Fan:NovaHawk's custom stuff

Customs Article

This article describes a custom creation, custom theme, or other fan material, made by a Brickipedia contributor. It has never been, is not, and will not be officially released.

NovaHawk's custom stuff

Creator:	NovaHawk

NovaHawk's custom stuff is the imaginately-titled theme for custom stuff made by NovaHawk.

2017

Previously I took photos from websites and put the images together in Photoshop, but most my time was spent trawling through stacks of images trying to find the various pieces at exactly the right angle, and most of the time things never worked out. Turning coloured parts black or white, or cropping out white parts on a white background was also a nightmare. Instead, I'm taking screenshots in LDD of a minifigure at exactly the same size/angle and then touching that up in Photoshop before starting the custom. This means things will probably come out a lot more cartoony, but I can make more things the way I want and do it faster than before.

Super Sentai/Power Rangers

I'm going to do a few teams from Power Rangers or it's Japanese couterpart, Super Sentai. Why? I don't know, I feel like it. I'm not a fan of how the shape of the helmets turned out, but when you think about the structure of a minifigure and how wide the head is, I can't come up with a better solution.

Starting with Shuriken Sentai Ninninger/Ninja Steel. This is (I think) the current Power Rangers series, it's also the first series of Super Sentai I watched (it's still a kid's show in Japan, but it's much more mature and I find it actually watchable). Anyway, starting with AkaNinger/Ninja Steel Red. I was planning to move on to the blue and yellow suits after that. But even though they're not part of the main team, two of the three other AkaNinger are much easier since it's just a small colour change so I got those out of the way first. These two suits don't currently have any counterparts in Ninja Steel.

Super Sentai: Tsumuki Igasaki, Takaharu Igasaki, Yosiharu Igasaki
Power Rangers: Brody Romero (middle)
Reference pic

Random stuff from the past


Skylor (wave 2 2016 robes)	Luna Lovegood (Ravenclaw uniform)

Comments (3)

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BerrybrickLegendary Brickipedian

95 months ago

Score 0

Yay, more Nova customs! :D

I liked your old way of doing things (Skylor and Luna both look really good; I'm glad they are still here), but I can't disparage LDD figs. :P I haven't got any suggestions for a better way to do the helmet. Maybe printing on a regular head would work, but I'd understand why you wouldn't want to go that route. Also, there should be a torso on LDD (I think it's Mini Torso 2K or something like that, but I don't remember for sure) which will let you paint the arms two different colors. There is a set of legs like that too, but it doesn't always work. There are also some secret capabilities on LDD that I can help you unlock if you're interested, such as turning off part collisions or altering the RBG values and textures of colors (they have different schemes, but I think it's noticeable how much more vibrant Tahu is than Lenore).

Sorry that I couldn't help but give advice. :P The figure is really good. I like the detail on the sash and the print on the helmet a lot. I look forward to seeing more Rangers in more colors. I don't know the franchise well enough that I'd recognize most villains, but if Rita shows up I'll be a happy berry. ;) :P

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NovaHawkLegendary Brickipedian

95 months ago

Score 0

Hahaha I never even thought of villians, but I'll have to try Rita sometime :D

Yeah, I can't say I'm super happy with LDD and I'd prefer proper images. What I was originally intending to do was render the LDD images on a program to make them look much more realistic. But, ever since I "upgraded" my computer's operating system, most of those programs as well as even Mecabricks cause my computer to crash after a minute or so and force a restart :/ I may end up going back to the old way I did things, or maybe try taking some photos of plain one-color minifigures myself.

I did consider just using a head because it's probably a better shape, but yeah I like to imagine there's a person's head underneath the helmet which is why I went with the helmet piece. Thanks for the tip with the 2K torso- I did see that after I updated LDD but just ignored it thinking it was a duplicate part. That'll definitely make arms much easier to manage in the future. And any help with getting better colours and getting rid of collision detection would be great, thanks :)

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BerrybrickLegendary Brickipedian

95 months ago

Score 1

I've wanted to try using a rendering program for years but I've never tried. I'm working on a MOC right now and thinking I might try that; it has some transparent parts and layering which I think will be lost in regular LDD images.

I'll find the Developer Mode guide and then write more specific instructions for color values over the weekend. :)

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