How much would this custom prop set me back?
msam921
Posts: 141
So I've been toying with the idea of hiring someone to make me a vintage diary with a lock. Here's a perfect example of what I need: https://www.etsy.com/listing/70058367/vintage-diary-with-lock-and-key
Pretty much, whip up a replica of that and I'll be happy. :D
I'd like the diary to be open-able and close-able, though I'll settle for a static prop if my wallet prohibits it - lol. I'd also like a key, but again - wallet.
I don't care about exclusivity. You can do whatever you want with the product afterwards.
I have no idea what this would cost, or if I could even afford it. Anybody?
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Not confident enough in my modeling, rigging, and UVing skills to offer to make one, but I can tell you how I'd kitbash it.
The book itself I'd just use a scaled version of the Fantasy Book (http://www.daz3d.com/fantasy-book) here at Daz.
Finding the lock gets trickier, as the Fantasy Book is on the old side, so any freebie add-ons are either burried or long gone. Unless you need the lock part itself visible for the render, I'd probably use primatives with a brass shader to simulate it (Cube for the top, column for the button, and planes for the back plate and the part that folds up and clicks into the lock.) I might have enough skill to make a static lock for the Fantasy Book, but I'm not sure I could rig it to open.
For the key, I'd just repurpose a key from another set, probably the Wonderland Expansion for the MFD. (http://www.daz3d.com/mfd-wonderland-expansion-for-genesis-3-female)
Could you use this: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=69696 ?
ETA: Also see your PMs
I started making this...
Its a static prop... can't figure out the lock hinge... looking for an image or something similar... if you can wait a day (I have stuff to do for the rest of today), you can have it for $0000.00... plus chimping and handling (it gets handled by chimps)...(but thats free too)...
EDITED TO ADD...
I looked at about a million images of diaries... But none of the diaries have the kind of lock like the one in the OP image... (iPad autocorrect keeps changing "diaries" and "diary" to diarrhea... Stupid autocorrect)... That one appears to have a closure using a brass flap hinged in two spots... While most regular locks have a leather or vinyl flap with some sort brass end piece with a small loop for the lock bar to pass through... Since I can't really find an image that looks like yours, I'm probably gonna just model a standard one, unless it really matters...
Since I don't really do morphs... (I tried, but they never work right), and books really act more like a soft body, so simple rigging is cheesy (just hinging on a pivot point)... I'm probably going to make an open version of the book too.
If you can make it able to be opened and would be willing to put it in the community freebie section, I would love to use it as well :)
Man, that's a lot of 0's
and probably chimps too
Here is one that is posable but you need to add a posable lock & key:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/66786/browse/11/Poser/20-Page-Poseable-Book
Wow, I wasn't expecting anyone to start making freebies! You guys are truly the best. :D
McGyver, you're off to a great start with that diary! I do have a special fondness for the style of the lock shown in those photos, as that was a common lock used in diaries from that era and I want this project to be historically accurate/nostalgic/etc. I think I might actually have a diary with that kind of lock on it. Unfortunately, the diary is inside a box which is also locked, to which I cannot currently find the key... LOL. I will try to get the box open and take some pictures of the diary I have.
As for taking a book and adding a brass-colored primitive to it, well I suppose I could give that a try. But there will be closeup renders and I have a feeling I won't fool anyone with my crappy texturing.
Thanks for all the great prop links! I've never seen any of them, which is surprising because I thought I had found every diary/book prop I was ever going to find. I love the Fantasy Book as well. There are so few book props which open and have turnable pages - a definite buy for sure!
Okay so after traversing eBay and taking a closer look at that one diary I linked to, it appears that the construction of that and most other vintage diary locks is not a solid metal latch that wraps around, as I thought, but a soft flap that slides into a metal latch on the front. The solid metal latches are apparently a newer design that only became common within the last 20 years or so. That is what my diary (the one I can't get to - and believe me I've been trying for the last half hour!) has.
