parakitteh

Given that it has been two and a half months since my last journal entry, and not much less since my last deviation, I figured I sort of owed something.
Not that I believe I entirely warrant an explanation of my laziness to all you lovely people, but it will help give me closure on a week of tying so many loose ends, and an official end to my academic year.

You see, University for me finished on May 30th, 2012. For this year, at least. I can claim it 'officially' ended this afternoon, as not even five hours ago, I left my Halls of Residence for the last time. Emptied my room, and handed in my keys.
The place was a dump, an utter shit tip. But it was my shit tip, a place I could call my own, the lone surviving inch of Valerie. And there, this inch of me remains, the rest having left.
I will always remember Halls fondly. The mess, the drama, the people, the place. It amazes me how I can have grown so fond over a handful of people I shared my floor with, and how much I surprised myself by enjoying living in close quarters with a couple hundred others. But I did, and I may be almost sad to scale down my life to just four housemates next year, whilst my former floor largely lump together in some huge 8-bed student house.

But still. The year has ended, and I am free. For now. In the next two or three weeks, I'm supposed to begin a work placement for a nuclear company. For a first-year undergrad who's not actually been taught anything about the nuclear industry, I reckon I've not done badly there. This'll probably soak up a whole six weeks of my four-month Summer.
But this Summer, I intend to do work of another sort. Around whatever job I manage to scrounge to help fund Year Two of undergraduate study, I will continue my Deviance.
I need to finish the Mod 3 Pitbull, and I'm already planning to ICly scrap it (from Export at least) in favour of a modified variant, the Mod 4. Based more upon the stupidly cool ARX-160 instead of a blend of SG556 and G36, it's gonna be sweet. The Doberman Mod 3 also wants a few more details, to finally replace that lulzy 30" HBAR with a more sensible 25.5" HBAR, based upon actual HBAR dimensions. I'm also considering hollowing out that 25.5" barrel to accept 12-gauge 2.75" shotshells, which a FAL receiver, what this technically is, could theoretically do. In addition, perhaps a shortened version of the Doberman, a 'Doberman 2' (yet another Mod 4 weapon for the Export market?), which would have an action based upon a much shorter system, such as maybe the RFB or a .308 Saiga system. The AR-3 wants a minor touch up, with an action devised, and I've decided to go straight for the SAW-3 Kodkod GPMG, rather than a re-hash of the SR-4 Wraith SRS in Mod 2 glory. It'll end as a bastardised blend of PKM/P and M240 action.

Also coming up, one day, will be the HAV-2 King David battle tank and variants. At the moment I'm working on the technicals behind it, which I may decide to post here. Then eventually to follow will be the art. I aim for it to be just as diverse as ~SixthCircle's HT9A7 battle tank in variant and combat ability, yet be of a distinct flavour.

One day, 'twill all be ready.

I just always wanted to do something with that title. And with less than three hours to spare!

Making progress on the AR-2...'s magazine. (s).
WHY I BE SO LAZEH

The magazines are going to be total and exact rips of the Magpul PMAG this time rather than the AR-1's 7.62mm approximation to the style, being 5.56 cartridges with alternate bullet loads.
sta.sh/0jqlvmrspb4 (the green line shows where the front of the magwell will sit, the blue line where the rear of the magwell will sit)
The choice of magazines is going to be a 30-rounder (an exact copy of the standard PMAG), a 20-rounder (at the minute, it's just a low-capacity curved magazine. Not sure whether to copy the PMAG 20, and make it a straight magazine, or continue with the curved), a 72-round HiCap Casket which looks just as ridiculous as the AR-1's 72 rounder does, and a 36-round casket for bench shooters, carbine users and marksmen. Later to be made standard over the 30 rounder.

IC'ly, since this weapon uses conventional 5.56 magazines, it will be fully STANAG compliant and able to accept any STANAG compliant magazine, including the BETA-C, MAGS-50/60/100 Surefire casket magazines and even good old fashioned STANAG 4179. I'm considering having interchangeable mmagwells, to allow FN, HK and SIG magazines which are not STANAG compliant, to keep users from having to adjust their magazine supply.

The AR-2's the same calibre as the AR-3, so when the magazines are finished, I'll apply them to the AR-3 family too, with adjusted magwells. If I ever get around to the SAW-1 Chimera LMG, that uses the same ammunition too. So as well as a BETA-C ripoff, these mags would be compatible with that.

