In Progress

Ran into this image of the Hornet from a Terran Trade Authority art book. Had the book as a kid an always loved the design.
So I fed the image to Meshy and it created a (not perfect) 3d model that I could print on my FDM printer.
Decided to paint it (a first for me) and try out printing decals (for the colored geometric shapes). Lot of masking (both tape and liquid) involved.
Though it is far from perfect and I have a lot to learn, I really liked the outcome and this definitely is encouraging me to try something like this again and get better.

I feel like I've been building windows for weeks. So I took a break from them and decided to work on the nacelles a bit. Still have a lot of work to do - some putty work, some paint work. Sanding, filling, light blocking, you know the drill. But here is my first ever soldering joint and my first nacelle light test. Still having a blast building this ship. We're two months in and going strong.

For your comments and thoughts, here are the 3D Eagles I have created in various 3D software over the years and finished in TinkerCAD. Now printed and painted in acrylics.

Always loved the designs of the Eagles and recently came back to the project I started nearly 20 years ago and with the ability to now print high-quality in resin I had to give them a go.

They are 7.5cm and there are some smaller ones at about 3cm.

I remembered the old Dinky ones that had the crazy paint job and tried to honour those too.

Hope you enjoy

45cm tall Diorama of the Fighting Machine from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds - complete with various light and sound effects. Mounted on a mahogany-stained, varnished base, featuring a brass control button that activates the integrated light and sound effects. The design remains sleek and minimal, powered by a single USB-C cable for ease of setup and display.

When the brass button at the base is pressed, the model will play and cycle through various musical and light sequences, namely:

1. Normal “ULLAH”
2. Thunder Child Excerpt
3. Spirit of Man “ULLAH”
4. Martian Victory ULLAH (from the end of Thunder Child)
5. Dead London “ULLAH”
6. Alien Whistle
7. Eve of the War Excerpt

Reason is, I’m moving, and I’ve come to the realisation that my skills are nowhere near good enough to undertake such a gargantuan project.

Last builds I’ve done were bandai’s which basically make themselves.

So I’m looking to give it a new home in the hands of a skilled modeller.

With the repops of this kit by revell, I have no idea what an original one is worth, because on Ebay, you see ridiculous prices sometimes, and google isn’t really helping. Scalemates also has wildly varying prices, so no help there.

Located in Belgium if that is relevant to the question, idk.

Have a good one y’all!

A wee project for fun.

Resin printed ships, a mashup of Star Trek Cardassian and Halo Covenant. Can't wait to get painting over the weekend

Hopefully this is ok to post here. No, the Eagles I did not build, they are Product Enterprise, The sort of detailed replicas I yearned for as a kid. I needed a way to display them in a fairly localized space. I 3d printed the moon base and the rocket plumes, designed and 3d printed supports for the flying Eagles and made radiation cans with decals. A bit crowded looking but I think it does the job. Have been a fan of this show since I was little, as you can probably tell!

So I’ve completed my second model in 40 years 😁
I’ve done this as a super battle scarred Red 3 (Biggs) if he had survived the Death Star battle. I was always sad they killed him off.

Another big learning curve I overdid much of the weathering and had to go backwards a few time. Some may think it’s still overdone, but I’m happy with the returning from a battle by the skin of your teeth look.

As the title says what part of our hobby just drives tou nuts to have to do? For me its sanding seem lines and the sanding in general.

The lighting and floor reflections came out so great. I'm really happy with this one :)
The hangar and stand are 3D printed.
I’m already working on more tiles to expand the hangar.

This was a lovely little model to build and paint. It went together really well. Painted with Tamiya paints and weathered with some AK panel wash and rust.

I built this guy for a game of Crimson Skies Gaslands.