Here's a great example of the vintage design, lots of detailed pictures: http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-5-FIVE-YEAR-FLOWER-DIARY-with-LOCK-KEY-UNUSED-NOS-/351782475701
And here are two examples of the modern design (I don't know how to insert pictures so URLs it is!):
http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/QtwAAOxyzi9SemM7/s-l1600.jpg
http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/UT8AAMXQVERS2RqF/s-l1600.jpg
Since the first design is more historically accurate, that is the style I would like for the prop, if possible.
Okay, when are you trying to replicate a dairy from, since I think had one of the side locking ones (the "modern" ones) when I was 10 or so... which was 35 years ago. (that really colorful one reminded me of it.) I only really remember it because it was also my first successful attempts at lockpicking when I lost the key. :)
From a rigging perspective, I'd think a cloth one would be more difficult to do, but then again, I haven't done much rigging.
The project I'm working on is set in the 70s, specifically 1973 for this prop. I don't know definitively what design appeared when, but am making assumptions based on the diaries I see for sale on eBay and Etsy. I have noticed that pretty much all the really old ones have soft closures, with all-metal closures appearing on recent vintage (<20 years) and new ones. Sadly you are probably right about the rigging issue. I will pay for the extra work if I have to, or settle for an easier-to-rig design if it's too expensive.
msam921... I like to use dynamite to open locks... it always works. You might be able to find some at the hobby store or pet shop... or wherever they sell dynamite these days. Dynamite Depot?
Megh...
I found an image of the sort of lock that that seems to be on the image you linked to... I also have not read this thread since last I posted...
My daughter has a diary similar to the one in the picture, but the lock is not as heavy as the one in your linked image... I made the model somewhat of an amalgamation of all of them...
I didn't get a chance to texture it yet, these are just basic materials...
Yeah, I just noticed the newer linked images... the locks are not like the first image's... I hope this is okay...
For the cover... are you thinking of some funky 70s material like that flowery vinyl or something more like Naugahyde (AKA-pleathery vinyl pseudo-leather)...?
Hahaha... too bad dynamite is so destructive or I might have used some to get this locker open! It's a miniature school-type locker and it's outfitted with a tiny, very stubborn Master padlock. I love this little lock and I don't want to break it, so I'm just gonna leave it alone. The key will turn up eventually.
Holy smokes, I am VERY impressed! That is looking great, and what a turnaround! I was expecting a four- or five-day turnaround at the least. If only I could be as productive as you...
Yes it is different, and I do still want a diary with a soft flap closure, but your prop is excellent and I will definitely make use of it! I actually need several unique diary props for my project, around 12 of them, so your work is not in vain.
For the flap-closure diary I'm thinking of doing the latter (see my 2D mockup below), but for the prop you made I think a flowery vinyl cover would be cool. I really like the cover of the diary in the Etsy listing as well.
Greetings,
@msam921 Can I recommend the 'Tremendous Twelve Toolkit' from Toool? I actually use small MasterLock locks for pick practice. :)
-- Morgan
Interesting! I had no idea such tools existed. And here I thought my childhood trinkets were secure inside that mini-locker.
Nothing that judicious use of an angle grinder won't handle....
Kendall
Our PE coach used to regularly cuts locks for those of us that forgot our combinations.
I did a little texturing this morning... very basic... and incomplete...
Rendered in Iray, very, very basic stock setup.
Wow, amazing what a difference textures make. The 70s one looks particulalry good.
Hahaha, love the texture titles! Those renders look awesome. :)
Hiya, sorry for taking so long to get back...
I have to ask you to pardon the delay... I'm quite a big nincompoop.
On friday I started getting delusional (it happen a lot on fridays, usually around 7pm EST) and so I decided to try and actually make a morphing book, like with pages that turn and whatnot... only problem is the nincompoop thing... I started doing it using a modified version of the model I showed and that's a bad idea (I should have made a whole new mesh and been at least 120 IQ points smarter before trying it)... but being me, I pursured that and tried to make that work... see, for a while I've been meaning to do a model of an old adventuring log journal that I used to keep... which sorta caught on fire accideliberately a long time ago and when I saw this post I thought... cool, I'll make that!... and from that (your diary) my stupid old log... which in retrospect it's a really good thing it burned, as this world wasn't really ready for anything that was it... But I digress... My point is I wasted a lot of time messing around with that disaster instead of just finishing up the static prop...
