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A couple of random finds

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 2:18 pm
by AndyThomas
This model found me, there's so much stuff out there now the whole world's gone digital! Obviously you can translate as needed.
http://www.taringa.net/comunidades/escu ... omber.html

Also, I haven't seen this cutaway version before, maybe from the Japanese remaster? I'm so behind the times! You'll need to scroll down a bit.
https://howzatoy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/robot2.html

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 4:15 pm
by Crash
I upped those nice big photos of the X-Bomber and Battlecruiser models to the Fan Works > Models folder.
I made that folder quite recently and I kinda forgot that I'd seen those quite a while ago.

The page with the Dai-X cutaway is good. I tried to find out where the images had come from using google translate but it still doesn't really tell you.
Some of them seem to be model box covers since they mention 1/100 scales etc.

The translation mentions the name Watanabe Masami next to the Dai-X image but that name didn't seem to connect to anything when I searched for it.

Anyway, I have a better (better colour tone) scan of it here:
http://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star%20Fleet/Scans

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2017 9:05 am
by AndyThomas
Wow. Just wow. No idea how Youtube linked this to an English language search...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p3xeabXGl8

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2017 9:02 pm
by Crash
That's an amazing find. It could use some post-process polishing in Lightroom though.

Downloadhelper was happy to pull the 1080p version, which we now have for download here:
http://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star Fleet/Fan Works

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2017 6:04 pm
by Matsukami
Hello. I don't see my model on your fanwork. :mrgreen:

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2017 8:58 pm
by Crash
Hi Matsukami,
You're dead right, thank you for reminding me.

I think I need to break the models page up into individual owners/makers in the same way as the Artwork is divided up because there are lot more physical models visible online now than when we used the old X-Archive.
Back then, there were practically none.

I have roughly a dozen images of your X-Bomber model, which, I believe, were originally uploaded to the X-Archive, which was the Coppermine gallery.


Let me just take a slight detour here for anyone that might be interested in why the xbomber.co.uk site is made the way that it is...
That Coppmine gallery was quite good because it ran on collaborative software but that was literally *all* that you could say about it because it was so inflexible and difficult to use and look after.
The other thing was that it was written by a bunch of German developers who were very hostile if you asked them any questions regarding the software.
So that software had to go. I just had to get rid of it and, (to try and replace it), I created the 'Media' content-indexing system on xbomber.co.uk (which, I think, has become fairly good, actually).
It was always fairly good but, now, I think it's getting really good.

The nice thing is that it allows me to index and display any content regarding "The Game, "Star Fleet" or "Other" just using a few blocks of code that I wrote into the site's index.php file. (It also uses SLIR a lot for image resizing, which is the most useful online script I've ever come across).
The other nice thing is that, "what-you-see-in-the-site" is "what-you-get-on-the-filesystem-level".
By keeping the filesystem logical and clean, that's what you end up with on the site.
The Media system doesn't use the site's database at all and that's really good because I found that with Coppermine and with MediaWiki (where we tried to create a locally-hosted Star Fleet Wiki), they would just rename and scatter files all over the place and keep track of their locations in the applications' databases.
If you ever tried to download that file structure (over FTP for instance) you just got an unordered folder, full of a mess of images and files.

Just to let you know about the original Wiki project...
The MediaWiki software was very tiresome to use and editing articles was very, very time-consuming and difficult and, again, it was nearly-impossible to customise.
There was the problem noted above about the chaos it created when you uploaded any files to it.
The other thing was that, at the time, we were using Dreamhost, who are fairly notorious for overselling and thinly-provisioning their capacity and, even after we added only very few pages and very little content to the Wiki, it ran very slowly.
It seemed to need a huge amount of RAM and CPU time and a very fast database server to execute a colossal number of queries, which, I imagine, is why you have such a phenomenal number of adverts on Wikia; enough to bring an i7 machine to a grinding halt when you open their site in more than one tab.
They must need that many flash adverts and dodgy scripts running to pimp enough money to keep the behemoth data centre running that they must need to keep Wikia ticking over.
Long story short: MediaWiki was another of these general-purpose, free web-applications that's designed to try and please everyone and so they end up being hopelessly overcomplicated.

Anyway, where that becomes relevant to why your model hasn't been uploaded, is that, while I was sorting through and re-uploading the content from the Archive and integrating into 'Media', I tried to create a meaningful file structure and with the models, that turned out to be quite difficult and I could never really decide where it belonged until I created (not that long ago) a "Models" folder under "Fan Works".
I came across that custom build of the Alliance Astrofighter for the first time then and it was really well-photographed and I wanted to add it to the site.

So, your model has been massively delayed in making its way back up there because it's been hidden a few layers down in my huge folder of X-Bomber the Game-related data on my desktop.
That folder is about 32GB (and only that small because it doesn't duplicate a lot of content that's uploaded to xbomber.co.uk).


The other thing is that the model is really great and I want to present it on the site in the right way...

I have 4 work-in-progress images, (which are excellent, by the way). I love those.
Some of the other ones are bit oddly-lit and a couple the close ups have gone a bit out-of-focus. There are a couple that were taken just when the model was finished, which are a bit JPEG artefacted (the filesizes are only about 100KB for those).
Is it at-all possible for you to photograph the model and exclude everything else from the images and really light it up well so we can really show off how good it is on the site?

So, if you have a 20MP camera that makes a 10MB JPEG file, I'll take that and I can suggest that you upload the originals to the forum.
You should find that you have unlimited upload quota.
I got a very good deal out of Krystal Hosting for 3 years of unlimited hosting so I made sure that the forum users are not very restricted in what they can upload.

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 10:48 pm
by Crash
Here's something good for you.
They spotted this at some "Wonder Festival" in Japan this year.
The guy made it out of paper.

Image

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Thu May 18, 2017 4:16 pm
by Crash

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 7:40 am
by Matsukami
Hello.
I found on a French forum (we are not too bad in France :mrgreen: ) someone who has done in scratch the bomber x. It is very inspired by my model realized by Laurent Perini.
I am sad now because I no longer have the exclusivity of this model.

Without joking, the step-by-step realization is very interesting (use of cardboard and plastic card).

Only the choice of the final color is questionable, white and red like an x-wing.

This makes me want to realize mine also by my own little hands.
Here is the link.

http://hobbyforever.forum-actif.net/t47 ... ratchbuild
Image

Re: A couple of random finds

Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 12:33 pm
by Crash
Wow, thanks for posting that,
It is a very impressive and actually very beautiful model.

I like how, on the one hand, it's very accurate and yet it gives the ship a nice and subtle modernisation/refresh.

You're absolutely right that, the paint job initially did not improve the look of it. It looked a lot more elegant when it was painted all-white.

I found the finished product here, complete with weathering:
http://hobbyforever.forum-actif.net/t47 ... d-bomber-x
That looks a lot better.

I wonder whether he based his decision to paint the darker areas Ferrari red based on the French comic book series or the Japanese X-Bomber toys:
http://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star%20Fleet/ ... k%20Covers
http://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star%20Fleet/ ... Portuguese

I think, overall, your model is more accurate to the original, Matsukami.


The Fan Works section here is getting wicked these days:
http://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star%20Fleet/Fan%20Works