Topic: spudafett's vehicles (last update: mando speeder video!!!)

[spudafett]

I think I have decided on a natural patern to emulate for my dewback.  This is a native desert lizard to the american west, the collered lizard. 
Famously the collered lizard has a bright yellow head and blue body, but that is just the males, and the patern is most brightest during mating season.  the females more drab coloration and pattern are what I want to emulate:
the more colorful version:

what I want to be more close to:




I'm thinking that I might be able to simulate the look of scales if I meticulously use thick drops of paint on the dewback instead of brushing on the pattern as a whole... it'll be like making the pattern out of individual dots.  I figure if I use some of my tinyest brushes it MIGHT look like scales when the individual dots of paint dry.... 
it'll take forever if I do it that way though....

[Helix88]

not realy a vehicle but it's for transportation so I'm putting it in this thread.

after cloneheads comment about the dewback and my nile monitor being so similar, and if the dewback had the same coloration it'd be hard to tell the difference, I've decided to customize the dewback.

to start with I wanted to attempt opening his mouth.  I took my exacto knife and sliced open the mouth along the groove of his lips.  I then trimmed it up a bit and got this result:


as you can see the head is hollow, as is the body I'm sure.  this makes it very interesting...  When you squeeze the head like I am in the picture his mouth will open wider.  I don't know yet how I might add to the mouth's inside, but I'd like to be able to add teath and a toungue of some kind.  I need to do some background research on the dewback and see if there is any established information on it.   I know someone mentioned somewhere that the dewback was suposed to be herbivorous and NOT eat my rebels.... so I'm thinking baout adding some kind of crushing or grinding teeth to the inside of his mouth.

I havn't figured out HOW i'll do that yet though.

my second plan of action on this is to paint a diamond pattern in black and grey colors along his back to simulate a more scaley apearance....  I'm not sure yet though if I realy want to do this as I don't think it's cannon...  but that has never been a real issue with any of my other customs! lol

I have a book excusivley about the wild life of starwars that has quite a bit on dewbacks

[spudafett]

I've looked up a little bit about that book, thanks helix.  Does it depict the dewback with any other coloration?

[StenHunter]

Spud you're talking about Pointillism. If  you're going to do this, try it first on a test subject (like some sheet plastic) and see how a section of pattern comes out.

You'll have to work small and I'm not sure how scales on leathery base texture will look. However, I think you have got the right idea here and I can see where you're headed with it.

KEEP IT UP and STAY ON TARGET!!

[spudafett]

Spud you're talking about Pointillism. If  you're going to do this, try it first on a test subject (like some sheet plastic) and see how a section of pattern comes out.

You'll have to work small and I'm not sure how scales on leathery base texture will look. However, I think you have got the right idea here and I can see where you're headed with it.

KEEP IT UP and STAY ON TARGET!!

sten... I don't then I'll be able to pull off what I want with that technique, the more I think about it the more I think it'll just be too dificult.

What I'm thinking about doing now is using spray paint and using globs of rubber cement glue to cover areas that I want to keep certain colors, much like the way HB did his hovercraft.  I am hoping that the rubber cement will give it a natural looking shape as well as be able to form the shapes that I want done.

I think I'm going to start with a base coat of rust brown, do a few rust collored stripes by coating it with the glue, then come back and give it a light spray coat of black.  then come back and do the undderside a more prominant white.   Then do white spots by hand...

the other option would do the entire dewback in white primer FIRST, then make the white dots show through by dotting it with the glue...  thenn go back and do brown stripes, and finally give the back a light coat of black over it all...  and then do touch ups where necessary by hand.

I'm hoping I don't ruin the dewback though....  does this sound like a good idea to you guys?

[Clonehead]

Makes me nervous just thinking about it. Good job on opening the mouth. I'm with you in that I wish they would have molded some scales on the new one. I think it would have made it a bit easier to paint if there were some drybrushig to be done.

[narceron]

well... I owe my parents a good sum of money now for a variety of things... and I'm going to have to start paying on student loans soon...  And I don't have a job (yet...)... so, yeah... not having a source of income sucks.

I have been out of school for ten years, only  paid on that thing for a year and a half, there are ways, my friend.

[StenHunter]

The good news is that if you screw it up, you can just spray paint it a new base coat again

Try your idea out on some cardboard first... at least the color combinations.. nothing lost for practicing. Or have HB photoshop up your idea? =)

[spudafett]

lol sten I was actually messing around with a photomanipulation of the dewback myself last night but couldn't get it to do what i wanted it to... 

guys I got another question for yall to mull over while I work on this project.  yesterday I picked up an obi-wan's jedi starfighter, the longer one, at the flea marked for $9.00.  Seemed like a good deal so I couldn't pass it up.  I figure I can customize it and sell it on e-bay (or keep it if I like it enough!).

but I'm at a loss for ideas.  anyone got a good idea of what I should do to it?  and I don't want to just paint it another collor and call it another jedi's ship.  I want to modify the ship so that it looks different too.

[Helix88]

I've looked up a little bit about that book, thanks helix.  Does it depict the dewback with any other coloration?

i think there was an albino in somewere there but whos to say that theres only 1 species on all of tatooine

[spudafett]

helix from what I've read up on it there are at least 3 documented species.  the normal docile dewback, a mountain species, and an agressive variation of the regular ones which is "canabilistic" and will eat just about any small animal including it's young.

[Helix88]

helix from what I've read up on it there are at least 3 documented species.  the normal docile dewback, a mountain species, and an agressive variation of the regular ones which is "canabilistic" and will eat just about any small animal including it's young.

cool, i figured there had to be more, thinking of them being a large lizard, i can just picture a 3 ton male doing terretorial pushups and throwing a rider flying, LOL

[spudafett]

I picture a male doing the whole lizard head bob/push up thing.  that'd be great.

I read that during the mating season all dewbacks have an urge to return to the same place to breed, and even domesticated ones have to be let go so they don't hurt themselves (or their owners) while they fight the instinct to breed....  pretty interesting but it raises the questions about dewbacks which are taken offworld...  what happens to them? do they know if they aren't on tatooine?

[spudafett]

i decided that the way I was going to attack this project is to first paint a coat of black on JUST THE TOP of the dewback... then come back with brush on paints and paint on my patterns.  The bottom of the dewback will be left it's original color.

here is the black on it so far:



created ann interesting effect didn't it?

[TheCloneCommander]

it doesn't look too bad Devin!!! the way you were talking you almost had me convinced it wouldn't work but its looking great so far...