Photon

Peter Wyngarde would have approved.

Looks like a fun project. I think it would be cool to add a few details to the suit, maybe some extra detail on the backpack or a new weapon. Then a small simple base to display it. Some of the glue damage could perhaps be expressed as battle damage or wear and tear once you get to the paint stage. Another thought is a derelict suit, rusted and with moss growing on it, maybe with a skeleton inside(?) Here’s what I mean by a small base (this is not my work, btw)

Looks ace, Pete. Lots of really nice details on this one. I especially like the canopy.

Looks fantastic. I really like the paint job. Are you going to add any markings? I’m looking forward to the RFI shots.

Absolutely ace work, Pete. You really seem to know your way around aircraft and it really shows in your work. The details really sell it. Great job!

Yes, I’ve had my eye on some Preiser backpackers, but they’re pricey and often out of stock. As I recall, I wasn’t 100% in love with them (their garb is too distinctly Bavarian), but maybe I’ll just grab them, because I do prefer the idea of hikers.

I do have some HO scale astronaut figures left over from another project that could be modified to look less ‘astronautical ’ and maybe a bit more ‘hazmatic’. They’re a bit soft, as far as details go, but some micro putty work and I think they could be brought closer to the ones in the original drawing. Here’s what the HO figures look like in the scene. What do you think scale wise? 1/100 figures would certainly lend some titanic grandeur, but I do like the idea of finishing this in my lifetime. There’s a large war gaming / toy solder shop and a huge mo

Thanks, Pete. I actually haven’t looked at 1/100. Outside of Gundam stuff, I wasn’t aware of many things being produced at that scale. Is it a tabletop game scale? I really like the texture, too. Unfortunately, it will mostly be covered in grass. I have some ideas for a couple submersible drone models. I think this texture will be well-suited to undersea landscape.

Waiting for the plaster to fully dry, then weathering and vegetation. Still haven’t found any suitable figures in HO scale. Maybe if I widen my search to include 1:72, I’ll probably have better luck. 1:72 is a bit bigger than I’d like, though.

Thanks. I used plaster mixed with some paper pulp to bulk it out. The paper pulp is an entire roll of toilet paper that I shredded with an immersion blender (in water to keep the dust down). Then I spread it on an old window screen and let the water evaporate. I just add it to the plaster mix by eye as needed. The right consistency is similar to loose porridge or cottage cheese. It’s an attempt to DIY a product called Sculpt-a-mold, that is popular with war gamers and model railroaders. The plaster that I used is a brand called Durham’s Water Putty. It’s yellow because they add limes

I needed the panels to be thin shells that would fit perfectly over the ship hull. The shapes that I’m forming over are identically sized to the original. That means the inside of the vacuum formed panel will conform perfectly to the model. To 3D model a thin shell that would conform to the surface of the ship is beyond my computer skills and would be difficult to print without warping. Also, I really like vacuum forming and don’t get many opportunities to do it. Thanks

As usual, I’m bouncing between multiple projects. I finally put some time into this and thought I’d share some progress. I thought the ship hull looked a bit stark, so I decided to have a go making some panels. In order to get them to conform to the compound curves of the hull, I vacuum formed them. I printed three instances of this portion of the ship. I arranged them with a triangular plywood spacer, so the plastic wouldn’t have to be drawn as deep, preserving a bit of material thickness in the final parts. vacuum-forming machine:

Here’s a nice shot of the underside:

Great work, Pete. It really looks fantastic.

Hey Pete, here’s a couple pictures of a Fledermaus that I had grabbed off Twitter because I thought it was an interesting paint job. Maybe you’ll find them useful. I can’t wait to see what you cook up this time.

Great job, Will. Those concrete blocks look extremely realistic. Are they made from plaster?

Great idea. Thanks!

Thanks everyone! I will be making a small base. It would be nice to scatter some debris around. I was thinking maybe some broken concrete and rusted scrap metal among the weeds. At 1/35 scale there’s no shortage of oil drums and other accessories available, but I don’t want it to get too crowded.

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. I’m almost done. A couple more bits to glue on and a final weathering pass. I might build a small base for this as it’s a bit vulnerable as is. thanks for the tips about spraying orange paint. As least I know it’s not my ineptitude.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it. I managed to get everything base coated and chipped. The chips are out of scale in some cases, but overall I’m pleased. I had a really hard time getting the orange laid down with any opacity. I had this problem before with another brands of orange and I’m starting to think orange acrylic might be one of those problem colors. In both cases, Vallejo Model Air, and now Mission Models orange spray very thin with poor coverage. My experience with Mission paint up until now has been very positive. In any case, I’m going to let everything sit for a few days

Have you thought about printing with polystyrene filament? It prints beautifully and is really easy to sand. It can be glued using standard modeling cements, so you can easily detail prints with kit parts or Evergreen shapes. I just posted a thread about printing with polystyrene:

I just realized this new 3D printing section was here and I thought it might be helpful to share a bit about the ways that I use it in my work. I recently got back into model making (~2017) after not having done it since childhood. My focus is scratch building science fiction subject matter. I have a resin printer and a FDM style printer, both relatively inexpensive, that have become an important part of my work flow. Here's my souped-up Tevo Tarantula: FDM ( fused deposition modeling) style printers seem to be going out of favor with t

Looks amazing. Really nice work. How do you attach the booms? Is there some kind of internal structure or do they just glue directly to the car body? I’m also looking forward to see what you come up with for the engine.

This is a project I’ve been quietly working on (and off) in the background over the past year. It’s a sort of chance meeting on an operating table between a sewing machine and an umbrella, or in this case, between a 1:35 scale Hitachi Zaxis excavator and a couple of Gundam kits. It’s based on a model that I saw on a Japanese social media site a couple of years ago by a modeler called “Surume0407”. You can see his work here: <https://twoucan.com/profile/surume0407> I really liked it and wanted to try to make my own version, but while the use of the Ha

Thanks. The main ship hull was printed with polystyrene filament and probably took around 6hrs or so. It’s about 13 cm in diameter. The engines were printed on a resin printer. I was able to print them in pairs and if I recall took about 4-5 hrs. per go. thanks, those are good suggestions about the figures. I have seen some solders with mine detectors. I’m not above modifying the figures. I think my main goal is to have a bit of humor, since the whole scene will be rather cartoonish. Peter