A few years ago (before I discovered blender) I was really into zoids. Zoids are these robotic animal war machines.:yes: I collected the model kits. Recently one of my old zoids surfaced from the depths of “storage”:spin:. I was playing around with it the other day when I though, “modding this thing in blender would be a great way for me to improve my skills!” So here I am, modding it in blender:
Decided to make the claws next:
things always look better slightly rounded edges because there are no perfect edges in the real world. and if you rounded all the edges on your model youd have done better that the people that mad the shows did.
Hey, i think i have a few of the old comics imported from Japan. The art in those things were neat. I could be thinking of something else, but that comic also had animal themed giant robot warrior things. Ayway, looks cool. Show a vewport grab of the wires. I think the subsurfed version looks better, especially at the edges.
Thanks for the replies!:eyebrowlift:
The head is subsurfaced as well. I’ll keep the smooth claws; thanks for giving me pointers there. Keep in mind though, that I’m modding the toy and not the anime robot.
Also, I wasn’t sure how to spell “Unenlagia”, so correct me there if I misspelled…
Here are the wires:
If your modeling the toy, are you going to put the creases where the parts connect? like on the head the line across the center that shows where the top and bottom meet to hold in the ball joint. I used to have them so I can remember having this line and it always pissed me off a little inside.
lol, I though about doing that, but then decided that I didn’t feel like it. I never liked the line either. 
I’ll think about it, probably try it to see what it looks like, and if I like it.
So I’ve started working on the arms:
[edit:] OK! Finished the arms’ insides, added rubber to joint, and positioned it with the head and claws:
I was almost finished with the machine guns that attach to the zoid’s arms when blender crashed; just randomly. 2 hours of work just went down the drain. I’m really angry about it. I might stop this project. Does anybody know why this happened? I was extruding on the lower section of the gun, and suddenly the error report pop-up came. I wasn’t doing anything fancy.
Oh well. I’ll see if I still have intrest in this project tomorrow. Right now I’m still in shock. I’ll go play some metroid 3.
thats not very lucky… 
I decided that since I was already so far with this project, I would re-model the guns.
Model so far:
Just the guns:
A close up of the gun:
And a wire:
You may have noticed that the two little holes near the bottom of the gun look kind of twisted and deformed due to the subsurf. I’m not quite sure how to fix this. I do realize that subsurf hates all the triangles I used around the holes. But I don’t really want to re-model all that. If anybody know a quick and easy way to fix tha tit would be great. Otherwise…otherwise it’s OK; you can only see it if the camera zooms in anyway.
Thanks for viewing! Any C+C appreciated.
Looks nice. I once started something like this too but got stuck in the middle since I have none of those toys and small images from the web from odd perspectives make it nearly impossible to do something accurate to the original if you have no clue about them. 
… The .blend is still around though.
One of those “will get around to it someday” projects?
I have a lot of those.:yes:
It really helps if you own the model kit. I can take all the reference shots I want, can hold it in my hands, feel it, you really get to know the toy. It’s a way different experience than using one reference image. Even if it’s a good one. You don’t have to improvise at all. Instead of, “Oh I can’t see the arm from this angle!” or, “hmm… can’t tell what that is.” I can just say, “Oh! The pic I took wasn’t clear there, what does the real toy look like?” You know? Big difference!
Thanks for Replying!
Yeah, that’s exactly the problem. I kept guessing at more and more parts and got frustrated. I started this project as a “high detail” project since on the pictures those things looked damn complex. Just recently I found some high resolution photos somebody took but I did not get around so far to pick it up again. Most probably it itches me again once I want to do some ingame cockpit tests… on of the fates I had in mind for that particular model before the project took its own course
It’s completely insane how much detail one could add to my project. Let alone one of those liger or t-rex-type zoids. I could not imagine attempting one of those without a real-life replica in front of me. They aren’t that expensive though. (5$-40$) If going into a toys-R-us store and buying one isn’t too embarrassing (zoids are meant for 6-year olds after all) you’ve got a month of fun blender work ahead of you. In fact, I might just do that after I finish this one.
Because I’ve had more fun with this project than with any of my others so far.
Hehe, no time for that and besides that stuff is not existing around here. Ask somebody in a toy shop what a Zoid is and he’s looking at you like a cow during a lighting strike. Maybe I also picked the most heavy brute I could… ( images, never shown before ). :o
there’s much potential in this one…
lol…moo:p
You could order them online. Just look it up on amazon. And those images look amazing! They make me feel small.:o I think you should definitely think about picking the project up again. If you do, and feel OK about it, we could combine projects. We could make one big image of them fighting, or even an animation. I think that would be really cool.
Anyway, today I managed to get another good hour 1/2 of blender in:
the zoid so far:
The Cockpit by itself:
And a wireframe:
I’m having some issues with the subsurf again, are they too obvious?
Also the zoid is part of the “blox” series; meaning that it will be connected with five blocks. I haven’t modded them yet. I will soon. In case you were wondering how it is gonna attach…
As usual any comments or critiques are appreciated.
Yay!
