Squat Heroes and Cyber Slayers

After many offerings of beer and ale to the Living Ancestors, I got them!

Final Back to the Future: Time Travel Diagram

I know its late but I finally had some time to kill. I think you'll find it interesting.

Back to the Future: Time Travel Diagram

Dogsheep

Sometimes I give my doggo half a hair cut and the result is a little Dogsheep :-)

Ferris Bueller’s Day of Consequences

Having sat outside many a Principles office while a meeting was going on inside about me, I’m fairly certain Mr. Rooney wasn’t just going to forget about that day and pretend it didn’t happen. What Ferris doesn’t know is that Mr. Rooney saw his attendance record change on his computer screen. His plan would have most certainly unraveled starting the next day. Cameron and Sloane are fucked too. Like so…

Mr. Rooney checks the written attendance records and confirms Ferris has been absent 9 times. Backups of the database show that the previous day’s record was 9 absences. The computer logs show that a modem connection was made to the system prior to the record change. Mr. Rooney has to report this to the school board; this is a matter of the state now. An investigation is launched. 

The Tel Co is subpoenaed to disclose its records that show the call was made from the Bueller house. Ferris is suspended from school. After that it was pretty easy to get a warrant to confiscate any computer equipment on the premises, and arrest Ferris Beuller. Analyses of the equipment indicate Ferris used stolen credentials. Charges are brought up against Ferris for “unauthorized access of a state system”, “tampering with state records”.  Ferris does not graduate from HS and is sent to Juvenile Corrections. 

Cameron’s father rightfully pissed about his destroyed property would have just sent him to boarding school for this but his “gotta take a stand” attitude really pisses his father off. He gets disowned completely. He gets cut off and kicked out of his cool ass house. His father is no longer paying for his education so Cameron does not graduate this year and must transfer out. Cameron has a breakdown and completely sells out Ferris and Sloane. His father charges Ferris and Cameron with grand theft auto and destruction of property. Cameron is also sent to Juvenile Corrections.

For cutting and participating in Ferris’ activities Sloane is suspended for the rest of the year and does not graduate. She is also not allowed to return to the school and must relocate. Her parents livid about that and the dead grandma lie.

That’s probably what would have happened had I tried to pull that shit.

Also, ever wonder why Abe “The Sausage King of Chicago” Froman didn’t show up for his dinner reservation? What happen to the sausage king of Chicago?

GERWALK mode

GERWALK mode is my favorite mode of the VF-1. The happy accident that happened when a robot humped a jet fighter.

I thought getting to gerwalk mode was going to be a lot easier. Turned out I had a lot more work to do in jet fighter mode. The arms are pretty well hidden in fighter mode, they got some much needed attention to detail. The shoulders got some added mechanics of my own design; the flap on the side to hide the gap turned out nice and the vents on top open up (not pictured yet) for a neat effect. The bicep looking detail was added the arms to break up that surface area.

It was an inspiring moment (many years ago) when I visited a manufacturing automation convention that I designed the hands. I turned the robot arms (think welding arms in an auto assembly line) into fingers by attaching five to a base. They came together fairly quickly and back then I did not want to try and model the rounded out hands normally depicted. The hands are fully articulated just not animated yet. When I do get to working on the hands again I will add the servo arms that come out of the fore arm. That will be another post.

The legs needed the most work on the joints. For now they only have the toy based action at the knee and hip. Full articulation at the hip, knees and ankles is going to be a good deal of work. What I have in mind for the those joints is different then how they are usually depicted in toys and cartoons. I will have to address that when I get started on battleoid mode.

The majority of my time was spent on surfacing this bad boy. Surfacing turned out to be pretty hard and this thing has a lot of surfaces. I am basing the paint job on a combination real word references, the toy and the cartoon (Max's Colors). It is as realistic as I can get it, I could keep working on it but one must march on.

 

Not surprisingly my model comes in at a height of 37"6' (11.5 meters) as apposed to the official height of 28'6" (8.7 meters) That is a whole story difference! 

Mr. Max Sterling

Here we have Max Sterling based on your standard GI naval aviator. Max's color scheme from the cartoon was applied  to the pilot suit. The flight gear was cleaned up a bit but I left the flight jacket on for a more functional rather than the stylish look. Don't get me wrong, the cartoon costumes were baller.

I'm not going to try and rock that collar tho. The helmet and breather are touched up a bit with cartoon details. I always assumed the visors in the cartoon were designed to show the mouth moving in the animation but they always looked unwieldy to me. I will use a standard looking visor and breather. I may try to make a full visor in the future but I'm afraid it might look the helmets in "Stealth". If I have to pick a look, I like the breather on.

The cockpit is not as cramped as most fighter jets. I did that to get some nice shots of the pilot working the controls. Everything is with in arms reach and pretty functional looking. I will have interior shots once I light up the buttons and design some control panels.

More shots

VF-1 Size and Scale

A long time ago, I set out to make a 3D model of the 1/55 Ban Dai Valkyrie. I succeeded. I had a perfect toy size replica that needed to be scaled up to human size. Before I added the cock pit I mocked up a 6' pilot in the seated position (back then he looked like the Minecraft guy) and scaled up the VF model until he looked like he fit. The size I settled on was 63'10" long. This was years ago, it did not occur to me to look for the official specifications. I did look up the specs for the F-14 and at 62'9" my VF has 13" on it. That made sense to me. Bigger. Badder.

Now.
Look at a model of the star of the movie "Top Gun" the F-14 Tomcat. That pilot is not tom cruise, this guy is 6' tall. You see how it looks like the cockpit works? It looks like a pilot will fit and a REO too. There is room for the landing gear and everything.

Look at the VF model at the specified "official" length of 46'.7" (14.23 meters) compared to the F-14. At first glance I would buy there is a guy in there and that this thing can transform into a giant robot.

But look at the pilot in this scale. It doesn't look like it works. He barely fits. The pilots feet and legs end up in the wheel well. We still need room for a seat (maybe two), instruments, landing gear and robotics. I am all for advanced miniaturized technology but this doesn't work for me. In my tests it just looked ridiculous and not realistic.

Take a look at the VF at F-14 size 46'.7".  It starts to look better. The cone sizes start to match up. The pilots feet aren't on the floor. There is even room for my super awesome cockpit!

In my measurements and test many, many years ago I arrived at the length of 63'10" have a look. The cockpit and ejector seat details are in the picture and it looks like it works.

Compared to the F-14 in this scale the VF-1 looks more imposing , more bad ass. It looks like it can kill some aliens.

Interestingly the wingspans also matched up at this length.

Has this been an issue with anyone else making a 3D model? I can't imagine any of the other Valkyrie toys would do much better at 64'. Other specifications need to be reexamined, Weight and Thrust to weight ratio? There will definitely be new measurements when the model transforms to ger-walk and battle-oid mode.

Well there you go. I put it out there for discussion. Should I petition congress to make it official? No. They can't get anything done. Internet gets stuff done.

Revised measurement;

        63'10" Long     63' wingspan  24' Tall