November 8, 2010

Daft Punk, Part 3: ReGuy and Disco Programs

So something had been bothering me about my Guy Manuel helmet, and I couldn’t figure out what. Last week I found out what, and it resulted in a quick rebuild of the entire helmet from the ground up. More on that in a moment.

The Daft Punk project (overall) has taken a new turn in light of new material. In addition to doing the entire score of the movie, Daft Punk is making a cameo in the upcoming movie Tron Legacy. Recently some imagery of their Tron Legacy costumes was revealed on the internet, and it got me hyped about Daft Punk in an all new way. I was a huge fan before, but this just adds way more “cool” to an already over-the-top coolness factor. Since we hadn’t invested any time or money into the costumes below the neck, and since the overall look is just a change of color, the decision to alter the project’s outcome doesn’t really cause us to skip a beat.

Photo is Copyright Disney.Daft_Punk

Back on topic. So I was looking at the new Daft Punk material from Tron Legacy, and I realized that my Generation 2 helmet (the fiberglassed Pepakura helmet from the previous posts) was way off proportion. The visor was too small, the ears were far too large, and the overall shape of the helmet was too rigid, too sharp. So I remodeled the helmet in Rhino with more emphasis on the visor, smaller ears, and a more organic shape to the metal parts; and I used references from the Daft Punk poster from Tron Legacy as reference since that is my new end goal.

There are some pretty major differences between Guy Manuel’s Tron Legacy and HAA-era helmet, which piqued my interest in it. First up, the major difference is that it is now silver (like Thomas’ helmet). The other major difference is that the exposed wiring on the back of the helmet is now capped off with a a dull gray plate (to contrast with the shiny chrome), and the open bottom part on the back of the helmet is also capped as well. The other difference is in the detailing in the ears – the LEDs and the switch are gone, and the ear blocks are now flush-mounted to the rest of the helmet instead of being slightly recessed with a bit of a gap showing. The overall changes are very appealing to me mainly because they are actually changes. The other very appealing aspect to the Tron Legacy helmet is the lighting scheme; rather, the fact that the lighting scheme goes against what you’d expect is very appealing to me. You’d expect the lighting to follow his Discovery-era lighting (following the shape of the rainbow patterns), but instead it just cuts right across the visor in a very unexpected way. Some people dislike it because they say it “copies Thomas’ helmet,” but I tend to be more open-minded and think it comes from a different motivation.

Anyways, enough talk. Let’s fight!

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9 comments:

  1. nothing has got me more hyped then when this trailer came out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPFpcKm0B7U!!

    just a note though but i think Guy's helmet still has a gold tint to it. i'm not sure how accurate this pic is but it was at ComiCon: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BMft3rvIu6w/TE7l91BR_wI/AAAAAAAAD_Q/zBaw0vIv_i0/s1600/daft-punk-tron-medicom-toy-2.jpg

    regardless, im excited to follow your progress! cheers

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  2. I've come across better pictures of the Medicom figures, and it is actually silver. I thought it still had a gold hue to it as well, originally, but those Medicom figures put the final nail in the coffin it seems.

    http://tomopop.com/ul/13711-550x-DaftPunkSDCCHeader.jpg

    http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/3224/newtronfri0019127994752.jpg

    http://therenone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NEW-TRON-FRI-0016_1279947489-700x525.jpg

    Of course, being someone who does extensive research on the actual props, I've come to be very hesitant of getting references from toys. Often times the sculptor or detailer is missing the right references themselves, so they fudge it for the sake of getting the product out on time. Or the holder of the actual item doesn't want certain details revealed to the public, so they tell the toy sculptor to leave it out. Whatever the case is, toys shouldn't be used as references in general.

    However! Medicom really does their subjects justice with their figures, across their entire line. They are given accurate references to replicate and often times have access to the real costumes in order to build their figures. So as far as a toy goes, I trust Medicom's judgement.

    It's just really difficult seeing Guy's helmet as silver. You WANT to see it as gold, so your brain tends to want to put a gold hue on it. And then you have lighting to worry about it on top of that. But all the references I've seen so far point to it as being silver.

    I'm still far off from having it plated, though. So new references could pop up later that blow Medicom out of the water. I have my doubts on that happening, though, since the gold would go against the color schema set up for the blue/white-lighted characters in Tron Legacy. I think they made Guy's helmet silver intentionally to fit within that color schema.

    Good comment, though. I was right in line with you when that initial photo came out.

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  3. "It's just really difficult seeing Guy's helmet as silver. You WANT to see it as gold, so your brain tends to want to put a gold hue on it" - exactly!

    I just have to say though that this is really cool what youre doing!

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  4. you were right! i just came across this image of the Medicom figures here and you can clearly see it as silver!

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  5. Awe man, $229 each? I thought it was going to be for the pair (and thus a steal). Oh well. There's always the Kubrick figures. LOL.

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  6. I have a question, i would like the pepakura programs you use please. I've been playing on making these since fanime and was going to be daft punk with my friend, just the models you have for the pepa program seem to have more detail and i would like those.

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  7. HAA era helmets were still silver and gold. These are more so of TRON-specific helmets, probably designed by Disney to fit the movie more.

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  8. May i please know whom i may contact in getting one of these daft punk helmets made , my gf really wants one =(

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