Think that's all? Have a familiar lance of scout mechs that make it clear to your adversary you're not messing around.

Man that's a lot of mech.

Heavy Lance

Does much need to be said about this lot? The big boy lance that everyone has been waiting for the last 4 years.

I'd have liked to have remastered some of these for higher detail, but with everything under the sun taking time, I let them pass as is with only scale tweaks. What do you think? Looking great as is, or would you prefer more intricate models? (I know some people hate detail)

Clan Mech Lineup

Decided I better feed you guys a bit more content to round out this rather light month. Been getting a lot of big things put in place though.

Here's the Clan Binary we've been working on, all put together in one beautiful shot.

Looking forward to your new invader overlords?

Phoenix Hawks Old and New

Here we go. The old unedited Hawk on the left, new Phoenix on the right.

It's still not a perfect design result, but the new head and body tweaks have taken it a long way from the original while on a time budget. No more weird uncanny feeling about it.

Phoenix Hawk Head Redesign

I have a new Pixie head mostly approved by the powers above. Just need to tweak the chin section a bit and experiment with even more beefed up casting capable antenna.

Almost there.

Hawk Edits in Progress

With the strong feedback you guys gave on the Phoenix Hawk, I'm digging into editing this sculpt. This is the last mech left to be finalized in our current big project, so I'm eager to be done, but I want this one done right too.

Torso is slightly narrower left to right, torso is narrower front to back including better contrast in angles on the chest plates differentiating the CT from the side torso plates. Made the legs attach a little wider and filled out the pelvis to not look like a...

Dire Times

Sorry for the quiet start to the month, I've been focusing on getting several key projects tied up which involves a lot of incremental stuff rather than pretty visuals.

But here, have this big boy render.

Bishop Steiner Patreon!

Looks like Bishop Steiner, published BT artist and prolific fanartist has finally started his own patreon page. He might not have the same juicy NDA materials to preview, but I think he's a guy worth supporting as he's engaged a lot with the community.

Another boon if you're new to Patreon and decide to support more than one creator, some fixed payment processing fees are be shared between  the pages you support, ensuring more of your hard earned pledge money makes it to us.

...

$500 Broken!

Amazing turnout of new patrons this month! We've broken the $500/mo mark, fully making up for any income lost from reducing my hours at my side job.

When time permits I'll start to tackle the colossal task that is the Unseen Moon remastering. It's not quite realistic yet with a heavy CGL workload in hand.

In the mean time though, I'm trying to decide what to reveal as a reward :)

Executioner 3D Sculpt

And here's the Executioner 3D model all approved, just needs a pose. Now with side view added.

As previously mentioned, non-atrocious back design added. Details improved, goofiness reduced, beefy jump jets.

I mostly modeled this one myself, but I had Alan Blackwell do the back detailing to free me up for other efforts.

Enjoy.

Executioner Concept Sketch

I've seen a few people asking for Executioner pics, so here's a bit for ya.

Yet another design that was pretty straight forward, for a few reasons. Firstly I'd already partially tackled it from the side in a fan commission, so I had an idea going in. Secondly, this and the Gargoyle are ugly ducklings that can easily see a lot of improvement without requiring an elegant result, and the Executioner is the prettier of the two IMO.

I had never seen the back of an Executioner mini befo...

Stormcrow Concept Sketch

Forgot to post this sketch up before the 3D renders, and considering all the talk about arm and other proportion changes I thought this might provide some good insight.

On the right is my initial sketch, where I tried to be more faithful to the original Crow. You can already see I've pulled the arms out and down, but as much as some might consider the high and tucked in arms a key of the old silhouette, I don't think that conveys a powerful look. Utilitarian at best. Small hand actuator...

Storm Crow 3D Sculpt

Saw some comments comparing the Nova and Storm Crow, so here are some Crow renders to check out. Are the two similar when both have a pelvis? In a way yes, though stats wise not much separates them either :D

This was Alan Blackwell's second sculpt after the Nova, and came together faster, cleaner, and more accurately to the art, reducing how nitpicky I had to be.

It's not fully modeled in a workable way, but I intend for the outer gun pods to possibly gimbal on the lower elbow joi...

The Big Whammy

I have a 3D scene set up for us to decide on accurate scales for our miniatures, and it's starting to get very crowded in here. This is the scene used to scale our recent box sets, which I don't think had more than 1mm error on each mini.

I've shown off a number of Clan mechs, now enjoy a peek at the whole lot. Some of these models aren't quite finished yet, but they're there. Might add another soon too.

One big scale question to answer with the Clan mechs is this abundance of squ...

Valkyrie Rear Design

Valkyrie mini already exists you say? Curious that we'd be sculpting it all over again :P

Here's a properly done back design for it, as when IWM first tackled it the sculptor didn't give me time to come up with a back design. The results were a little lack luster and didn't accurately depict the jump jets.

Enjoy.

Adder 3D Sculpt

Here's the finished model for the Adder (sorry to those who call it the Puma, I just don't hear that name enough for it to stick :P). This one was fairly quick to build due to most of the shapes being so blocky. It was more a task of pulling all the little panels out and cutting in seams. Even the curved nose didn't put up much of a fight.

What do you think of the support rails over the PPCs?

Adder Concept Sketch

Do you like em short and fat?

I'm personally modeling the Adder for CGL and almost have it done. When the modelers are under a crunch to get projects done I jump in to pick up the slack.

Thought I'd show off this sketch now, then I'll have 3D renders to show in a day or two. It's definitely going to be the most highly detailed light mech in our stable.

Chonk.

More on Hawk Feedback.

I think we've got the idea of proportions nailed down pretty well, that's always an easier part. But what do you think about the "looks", details, parts, etc of the mech?

Also gonna show of the initial design sketch that came before the lineart. Making the torso wider in the final version may have been asked of me, I forget, but I'm feeling like it might be nice to narrow things up a bit on the side torsos. Head could use some tweaks, lower arms could be longer. Longer legs for sure. 2019-04-04 20:58:55 +0000 UTC View Post

Phoenix Hawk Feedback Please!

You think we're only working on Clan mechs over here? We haven't forgotten about those key classic redesigns. Something big is quickly coming together.

Now here I have a dilemma. The Phoenix Hawk has never been a mech I'm very invested in, other than its jump jet pods it kinda blends in with the rest of "that" family of mechs. I did give it a slightly departed look from the rest though. The others have a very mass production blocky look, while the Hawk gets a little more of a nimble loo...