Ok, I'm going to take this slow.....

Phez made this observation about my prop:

"Like why is the head connected to the slide totally different than the screen used ones? Even the plastic background piece this is based on is not like that."

Now I like to think my grasp of the English language is far from tenuous but even a wordsmith of my calibre cannot decipher this garbled mess.

However, Phez has made himself clearer.

He subsequently posted this:

"You guys I am not trying to debunk the guys props. He did a great job on it period. I am dropping the photo proof question because it just does not matter. Here is what I am talking about. The tube that goes up the center of the headpiece one size all the way through. In the photo (and all of them I have seen) all around where the tube goes into the tip (and the body end of the head) is a flat surface. If you look at the replica on the first page of this thread you can see the rings where two sides of that pin are bigger where they screw in from the center post on the bottom and go into the tip of the unit.

It is a small detail and was probably just another design decision no doubt like the slider was so you could replace the LED or something. Not a big deal."

It's a decent enough question which I have covered previously, but I'll cover it again with much the same patience that a remedial kid needs.

 

Ok. The construction on mine is based on the Penny Howarth made hero prop. The prop picture above is the Aztec 'static' prop (it actually wasn't that static, it can slide in and out).

 

In any case, the way my prop fits together is that the LED sits in an LED holder and the head cage slides on and screws into the ball. This featured a circular join at the base of the head recess below the centre pipe.

Look here at a shot of the Tennant prop from the Visual Dictionary:

The pencil is pointing to the join I refer to. There is also a join on the upper part of the inner recess too. This is where the ball join screws into the emitter head cage. Here is the head without the emitter cage screwed in showing the LED holder:

Mr Jedibugs also reminded me of something else that will confirm I am correct in my observations and engineering:

This picture clearly shows the large upper aperture where an LED holder, such as on mine will fit into. This aperture is clearly larger than the diameter of the central pipe.

Ok, some caveats here. I do not know if ALL the props including the Tennant one had this construction (but based on the above DK pic I know at least one did). I suspect that the hero props do as there were only 4 to 6 heads (including the 3 Aztec heads that I know DO NOT have this construction) ever made that were constantly recycled and mounted onto different bodies. I also cannot say 100% this construction is actually correct as I never took apart the prop. I can tell you that externally, my replica looks identical with the correct joins, the rest I engineered using common sense principles of design, including the LED holder.

For next week's lesson Mr Phez, please bring along some chewing gum. I'll teach you how to chew it.

Edit: Einstein Phez has tried to argue his case by presenting the following two pictures as proof of the absence of the LED holder:

Firstly, the top picture can be discounted as it is the Aztec prop. The second pic is the prop I had access to.

Let me state that the tolerance between the LED holder and the head cage is tiny. Thousandths of a millimeter. The seam is virtually invisible and that close tolerance has practical problems such as galling and thermal expansion (which I solved by making the tolerance larger). Having stated that, let's look at the pics.

Here's a closeup of the head of the second pic:

Can't see anything? Look a bit closer:

See it now? If not, here's the same pic with contrast turned up:

See what I mean? Look and all shall be revealed. I think this what you call, getting 'pwned', lolololol.

The turd that won't flush

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Tennant Sonic Ready for lift-off

After a protracted development I've finally finished my Tennant sonic. Here's some quick and dirty shots to whet your appetite. I apologise for the quality of the shots but it's just gone midnight here and I've got no real 'white' light source except my fluorescent desk lamp. I'll take better shots when the sun comes up but for right now, these should give you an idea as to what I've done:

Here's the grey:

Here's the 'DK Limited Edition' which looks like a grubby version of the Grey one above. I've reduced the yellowness to make this version closer to the grey but still retained enough yellow to differentiate it, ultimately, it's still a matter of aethetics as they both look sensational, if I do say so myself:

UPDATE: I'm canning the yellow sonic. Don't think it's going to fly. Stripping the yellow body down tomorrow.

I'm doing some final tweaks on the crackle pattern this weekend so will be down at the paint workshop trying to reduce the capillary like nature and make the cracks more polygonal: geometric as opposed to organic, as it were. They will be ready for ordering in the next 24 hours, when I update the store and shall be shipping next week.

Allons y.

Peter Davison & Colin Baker shirts sneak preview

Just had a call from my buddy at the clothing factory. They have just finished making these:

He's dropping them over to me tomorrow so should have some more pics for you soon. The correct original manufacturers labels are being made and will be stitched in next week but these are about as correct as you can get. They are 'museum quality' and have been patterned off original screen worn shirts. (Sorry about the color in the pics, the actual shirts have been color matched using a special Pantone colorimeter on the original costumes).

Price will be around the £100 mark. Only making a handful of these so get your orders/interest registered quick.

Edit: Just noticed a small snafu on the Davison shirt. Need to get a couple of bit reversed. Correction should be ready in a day or two ;-)

Burning the sonic at both ends

Some pics of the burnt sonic prop from Smith & Jones on display at the Glasgow Exhibition taken in June 2009 that have been sent in by a reader, both with flash and without:

And one more sent in by one Scouse reader (why didn't you conform to type and nick it?!):

As you can now see, it is a haphazard resin scratchbuild. The color balance is not brilliant as it's taken indoors with artificial light but it  does give a clear indication of the color used, since under low temperature artifical light, yellowness should predominate and the paint should be very yellow. Heritage Gold anyone?

