Two top-mounted turboshaft engines driving a mid-mounted 17.3 m five-blade main rotor.
The body is heavily armored and can resist impacts from .50 caliber (12.7 mm) rounds from all angles.
The cockpit is protected by ballistic-resistant windscreens and a titanium-armored tub.
MODO TIME!
This is for people not used to my 6 month WIP process!
Spending a lot of time on the canopy. ( I mean A LOT of time). Also starting to comfortably use the constrain to background function as a really useful tool. Falloffs are being used more frequently too.
Small update:
Thanks to Adam for allowing me to set this up. Project finishing isn’t one of my strong points and this serves as good reminder to GET IT DONE!
Found out there are a lot of different Mi-24s A,B,C,D and combos!
I think I’m going with the B with the assumption some part errors will be made.
How many ways are there to create the main hull?
1) Grid Box
2) Splines
3) Free style polygons following blue prints
4) Grid Cylinder
5) Tube tool
6) Bridge Profiles
7) Probably a ton more.
I went with the tube tool as the cage was kept clean. I’ll use the profiles as guides to correct tube sizes and position.
Started sizing to the profiles.
Points to mention:
The blueprint shows profiles off center 2-3 degrees. As a helicopter newbie I assume this may be standard design. For creative use I will be centering everything though for easy mirroring later.
How are you determining the horizontal profiles without using the sections provided in the blueprint? Or have you already set up the sections in a way that I’m not seeing?
I simply slide the blueprint to match the position and work in wireframe.
It basically ends up working like just bridging the profiles but this way I keep straight and clean edges. Some of the profiles are egg shaped and some are snowman shaped. They would bridge perfect but mesh would be sloppy.
I’m also using SuperTaut to keep the mesh clean. There is probably an align tool that does the same but supertaut 3d just plain works.
I’m also ignoring profile shapes for parts that will be added later.
Obviously doesn’t look advanced but cut out cockpit area and started shaping other areas.
Its funny, the more I look at Hind photos I’m amazed it got off the ground!. Powerful engines yes, but close-ups reveal “sheet-metal” construction with a billion rivets! The add-on artillery looks “MacGyver’d” on everywhere…
Like I said, visually not a lot of progress but some nagging details straightened up.
FordEdge, what kind of model will this be when it’s complete? What I’m getting is that the actual helicopter pictured above has SO much surface detail that it will take an enormous amount of time to complete a model of it that will look realistic. Just the sight of all those rivets, seams, panels, etc., would be enough to dissuade me from even attempting it!
Thank you for the replies Andrew, its appreciated.
My goal is every rivet possible. I’ve seen your tanks and they look pretty realistic and that detail is what I’m shooting for. Since its just a hobby I treat the WIPs like my own personal lessons and I feel like it is time to raise the bar. Like the shampoo container I take way too long on small details that make ZERO difference in the render but I like to try every workflow possible. Straight square meshes impress me but I’ve seen those Groboto models with more n-gons than polygons render out of this world!
One of the problems is that a Hind is not on display close for reference. Don’t even know if one is in Canada! The other problem is each one seems like a hybrid. A,B,C,D models seem to have parts added or subtracted to suit the job.
Andrew, would SW have any advantage in building this model with the given .jpg blueprints? Without .dwgs is Modo still the way to go for non-precision modelling? I know your surface skills are great so I thought I’d ask.
Did I say EVERY RIVET?
Well from what little I know about modeling in Modo, and judging by what you’ve shown us of the reference material available to you, I would say that I could probably do the main body of the helicopter pretty quickly in SW. Maybe in just a couple of hours, assuming everything goes as expected. 80% of the work of course would be all the remaining details, including at least some of the interior of the cockpit. A surprising amount of that can be done by some clever UV’ing in Modo, which would save you from having to create them as physical features of the model. Unfortunately SW files will import as surfaces consisting of millions of tiny triangles, which makes the model very hard to work with. It’s for that reason that I’ve used Modo purely as a rendering engine when I’m working with imported SW models.
haha, can. not. wait.
Actually Adam, you may want to wait as this project may have me hounding you for some equally cool TUTORIALS!
Sorry Adam.