So thats what I did with my free time this weekend... which is probably better since it didn't involve any intervention from the authorities like some free time escapades occasionally do... or so I've been told...
Anyway... This is what the static prop looks like, from some texturing I did this morning...
Heh, so while looking for a completely unrelated sourcebook for this weekend's game, I found my old side lock diary from 1983. This is the "newer" style that msam921 has mostly found 90's versions of.
It did not have the funky flowers on the front (that must have been something else - maybe one someone got for my daughter). Instead it had a drawing of a cat by I'm sure a reasonably popular artist of the day.
I can take a few pics and post them if people would like for reference. I also didn't write in it too much, so I can even do some interior pics. :)
As a male I never had a diary, I had a journal. "Don't call it a diary! It's a journal!"
Anyway it was cool to have a place to put all my secret thoughts down. Of course I never wrote in it, for security sake you see.
It's coming along beautifully! I can't wait to play with it. :D
That is very nice of you! I would be interested in seeing that, if you don't mind.
Here you go, a quick selection of pictures, avoiding anything silly 11 and 12 year old me might have written in it. :)
Hello msam921...
Sorry for the delay but due to a very hectic week (my 90 million year old heater in my shop died right in the middle of a casting job... No heat = resin parts that take forever to cure and the tank heaters were not sufficient to heat them under non-room temperature conditions)... (That probably makes no sense, but you probably don't want me explaining that either).... So sorry for the delay...
I posted the closed version, static prop to ShareCG... It's here:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/87047/browse/11/Poser/Cheap-Diary-Temporary-Version
I'll leave that there until I finish the open version which I had already started... I actually textured it, but I didn't like the look of the page ends and kept fuddling with it until late last night when I found out Krita has an awesome Bezier spline line drawing tool, so I sort of made a satisfactory looking texture for that... But I haven't converted all that to DS/Poser...
I didn't have time to test this as fully as I try to with other models, but it seems in order and Poser /DAZ Studio functional... And PC/ Old MAC compatible as well... The model uses Firefly materials for poser (sorry, I only have 2012 Pro) and Iray for DAZ Studio (sorry, I never liked the way my 3D Delight materials looked, so I kinda ignore them)... There are also some stray bump maps in the textures folder if you don't like the normal maps... I didn't test them and they are just straight Filter Forge generations, so they might need futzing with...
I'll try and get back to this in a few days, I hope this is okay for now.
What the model posted should look like:
What the "open" version looked like before I redid the page end texture... Note that the lines don't follow the contours of the page face... the key is still being worked on too...
DaWaterRat, that diary of yours is just adorable! Great creativity fuel. Thanks for sharing. :)
McGyver, please don't apologize! You've already outdone yourself here. The prop looks fantastic and I was totally not expecting such a quick turnaround. I'm downloading the static prop as I type. Thank you so much for your talent and generosity.
McGyver:
That turned out great. What software did you use to model it in? I don't recognize the dashed edge lines for any software I have seen other than PPModeler from many years ago.
DeWaterRat:
When you first stated you have a diary with a cat on the cover, I thought to myself that it is probably the Kliban cat, and sure enough, you produced one with the legendary Kliban cat (Bernard Kliban) on the cover. You can find that same classic diary for purchase over at Etsy. Almost three decades ago, before I started in 3D, I created an acrylic reproduction painting (30X40 illustration board) of one of his illustrations for a loved one. Still my favorite drawn kitty.
You guys can reproduce that diary version as a texture set via Googling Kliban cat...
Thanks for the info, Daremo! I Googled and it appears DaWaterRat's diary was made by the same manufacturer that made the diary in my OP. Interesting. And indeed, the cat diary would be very easy to reproduce.