my_name_is_tudor's interactive painter beta2 figure, suggestions?

[my_name_is_tudor]

Hello, for those how haven't already seen it, my interactive painting program can be found here. It's a flash program, and is free to use of course.

Currently it only has an eldar guardian, but I have just finished (or just about finished) work on a tau firewarrior figure to import across.

I wanted to know what you thought about the figure, because currently I'm having a few umms and ahhs about it..

Well, here's a pic:


The reason for the colours is to help me later on in the process, to define each different paintable area. It also gives you a hint as to which bits are seperate paintable objects and which aren't.

So.. anything you think I should improve before I put this over to Flash?

[Puffin Magician]

It looks good, personally I'd be fine if you lowered the detail considerably - making less individual 'components' colourable - to save you excessive work if nothing else. The figure itself is very good.

I've fiddled around with the Guardian Painter before but only now notice that you've put a highlight "dot" on the waystone... you clever git.

[Eduard]

The tau looks perfect.Although the shoulder pad looks a bit largish. But that shouldn't matter for the painting part

[St.Germaine]

I know he means well, and I know it's more work for you, but I hope that you don't go the "less detail" route with these. While I don't play Tau and won't be using this particular tool, it's your level of detail on the Eldar figure that makes me drool while awaiting the Marine version.

[bloodwraith]

Tudor: if you made an imperial guard one of these i would be your biggest fan ever. I've been waiting for a cadian guard one of these forever.

Help me obi wan kenobi! you are my only hope!

[charlie_c67]

There is a guard one on the GW site somewhere, can't remember is it's US or UK. But it's not as detailed as tudors.

[Kotobuki]

Looks good. With all those details you'll be able to test out all kinds of different combos for Sgts, etc. One thing though, is that I think since you've gone this far, you should break the chest into two different colorable sections.



You can see in the above picture clearly what I mean. The body is broken up into individual armor plates there, which are all seperate. Just a thought.

[The boyz]

I think the Tau looks fine. I just had a go on your Eldar interactive painter. I must admit it is very cool, came up with some wierd and wonderful colour schemes. I know GW does an Imperial Guard interactive painter, but it would be great if you could do one. Especially with the amount of detail you put in to it.

[Anvils Hammer]

the shoulder pad is a little to large (the bigger one), it needs to be smaller, other than that, its aweseom, keep up the good work.

[BaronDG]

Do you mind if I steal that colour scheme?

[my_name_is_tudor]

BaronDG: were you talking to me or Kotobuki?

Kotobuki: Splitting the torso was something I'd considered, I think I will do it after seeing that lovely colour scheme of yours.

Puffin Magician: I'm more than happy to do more detail - in fact, my worry with this figure was that it didn't have enough! Oh, and I wondered if anyone would notice that highlight dot

Eduard, Anvils Hammer: You're right, I'll shrink it a bit

Everyone: After this one is finished, I will be doing a marine one, then hopefully a cadian. After that, probably an ork (but that depends), and then pretty much anything I can be bothered doing. It is highly likely mind that some more new Tau units will be the soonest after the cadian/ork, probably crisis suits and/or stealth suits (the new kind)

I will hopefully be covering all races, and eventually moving into weapons and vehicles - it's just a matter of time.

[A neutral shade of black.]

Only three complaints I have, and considering what's already been done, I think it wouldn't kill me if you ignored them.

1. Shoulder pas is about 20% too large.
2. The neck/chest bit looks like it's one huge recess. It needs to be convex instead of concave.
3. Could you possibly include the rifle with at least two colour areas (stock and barrel)?

That, and I second Kotobuki's request. Other than that, it's brilliant, even if currently the guardian is far better. Still, damn good job.

Edit: Stealth suits would be awesome. And if you go for Crisis suits, mind using the FW ones instead, to go with the XV25s visually?

[my_name_is_tudor]

Weapons I'm keeping seperate. Its one of the things that always annoyed me about the GW painters (and in theory, this is just me making a tool for myself, then sharing it..)

Weapons will pop up eventually, but on their own, as seperate 'figures'. That, or I might make it so that you can include a weapon alongside the figure, laid out a bit like an Index Astartes illustration.. not sure.

The neck/chest thing I didn't quite understand till I peered at the image for a while. I see what you mean now - but unfortunately that is the design of the Firewarrior torsos. They have a sort of.. poncho-esque eliptical piece of armour surround their neck. I think the effect you are describing is pronounced on the image I have posted here because it is light blue on top of the darker blue of the torso - giving a highlighting effect. Another thing contributing to this is the fact that the curve of where the neck meets the torso is stronger than the curve of the front of the neck/shoulder/chest armour. I will change this.

I agree that the guardian is better. Unfortunately this is because the guardians just look a lot 'cooler' when displayed in real proportions. I think if I mucked around with the pose a bit I could improve the effect - but unfortunately Tau leg structure, and the poses necessary to make them look right, are difficult to master.

FW battlesuits probably won't turn up for a long while really, I want this thing to appeal to the 'average' gamer. I expect I'd turn my hand to them at some point, but it isn't on my priorities list just yet. I'd rather get many more of the 'core' figures out first.

EDIT: I am going to make it so the neck/chest/shoulders/whatever bit is always the same colour as the top half of the torso. Unless of course anyone disagrees

[HiredSword.]

works well, wouldn't be surprised to see black gobbo steal it

are you planning to do all the troops in the future?

[Kotobuki]

I would say that, as of this posting, the size of the Large shoulder pad is just about perfect. I don't know if it's been changed since first posted, but as a player of Tau, and having that my figures to reference, the Shoulder pad goes from the chin almost practically down to the waist. If anything, it simply needs to be moved down the arm a bit, rather than shrunk.

[my_name_is_tudor]

I fiddled with the shape of the shoulder pad also, which made a big difference - as for size, I've shrunk it a tiny bit, but not much at all - just enough to get it into 'true' proportion, I think.

Here's the model so far, with the 'standard' Tau colour scheme:


I have split the torso and the feet (into hooves and.. upper hooves), but you can't see that on this colour scheme. I have also added more detail to the eye area. The final real change is the addition of a 'barcode', which will be colourable.

[Kjell]

That does indeed look pretty nifty. It'd be nice if you'd do a Chaos Marine next... In my opinion you should save the Cadian and the regular Space Marine for last since there already is a painter for them. Even if they're not as detailed as yours would be.

[The4thHorseman]

Wow, this is really great. Do you have any future plans for the rest of the races (Nids, Orks, Inquisition, Chaos, ect.)? Or perhaps even an improved Space Marine painter, with quartered and hlaved scheme abilities?

[my_name_is_tudor]

I may put the cadian off for a bit, but I have good excuse to do a Marine - as I pretty much have the illustrator file done already. It all depends.. a chaos marine wouldn't be too difficult.

The4thHorseman: as I said earlier on, pretty much all the races will be forthcoming at some point. Inquisition forces will be much further down the line though, and doing tyranids right will also be quite tricky, so they won't be for a while either.

Anyway, here's a test using Kotobuki's scheme, or as near to it as I could get from the pics.



And here's a Sa'cea urban scheme:



You'll be able to make your own by the end of the week at the most.

[HiredSword.]

excellent! my only slight gripe is that the marking looks slightly out of line to my eye, but thats minor really. I can't think of any other comments that need to be made.