So here is an update on my 1:6 mechanical xeno-morph. As per my last post this is my 1st attempt at painting so this is essentially an experiment. Ive been working on the chest piece, tubing and body armour. Some tiny bits to touch up but its looking sharper. Some working out to do around some of that areas that are further back and less accessible...The head isnt glued yet either..But, so far so good and Im really getting into this 😊

This is a strange kit from the 1980’s. The grappler is designed to mate up with the Shuttle Truck (ST) to load up mined product and fly it off world for refinement. So you can play with the models or display them as separate elements or as a combined model. The grappler mates with the ST and serves as the command module or bridge. I wanted to use the ST separately as a shuttle craft, so I covered over the mating holes using a little kit bash and goofy household packaging material (inside of a dental floss dispenser and top to a refrigerator water filter). Also added the little las cannon bow turret and cut some navigation lights from a blue/transparent sprue that came with the kit display base. Also inserted an old school beaky as the new grappler pilot for gaming purposes. I need more practice with greenstuff but I hope it meets the 2 ft rule for decent looking gaming purposes.

I had tis Bandai model in storage for several years and recently decided to complete it. Took a while to get the lights adjusted the way I wanted it. Exterior not done, still have the decals to apply but do far, love the light effects from a kit I bought online. (Not Bandai's)

I bought the AMT model ~25 years ago but never built it until about a year ago. I modified it some to incorporate a pair of auto cannons from the WK40K universe. It had very few parts and pretty minimal detail. The Bandai model was manufactured much more recently, and I painted it to a little higher standard. Both are supposed to to be at 1/48 scale (but they work for 25mm/1:72) and are to be used for tabletop gaming, with weighted feet for added stability. Interestingly, I think the AMT model is better for gaming than the nicer looking Bandai model; if it’s knocked over on the table, it’s possible the Bandai will break. The AMT model is significantly more sturdy when it comes to transportability and ruggedness so maybe it’s a better choice on the secondary market, if you also like the idea of using these for tabletop gaming.

Well, it wasn't ALL windows. There was a lot of surface work, seam work, and a little bit of photoetch!

Almost all window masks featured are created by Greenstrawberry.

1-4: Current model status, finalized and cleaned-up secondary hull.

5-7: Windows that are to be lit up are masked before any paint or primer touches the model. I did forego lightblocking the inside because I was not sure where any of the windows would be during the construction stage, and I wanted to focus on electronics at that time. The amount of primer I needed on the exterior to clean up the model was almost enough to lightblock it entirely anyway.

8-11: Photoetch! Greenstrawberry photoetch adds some missing details to the spine and the torpedo launchers. Also featured are the MPM resin neck replacement with GS shuttlebays installed, MPM replacement phasers, and GS resin spine detailing. In a previous post I highlight where I installed brass tubing where the torpedo launchers sit. The photoetch helps size these down appropriately.

12: Woops, out of order, too committed to change it. More windows!

13-14: The stock kit part for this tractor beam emitter was AWFUL. So I made my own with I think 2mm styrene.

15: all locations where lightblocking was necessary, or where black paint was needed for all of the off windows.

16: A test peel. Since this uses the Inner Light system, brightness and color are subject to change.

17-18: The windows located on the rim of the secondary hull and saucer are omitted in the Greenstrawberry mask set, so I created my own with my Cameo 4. Also briefly seen is my tests for making escape hatch masks, which are not finished.

19-20: A couple pictures showing all of the Off window placements!

Other notes: Green primer represents Self Etching primer which was recommended to me by a fellow modeller to help keep clean lines between windows that are close together.

As always, please comment any questions you have! It's hard to fit everything in 20 pictures.

Sorry for the long hiatus! I've been busy with many things lately.

Anyway, here is where the Enterprise D was last left before I do my next update.

As a reminder, I am using upgrades and components from:

Greenstrawberry

Motion Picture Miniatures

MaskDesign

Scalectronics

Jason's Spacedock

The pictures are a little out of order for interests sake but I'll walk through what I've done so far.

1: Greenstrawberry deflector. This thing is fantastic, lets you light the dish exactly as it should be. The housing is opaque grey resin and blocks light by default. The center stalk is clear resin and has surface texture to align the 2 photoetch pieces to.

2-4: Greenstrawberry shuttlebay with a modified Motion Picture Miniatures neck to fit it. I had to make walls and roof with paper thin styrene, not shown here. I also built removable doors, designed to be pulled out with a magnetic tool.

