Work in progress on the Astro Automatic (Star Blazers) or Cosmo Gun (Space Battleship Yamato).
Based on a sketch found various places online, most of the various garage kits of this pistol have some problems. In the sketch, the barrel appears to be pointing upwards a bit and the grip is too thin front to back and with a straight back strap VS the slightly curved shape visible in the anime. they also have the wrong number and placement of grooves in the grip. The kits also tend to have a too rounded trigger guard. There's one kit that's just way off wrong in so many ways "plus" it has a rough surface texture.
But of course, being a show from 1974 with several animators working in parallel right up to hours before each episode aired, detail continuity was not a strong feature of this show.
So here's my 3D rendering so far, based off the sketch but incorporating details from the show, plus some enhancements like an adjustable rear sight to make it real-ish.
Eventually I want to make a real prop version of it, with functional features like safety levers and magazine release. I suppose for this pistol it'd be a power cell release. The best fit to the grip angle I've found is the magazine for the CZ-75 Kadett .22 long rifle conversion. Now I need to get some dimensions from one of those magazines.
And now, some renderings.
First is the sketch. Rotate it so the frame is level and the barrel points upward. Also the 'gas port' bits on the barrel are off-axis too low. To work from, I rotated it, erased the extra stuff around it and made the canvas square so it'd go on a square plane in tS 6.6 without distorting.
Next is what I did the first evening I worked on this.
Third, the frame and stuff on top is thickened a bit to fit better with the barrel, and grip panels made. There will be some more alterations to the bottom end of them when I do the magazine.
Last, some color and lighting changes to make details more visible, rear sight, ambidextrous safety levers and magazine releases added.
[attachment deleted by Tolwyn]
