Tuesday, February 26, 2013

New Team Member Announcement!

Big announcement today!  Of the Ash Tree welcomes ClayCannonII to the staff!  Clay will be the one performing all builds on Gunpla, Plamo, Mecha and other plastic models.  For quotes and commission inquiries, you can still contact us at oftheashtreegks@yahoo.com and any Gunpla, Mecha, Plamo inquiries will be forwarded to Clay.

 

>> Hey my name is Clay, hence the name ClayCannonII.  I have joined the team to provide excellent gunpla and other mecha model building work to you guys.  For contact info you can still email us at oftheashtreegks@yahoo.com.  Here's a bit of my work, hope to hear from you soon.<<













Friday, February 15, 2013

Phantasy Star Online FOnewearl GK Mod - Part V

It's been a long time coming and it looks like Cranberry is finally nearing her finale!  I still have some work to go but a majority of it has been done and, asides from the hair/bow, weapon and bracelet, she only has some minor tweaks before primer.

Here is more work on the skirt.  Last update, it was still in two pieces.  They have since been heavily sanded down to shape, pinned and glued to the waist section, below that "belt" I made I made on the waist before.  Now, that leaves gaps between the skirt pieces and the waist.  Oh, not to mention that the skirt is suppose to be one solid piece, so I had to be creative and use clear overhead transparencies again.  I glued a small section in the front and back of the skirt, connecting the two pieces I'd attached.  I then covered over the plastic with putty, smoothing it onto the separate skirt pieces.   It has all been smoothed out and I've been fighting with etching the panel lines and filling pinhole (god, they are like 30 more every time I sand >__>)  So, here are the progress pics on it... (*As always, click for larger images.)




 






 

Next up is more work on the weapon, the Windmill.  I have a PSO artbook and, amazingly, in the back there is an actual drawn reference for some of the weapons!  I used it for reference and drew the design on the handle in pencil, then I went over it with permanent marker.  I've begun etching in the details but I haven't photographed that part yet.


 



Ah, now we get to the boots.  They've been a bit of a pain because of all the pinholes I've run into lately, but otherwise they've shaped up nicely.   Last time I left you, I hadn't started the platform part of the boot.  I'm much further along than that now ^__^  I used masking tape around the foot and filled in the bottom of the foot with putty.  Once cured, I drew a ling around the tape where I wanted the bottom of the boot to be, I trimmed the tape to that line and then sanded the boot down to my drawn line.  This leaves quite a bit of nasty gaps on the side, which then had to be filled in and sanded smooth.  I also built up the pointy toes of the boots and sanded them into a nice shape.











Once the sides were smoothed out, I drew the reference lines for the jagged tooth-like V design around the platform of the boot.  The line was then marked in permanent marker and etched.  Wow, lots of pinholes.  I have since puttied and re-etched about 5 times, each time revealing more pinholes.  I think they're more or less done now, but I don't have photos since the last time I worked on them.


 ^ The top pencil line here has since been etched as well.  The second line was simply for marking the height of the V design.








Here is the current result so far, with tons of tape holding her together, as some of her parts still don't have pins.

Another update is coming soon, as I mentioned I've worked on quite a few parts since these photos were taken, as well as having started the front part of her hair!   More to come soon ^__^



1/5 Persona 4 Protagonist/Shujinkou - Narukami Yu

I got this done in a relatively short amount of time, but I was delayed because of my recent move and having the flu a while back.

This is a commissioned kit of the Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4 Protagonist/Shujinkou, Narukami Yu, by Little Pink Summer.  This particular sculpt is based on Persona 4: Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena. The customer sought me out as a SMT fan and I was pleased to work on the kit. He was an excellent original cast, though the decal for his collar pattern was really horrible. The proper collar pattern and Persona 4 Arena logos were cleaned by a friend, who also printed the logo, while I printed the collar myself; Unfortunately, the P4 Arena logo had to be cut by hand because it was a paper printout, not a decal and needed white in the logo. So I had to cut out all those little "broken glass" pieces individually and apply them by hand o___o I was requested by the customer to give him a slightly transparent shirt, darker hair than shown in P4 Arena and to give him the dark gray school uniform.

There are many different incarnations of Persona 4...from the original in-game, the original artwork by Shigenori Soejima, Persona 4 Arena in-game models, Persona 4 Arena artworks, Persona 4 the Animation...the list goes on. In each of the things I've mentioned, slight things are colored differently. So, I let her choose the colorings she wanted for everything, since it was so open to subjection, and we came out with a very nice Narukami. As always, I based the eyes off the official artwork for the games and animation. I was kind of scared to do the extra line under the lower eyelash line, which is becoming more common in anime, but it came out well! I was requested to make a square base for him with a bright yellow main color and stripes in other bright colors, in varying widths. This mimics the game menu for Persona 4, as well as most advertisements for the game; I had to painstakingly mask each individual stripe o__o Glossy finish on the base was achieved by using a clear resin pour-on glaze. The hamon (wave) down the blade of the sword required hand-cutting masking tape and applying; it was a pain but the result came out nicely. Eyes, gray for the collar, white details on the sword handle, belt gold jacket buttons, belt, buckles/shoe buckles, uniform panel lines and stitches were all handpainted; everything else is airbrushed, including highlights. Mostly Tamiya Acrylics and Vallejo Acrylics, with some washes, drybrushing and shading done in pastels. Alclad II was used for the gold and silver(s) on the sword. In the pictures, sorry about the backing paper not fully covering in the shots; he's a really large kit, around 1/5 and very tall, so I had a hard time photographing him. *As always, click for larger images.

Anyway, please enjoy my fifth completed GK, the Protagonist/Shujinkou from Persona 4, Narukami Yu.






 

 

 

 




 
















 




Abs and Eyes are partially hidden in by the model itself, so these are shots I took before assembly.