Yes, I saw the ads, and yes, I bought the CD for "Twelve Girls Band", the Chinese group of musicians that have hit the spotlight. Now I want to do an image derived from the girls and their instruments, and I was wondering if anyone has seen 3D models, Poser or otherwise, of the instruments the girls use:

Pipa - four-stringed lute with pear shaped body
Gu zheng - ancient zither with movable bridges and 16-25 strings
Yang qin - Chinese hammered dulcimer with a near-square soundboard
Erhu - two-stringed Chinese fiddle
Dizi - bamboo flute

Thanks! :-D

No, I haven't, and I generally snatch stuff like that up as quick as I can.

Pipa: http://www.greasyelbow.com/korea/prc2/shanghai/pipa.jpg Gu zheng: http://mambo.ucsc.edu/psl/mmc/gz.jpg Yang qin: Hard to find a decent picture, but http://db.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/onyourstreet/images/kimho2.jpg Erhu: http://www.24m.org/erhu/erhu-2.jpg Dizi: http://members.rogers.com/wendyzhao/images/dizi.jpg Heck, I might try making a couple of these.

About Pipa - we call it "biwa" in Japanese - visit Masa's Poser++. http://www.eurus.dti.ne.jp/%7Emasasi/index.html

Hey, thanks for the shots and models! My searches have turned up fruitless for existing models, but modeling them might not be so difficult (especially now that the hard ones are done ;-) ). The biwa is a bit different, especially in the style of frets used, but it would be a good starting point for modification.

Message edited on: 09/28/2004 09:31

ptrope, when I was researching actual biwas I found that the number of frets was extremely variable. I found models with between 4 & 9 frets & 4, 5, or 6 strings

Cooler - I couldn't find these at 3D commune searching for cooler+music - are the files available there?

nope the biwa was a special request for Don Albert it's included in the samurai poses package at DAZ & hasn't been put into general circulation yet. The ehru I just finished this morning & haven't even zipped it up yet :-) If you'd like a copy of each drop me an email at coolerbear@att.net & I'll ship them over

Pipa + frets - the one in the picture to which rowan_crisp provided a link has 23, which is like those used by 12GB; it also has a drastically shorter neck than the biwa.

Hey, cooler, do you have links for those models? Thanks! :-) (Beat me to the post! Expect my e-mail :-D)

Message edited on: 09/28/2004 10:05

Lovely erhu model, Cooler. I've seen it performed in concert -- lovely sound. One note; the bow string, unusual to fiddle-type instruments, passes BETWEEN the strings. Koto might do you as a stand-in for the zither family. I have not seen a koto yet but the guys and gals at Expanding Wave were supposed to have one, and a full set of Gankaku instruments, in their new store.

Seriously though, whilst there's a wealth of references of the front of these things out there, I just can't find enough detail shots to make anything I'd be happy with, and they're all so different.

Wow, that's just great, jwhitham, cooler!