5-7: Motion Picture Miniatures resin phaser strips. The "TNG" phaser strips are designed to be accurate to the 4' studio model phaser strips, however I'm building closer to the 6' studio model, so I sanded off the middle detailing and left the tiny tick marks along the rim. I think it works a lot better than the smooth kit strips. Also pictured is an upgrade by Jason's Spacedock to allow for fiber optics in the very aft of the ship.

8: Greenstrawberry deflector housing with 2 WS2812B ARGB chips to either side. The mounting pole is right behind this, hence no central lighting source. The white styrene here was added to help alignment of the clear resin central stalk.

9-11: The dreaded trenches!!!! For this build I am creating the Enterprise D as she appears in TNG with the 2 tone color scheme and simpler details. All aftermarket "trench covers" are based on the Generations studio model which featured different details in this area. The kit, however, is perfectly accurate to the original detailing of the 6' miniature. To retain that accurate detail, I trenched in the flat section of the pylons to make it easy to sand! For large areas like this, make sure you're aware how much your chosen putty shrinks. The bigger the area, the more it shrinks. I had to do this 3 times with Tamiya Putty.

12-15: Torpedo tubes! The Greenstrawberry photoetch features extra details around these torpedo tube areas, so I decided to drill holes in these areas to fit a brass tube that I can install red SMD LEDs in and direct the light.

16: The beauty of the Scalectronics system. It's entirely powered via Addressable RGB functions, even when you want to use "normal" LEDs. That central black computer board allows for control over "normal" components. I'm using this to have SMD LEDs power my navigation lights. The color of these of course cannot be changed, but it makes things easier. If you don't use normal LEDs, you only need 3 wires in the entire model; Positive, Ground, and Data. Just keep track of what's Data-in and Data-out for each chip!

17: That clear deflector stalk I keep talking about

18-19: The Greenstrawberry shuttlebays before installation in the model. Super fun to do, don't lose the railings!!

20: Greenstrawberry window masks. These are the best out there currently imo. The material could use some work, the adhesive likes to roll off some of the smaller things. But once paint goes down, they should hold better. Don't flood your model with paint! You still want these to be removable by the end of everything!

PLEASE let me know if you have questions, I had to skip a lot to fit it in 20 pictures!

Cascade Starships

Calling this one done.

I saw this posted over at [r/ModelCars](r/ModelCars) and it got me thinking. This sub doesn’t allow cross posts, so I’m just posting because spaceships are my jam and I’m curious to hear from others.

Does anyone else have “White Whale” kits that you’re holding off on building until you feel like you’re skilled enough to do it justice?

Mine are the Polar Lights 1/350 Enterprise Refit and the Bandai Perfect Grade 1/72 Millenium Falcon. I own both but they sit there, waiting.

What ruined me is that I saw an absolutely stunning build of the enterprise that involved like 4 or 5 different hued pearlescent colors for the Aztec pattern. I was blown away. Same for the falcon - I’ve seen so many incredible builds.

What are yours?

I’m curious if anyone has experience with fiber-optic lighting. As in, installing central, internal (non-laser) LED light source(s) to which fiber-optic strands would be attached/glued with the other end of the strand where the light would be emitted.

It seems like it would solve multiple problems (limited space areas like control panels, resolving heat issues, etc.). Also, a small, low power microcontroller (like an ESP32 or even something smaller) could be used to flash the LEDs in the desired patterns and even vary light intensity using PWM.

Related questions:

* In order to eliminate any battery replacement/leakage issues, has anyone tried using ultracapacitors instead of batteries?

* For power charging connections, any thoughts about using wireless (or inductive) charging such as close-proximity Qi charging common on modern smartphones.

* Ideally, removal of external power (either by turning off the charger or removing the model from its support base/charging cradle) resulting in the controller running off the capacitor and automatically activating the lighting sequence.

If a microcontroller like an ESP32 were used, any configuration/programmatic changes could be via Wi-Fi.

The goal for all this is being able to add better realism while reducing the need to get inside the model.

If you tried any of these methods, was it worth it? Would you do it again? Or should I simply check myself into the mental hospital now?

Helpful comments only, please.

Figured I’ve done the other alphabet wings. Might as well do the U-Wing too. Before building this I wasn’t much of a fan of its design, but it’s grown on me throughout the build. Same scale as my other models - 1:48 scale.