Skytiger!
Hopefully a touch more developed than the last colour study I posted, had a heavy cold for the past 1.5 weeks so I’ve not made any progress recently. I’ve gone with slate blue marbling over tan & beige but I’d also be tempted to try this is dark red over olive green. Maybe simplify a bit.
Want to try a few different styles, this one has texture/colour spreading from the front of wing wing but I want to try a couple of styles that reverse this, maybe with spots or blotches on the trailing edge. Might try this out tomorrow night.
Now that I’ve named this colour variant I’ll probably struggle to think up similar for the others 
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A few more styles, mostly to try trailing edge dominant patterns but also a green riff on Skytiger with fighter-plane wing camouflage 
Not particularly content with any of this new batch, not yet feeling 100% so maybe that’s why they’re a bit lacklustre. Still prefer the first Skytiger with grey over tan so that’s probably what I’ll go with, overshot the limit of my attention span with this.
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Couldn’t resist one last go at this. I figured at some point I’m going to have to paint this thing and my previous colour concepts were a bit on the intricate side. So, taking up the noble cause of making life easier for myself I’ve come up with this simpler design
Got some cash coming in this week so I’m ordering a print (probably 1/4th scale), time to put this out there and move on.
Want to get some better paints too, for the bone effect paint-ups I’ve got by with cheap artists’ acrylic but in this case I think I need something with better opacity, the Vallejo Model Color and Game Color paints look interesting.
Colour concept painted with Krita 4.2.8.
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Following a good sugestion from an RPF member, I’ve set up a 2-part stand with 2 variations, the ‘pole’ part is a bit on the tall side so it can be shortened if preferred. The underside of the base is hollowed so that some ballast can be added for stability.
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Between model and stand here’s a peg and hole to hold everything in place, wasn’t planning on buying a stand to test myself though I probably should. I’m also thinking the strut should be beefed to prevent bending under the weight of the model (although SLS prints are light), maybe change to a bar or lozenge cross-section. I’ll probably try a second pass at the stand design during the week.
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A revision of the previous attempt, everything is beefed up and the base has a larger footprint. It’s essentially one of those plastic-kit aircraft stands but that seems entirely appropriate to me.
It’s a 2-part piece, the strut slides into a hole near the front. Base is hollow underneath for adding ballast if needed.
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Another quick pic, the little fin behind the base is intended as a brace and a guide, makes it look a bit Art Deco (IMO). If fact the whole thing is starting to look like a weird hood ornament!
Haven’t made any GIF anims for a while, might do one to demo assembly.
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Coming back to this a day later the stand now looks maybe a bit chunky and intrusive. The thin brace behind the strut will print quite small so I might shorten or remove this part. I suppose if a buyer preferred a more low-key stand they could always make their own and I think this will be the better option for some.
As an alternative I wanted to try a daintier, curvier version of the stand with a reversed-V so yesterday afternoon I set this one up. Calling it the v3 stand. Clearly this virus situation is giving me even more of an excuse to mess about in Blender than usual.
I think this one is a bit more harmonious to the model, not sure if it should be taller though, maybe a little.
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Been under the radar for a while but now I’m experimenting again. Noticed that Blender has a paper-craft exporter so I thought I’d try to set up a paper model of the Dimorphodon. Don’t think I’ve ever made a paper-craft model let alone design one so I’ve no idea how this will turn out. If it does work the plan is to make it available somewhere.
I’ve got as far as making this blocky low-poly version of the model and I’ve been experimenting with the exporter. Results seem promising so far, I’ll try to construct a basic version basic paper version this weekend.
The pastel colours are just a preliminary way for me to keep track of which parts are which, a final flat printed version will have to have some kind of key/part ID system. I’m hoping I can put a painted texture on the finished item.
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Got a bit further with the paper-craft Dimorphodon. Made this manual arrange on to 3 A4s for proof of concept, 41 parts so far but that may go up. Currently the cutout sections are widely spaced because I haven’t worked out where to put the tabs yet, I’ll draw them in pencil while I’m assembling. The final version will really need to be printed on card but I’ll test it on paper first to see how it’s working.
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Always had the greatest admiration for paper craft designers and I never thought it would be easy to just jump in and have a go myself…
…but blimey! This is tricky stuff.
Of course being me I can’t just start with something simple, anyone know any cube shaped prehistoric animals? Oxosaurus?
looking about as tidy as un-ironed corduroy, 75gsm copier paper and PVA far from ideal combo for a paper-craft model. Good enough for this ‘alpha’ test though. Wingspan about 42 cm (16.5 in), that’s roughly 1/3rd scale, might be able to increase slightly if I optimise the A4 layouts.
During glue drying periods I’ve managed to get the texture mostly painted (Blender and Krita) for the cardboard ‘beta’ version. The pattern is going to need much vector pathing and fix-ups to make it usable, maybe get this done this weekend.
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3D model for paper-craft Dimorphodon now with painted texture based on the colour concept from reply #23. I’ve changed the tail markings a little. Just need to recreate the flat layout for another physical test, should be able to fit that in over the weekend.
Underside view, this version will really need to be tested on card, not paper. Pretty sure I’ve got a few sheets stashed in the back of a cupboard.
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Updated flat layout for the coloured paper model. 3 A4 sheets. Hopefully this is fairly close to the finished layout. I’ve added some tabs in test positions based on what I hand drafted for the first test.
No attempt yet at making a key or part identifiers but will be added at some point. Found the card I was looking for, it’s a bit yellow at the edges (unused for ages 
) but it’ll be OK for this test.
Made a couple of turtable GIFs (scene was already setup after texture paint).
Getting closer to release. Almost finished the colour prototype. Smoother assembly second time around, card is easier than paper to work with. As I’ve been assembling I’ve been scribbling down a list of fixes and modifications to be incorporated into the next version of the model.
Made a couple of changes to my logo today, cut down ‘Dinosaur Replicas’ to just ‘Dinoreplicas’ - been heading that way for a while. Also wanted a shorter and more generalised tagline.
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Managed to borrow a smartphone again so I took a couple of pics of the finished paper-craft prototype.
Also got a few vids of it hanging up from the ceiling. Almost finished putting together a short youtube flick using the Blender VSE, not great quality but it’ll show the assembled model. I’ll get that up soon.
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A short vid of the papercraft Dimorphodon
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OK so getting a little bit closer to releasing the papercraft, been working on some instructions this week. Probably should’ve prepped something in 3D to aid this but often it’s just more immediate to grab a pencil and start scribbling.
Was intending to colour and label the drawings in Krita but it’s becoming clear is that for file size reasons, I’m better off using them as tracing bases to vector over. It’ll look slicker anyway. Keyed up a parts list for the instructions, some part names may change.
Revised paper parts and layout, now with part numbers. Tighter fit on the page, managed to enlarge the model a wee bit.
More assembly sketches for the papercraft Dimorphodon, that should be it. Don’t think I’ll need any more but I’ll know when it fits together.
Started vectoring up the sketches
Pushing myself to finish this now, want to release and move on. Doubt it’ll be ready for the weekend but I’ll see if I can at least get it content-complete.
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