r/SciFiModels

Got my hands on a 3D Printer, and printed a ship I designed in the game Starfield. I haven’t painted anything like a model since I was 13 or so, so I watched some videos to refresh my knowledge, and here’s the result.

It’s a mix of rattle can & acrylic brushwork with a matte lacquer coating. Stand was made of styrofoam that I melted by spraying with spraypaint and then coated with acrylic.

I build the stargate with paper and cardboard.

The groundplate was covered paper-mache and small stones.

At first I want to build a working one but I decide later on to make it abandoned.

The scientist-astronauts are investigating it.

Getting ready to detail paint the crew and the set design but I have a question, "To light or not to light that is the question ⁉️" what do you think ,like and comment it keeps life interesting..

P1-SZE, from the Kessel control room. Like the others, he has bearings in his legs and the restraining bolt is magnetic.

Well me and the family went and bought a Camper trailer a couple weeks ago so I was planning on this collecting dust on the desk but hey it's Canada and it's snowed for the past 3 days, and last weekend ...so put a damper on taking the trailer 4 hours north to more snow to do the first set up lol.

I just finished up the lighting phase and glued up the tail and front command module. The ship has 4 orange corners the light up each getting a dedicated led. Then there are a dozen orange pyramids located over the ship all getting a dedicated led as well.thr main weapon and 4 secondary weapons I went with blue leds to give it some variety , blue being the colour of the main weapon near the end of DS9. From what I could see the engines or more orange then red but again for some contrast I used red leds for all the engine manifolds not accounting for what colour or which one is the "warp engine" . For the navigation lights I used smds with resisters to drop the brightness. Then I also used smds for the rear 4 lights on the tail fin to give it the screen effect .and then some basic 22v led strips for window lighting.

I just sprayed the first primer coat on the tail and front module hoping the seams won't take long to clean up.then a few more thin coat. Also primer coat on the non seam areas of the main upper and lower hull module. While I'm waiting for primer to dry it's time to start getting paint colours set up now. I'm using my 1 3300 Galor as the general colour on aiming for . My initial mix of colour turned into a fleshy colour so I'm adding yellows and greens to bring it back to more of a tan . Once I get the base colour then I'll use the jars I've emptied to mix up a few gradients of the colour by adding a dark grey to them. Or possible reds in this case.

Also first time using Mission primer and I'm finding it awesome. I've done no sanding since I want to keep the hull lines so Solely comparing it to vallego which I normally do a indepth prep phase prior to spraying I find it adheres better to the plastic. Normally I have an issue where I use C.A. glue to hold wires melting the primer and debonding from the model plastic under. And the scratch test with fingernails doesn't remove the primer. Still waiting to get to the masking stage to truly find out.

Painting this is extremely fun, and even more fun to deconstruct how the original miniature was painted. The entire miniature was painted using Earth Spacedock friskets. Once those were found, it's pretty easy to see what ones were used where. The lower saucer is painted with layers of blue, grey, silver, and white. The white always covers the other colors to create the effect.

1: the finished product. The registry will be a waterslide decal.

2: Some, but not all, of the friskets used on the lower saucer.

3-5: the crucial base layer. It's all the Refit "trident" or "space invader" shapes with alternating colors instead of alternating the pattern. This being under earth everything is exactly what gives the lower saucer it's look.

6: One of the Spacedock Aztec friskets I cut on my Cameo 4, drawn by u/baldthumbtack for his build and initial research of the paintwork on this ship. A lot of these friskets were partially cut off or masked to fit exactly within the Excelsior saucer wedges. I'm doing the same here with this pattern.

7: some more layering of patterns with one layer of silver and multiple of white, almost trying to bury the underlying colors but with thin passes.

8-10: The finished Aztec pattern. I'd have to say I only did 2 or 3 passes of thin white through a frisket over everything. Everything else underneath is stuff I know I could see on the studio model and recreate.

11-12: My paintwork compared to the Studio Model. Is it exact? No. But it's recognizable and pretty damn close if I say so myself.

13: The blue ring. Very easy to do. Just misted white through a frisket over the blue.

14: Very simple planetary sensor.

15-16: painted phaser emitters!

17-20: The original studio model. Fun fact! The Excelsior Refit (Enterprise B) studio model retains the original lower saucer and paint job of the Excelsior, despite the upper saucer being recast and replaced. The only difference is the blue ring, which was painted over with that minty teal blue, almost covering the Aztec pattern that was there.

Please let me know what you think about recreating this paint pattern or if you have any more clarifying questions!

My very first fully scratchbuilt vehicle, it is inspired by the IS-8 from the WOT "conquer the moon" event and the painting was inspired by classic Maschinenkrieger models. The model itself was built from a christman ornament ball, some ping pong balls, plastic sheet, some garage furniture and spare parts from other model kits. The figure is from tamiya with a himemade gas mask. It was a very fun project and a nice experiment for some potential future, more complex kitbashes. I am currently writing some basic Lore and background for this vehicle.

Finally received the support structure for my 1/650 scale Enterprise C!

The structure itself is unstable all alone but assembled together with the kit, it holds together very securely. The only caveat is that the port and starboard secondary hull halves have to be glued very securely together. They hold everything stable.

The horizontal belly plate holds up the dorsal half of the pylons. It's going to be tricky to figure out how to best mount a display rod to this. The ship is extremely front heavy so everything will need to be tight and strong.

There is some play between the saucer structure and the neck structure which means I won't be able to make the saucer removable for transport like I had originally hoped. You might see about adding shims to the neck tabs to remove that play when you epoxy everything together.

Otherwise, very cool that this is included with the kit and I'm happy both the kit and structure were designed to work so well together.

WIP 1/650 scale Excelsior for comparison.

Cascade Starships

Another fun 3d print! Acrylic paints. LED flickering base and chest plate light.

I've decided to model the hyper sleep pods from the movie Aliens but I needed 7 clear canopies for all the seven pods so I broke out the "vacuum-suck machine" and went to work.

The last days I did not take much pictures-

At the momemt its a lot of soldering work.

I prepare a small diorama with an Alien and i get the idea to make a small crossover.

In the time the glue has to dry I mafe some Alien-Eggs wit polymr-clay and a facehugger for my injured aytronaut on the medical unit.

After backing the eggs i colored them with my acrylic pens.

The fachugger i made withba lot of superglue and some thin wires.

After painting the facehugger i glued it into the face of the victim.

The last picture is the actual status of the wiring of the baseplate-

I recently got into scale modeling after doing a lot of fantasy model miniature painting. Had a blast finishing this 1/72 Slave I from FineMolds.

Began painting up a Valiant class super heavy cruiser from the Halo Universe. So far only one side is done.

Took maybe 2 hours to do this one side, 1 hour of which was just adding tape for the dazzle scheme.

The other side will have a different patter because no way imma try and mirror 🤣

The registry on the larger vessel would have been centered, until I realised it's "NX" and not "NCC". Oh well.