Did someone order another cunt? Coz, another one's just turned up...

By special delivery, 'Orange Blend' posted the following piece of nonsense on the RPF:

"I don't know CT and I don't know Neill. I haven't seen either of these sonics nor will I ever likely be in a position to buy one so you can trust me when I say that I'm not biased in the evaluations I make.

As a trained Director of Photography I can safely say that the pic on the right is VERY CLEARLY a daylight lit photo. To create that convincing a daylight (I'm talking about color temp and softness, not just brightness) takes some doing. Even if it is artificial lighting it's artificialy set up to daylight specs so the color temp is in the proper range to be considered "daylight" lighting.

As I said, I don't know either of these manufacturers but CT is mistaken if he says the right pic is artificially manufactured to make it look more gold. "

Obviously Orange Blend is a numpty who doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. Let me clear up one thing. I have never said Gorton's photo was artificially manufactured. Never. Not once. Maybe I just drowned it out with the sound of my own awesomeness.

Secondly, as a 'trained Director of Photography', he should be fully familiar with histograms, color levels and white balancing. He would also be more familiar with Photoshop than the rudimentary 'color picker/eye dropper' test. A trained DP should know that doesn't prove anything. The color sampler tool should be used as I have done as it gives accurate data in the form of absolute RGB values. He, more than anyone should know that light increases color temperature during the day from angle and height of the sun, dipping at dawn and dusk and then increasing as it gets darker, hence why you have yellow/red light the lower the sun and why sunsets are so spectacular due to blue light scattering. It's far from 'very clear' that it is daylight .

The histograms do not lie. The clearly show an oversaturated pic where red, magenta and yellow display marked clipping meaning they are out of balance and are unusually high. What I believe has happened is that the camera has auto white balanced itself to Neill's hand which has lots of red in it. Normally cameras lock onto a known white source or a 18% grey source to calaibrate itself. In this case, it appears that it has not done so and locked onto the red in the hand and thus knocked white balance off. Do this for yourself: white balance your camera to your hand then shoot a piece of white paper. You will end up with a very yellow piece of paper! As a more extreme example, white balance onto a piece of red paper and then shoot a pic: you will end up with a very peculiar picture.

I have stated that it is a pic where there is a window on the left letting in daylight into an artificially lit room. Without white balancing the camera first and in the absence of a neutral density filter, the high temp daylight will react with the 3500K artificial lighting causing chromatic aberration. Fact. It is also a known fact that auto white balancing does not handle mixed lighting well at all, especially if those sources differ in color temperature.  As a 'trained director of photography' he should know this.

To put this into context, this is the fucking deadhead who wrote the following:

"The photo on the right in Neill's pics is very obviously taken in daylight lighting (5200k+) probably by a large window or even outside whereas Risu's pic is indoors with tungsten lighting (3600k at best). His pic on the left is indoors with flash much like the pic of the replica on the bottom. I think the pic of the replica sonic is a "close enough" lighting comparison to the left pic of the original to show that it's the same colour.

Lower color temps will be more yellow, higher temps will be more blue."

If he thinks the pic could possibly be taken outdoors, where the ground is covered in carpet, then he is an Honours graduate of the 'Ninja' Risu School of Visual Acuity.

Answer me one question, Mr 'Trained Director of Photography', how do you account for the histogram reading that shows low relative blue levels, low relative green levels and high red levels?  After all, "Lower color temps will be more yellow, higher temps will be more blue,"....right?

In case you forgot, here are those histograms again:

Do you want to see a well white balanced photo where all the colors are true? Here is one:

Here is a pic where all the colors are as near to dammit to what the eye actually sees as the light has been properly white balanced and all RGB values are near identical to each other in saturation and hue. Look at the histogram and you will see exactly what I mean:

All values are slightly right of centre which means that brightness is a little high but the important thing to note is that all RGB values are practically equal meaning color saturation is neutral and all colors are true. This being the case, I can categorically state, without equivocation or opinion, that this picture is undoubted the most accurate pic in regards to color yet published. This is not me making a claim: this is cold hard figures. The above histogram does not lie, it has not been altered, it can be confirmed by anyone with Photoshop using the original source file.

Contrast to the previous pic and you will see that the previous pic had serious colour imbalance. Anyone who can deny that especially when presented with a pic where color levels are true, is an idiot. Does this sonic look in the slightest bit 'Heritage Gold'? Anyone?

(Between you, me and the gatepost, I don't think Orange Blend  actually is a 'trained director of photography'. Not sure why I think that, just a hunch....)

"It's like, 'how much more grey could this be?' and the answer is 'None. None more grey.'"

Here a little bit of fun MFX owners can do at home.

Remember this pic of the Season 4 prop in the art department workshop?

Look towards the left and you will see one of these:

Yes, a commonly available twin tip Sharpie with a light grey body! Look at the body of the sonic. Similar grey, right? Now see if any of you can take a picture of the MFX and the Sharpie and get them looking grey as in the above shot. You can't. If anything, having the two together should ram home the fact that they are TWO DIFFERENT COLORS!!!!!! One is undoubtedly in the grey family of colors and the other is in the yellow family of colors. You can see that yellows are not washed out: look at the yellow of the paint brush handle and the yellow of the masking tape.

Your move Gorton.