I'm intending to keep working on the AR-2 until I have a decent outline - then redraw the SR-4 Wraith sniper rifle to current standards. Then, begin the SAW-3 Kodkod GPMG until a decent outline, then redraw and touch up the CS-1 Grizzly shotgun to current standards and scale. I'm thinking I'll keep the 'Saiga on steroids' general appearance, but significantly reduce the bulk.
Then, go back and finish the AR-2, then the SAW-3.

Weapons that require linearting from PMG bases - SR-1 Talon DMR, SR-2-SD Python DMR (integrally suppressed), SAW-1 Chimera LMG, CSW-12 (Crew-served Support Weapon) Viper AMR
Weapons that require drawing from the ground up - SAW-3 Kodkod GPMG, CSW-1 Shrike HMG, CP-1 (Combat pistol) autorevolver (nameless Mateba rip), CP-2 (nameless conventional automatic pistol), and autocannons.

And, whilst I'll retain the SA-XX-YY format for naming weapon systems as company products, to save on title space I'll start using a Russian GRAU-inspired code, for the actual military designations.
Don't worry, I'll post it in an upcoming journal entry Just that "SA-AR-1 'Doberman' Mod 3 Battle Rifle family" is one hell of a mouthful, especially when I ought to tack things onto the end of that like 'WIP', 'WIP sights canvas' or the individual weapons under that family. It'll get worse eventually. Example: "SW-HAV-2 'KING DAVID' Mod 4 (HAV-2-X Mod 2) ILS". Yes, that is a genuine designation of my current-issue MBT.
It'll be so much easier when I can shorten almost all that down to something like "3S12 King David" (random example), and have more room for less-annoying titles

My mood is 'irritated' because Halls are unspeakably hot. Not to mention, I'm probably the last person in all of halls (excepting overseas students), so I'm pretty alone until tomorrow.

Lotta woik.
Also, do you have to be a premium member to use Scrapbook?

Figured I ought to post at least one of these things

So, after me spamming my own DA with the AR-1 Battle Rifle platform in its Mod 3 variant, I still don't think it's finished :') curse my natural perfectionism. So whilst I put most of its tweaks on the back burner (though I think the MAR variant could end up with an overhaul - a shorter barrel to be less lul, and maybe see if that barrel support is actually needed), I reckon I ought to get around to the SA-AR-2 "Pitbull" Carbine rifle.
Here's the original: img577.imageshack.us/img577/26… along with its sales thread: z13.invisionfree.com/SMI_Produ…

This is the one remaining weapon that I actually converted into lineart, but is still in PimpMyGun scale, not in 1:1. At the time I did it, it was the best and most detailed lineart I'd ever done, so let's see how it looks when I bring it up to the standard of the style I've adopted during the AR-1's latest iteration.
After that, I may go back to the AR-3 (HBAR variant is somewhere in the WIP project folder) and tweak it slightly - the AR-1 style evolved out of the AR-3's artistic style, and there aren't a vast deal of changes between the two. The AR-2 and AR-3 are supposed to share magazines, so the AR-2's magazines are to be transferred over to the AR-3 eventually.
Then, after that I'd consider bringing up the SA-SR-4 "Wraith" and SA-CS-1 "Grizzly" (img856.imageshack.us/img856/92… and img98.imageshack.us/img98/6253… respectively) up to modern standards especially since I think the CS-1 is still in PMG scale and not 1:1.

Then, convert some of my older PMG creations into lineart (SA-SR-1 Talon, SR-2-SD Python DMRs, SA-SAW-1 Chimera LMG, and the SA-CSW-12 Viper AMR), and the SAW-3 Kodkod GPMG, which exists as nothing more than a crude sketch.
One day, I'm going to take a leaf out of ~SixthCircle's metaphorical page, and get around to linearting my HAV-2 battle tank, variable turrets (including a SPAAG designated the HAV-3, a bigger and badder ZSU-23-4) and also the HAV-1, a little scout tank/IFV runaround designed to give tanks and infantry alike a major annoyance.

And, one day still, lineart that monstrosity to the Mi-24 I call the HIND-X-2/3.

I have a lot to be cracking on with, so let's get to it!

I'd also like to give special thanks to NSer The Democratic Hetmanate of Solyhniya (www.nationstates.net/nation=so…) for giving me an all-access code to Gun Disassembly 2 (noble-empire.com/proj_gd2.php?…) - a fantastic programme full of painstaking 3D models of firearms, which has not only told me more about how guns work, but how a swathe of the 'FAL' parts in the AR-1 are wrong :')

I'm also going to stop spamming this thing with every WIP stage. I'll start using the st.ash feature for that, and post pieces when they near completion, instead.