A model I will be doing for Fantastic Plastic is the “space park” from BSG, in 1/9700 scale. The plan initially was to make this the old fashioned way. However, what I may end up doing is using this design as a first step into rapid prototyping. Instead of carving the thing out of polymerized poison and filling the air surrounding my head with abrasive and carcinogenic dust, I’m making a computer model of the thing, and will be sending the file to a number of rapid prototyping shops for quotes. Modelling the thing has so far gone pretty quickly… I made this since breakfast. But as with manual modelling, it’s the details that’ll drag the effort to a screeching halt. As well, it’s unknown as yet jsut how much the quote will be. Might wind up being prohibitively expensive. But if not… the BSG “Cylon Base Ship” and “Naboo Skiff” could possibly be the last small models that I make entirely by hand.
2 Responses to “BSG “Space Park” model”
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I can see a real future for that rapid-prototyping resin model business.
There’s already a company doing very detailed model tank treads that way.
The whole tread is in one piece with all the links hinged, so it behalves like a real tread as far as flexing and sagging goes.
With enough plans on hand to make any desired model in the desired scale for a customer, models could be made on-demand and shipped to customers without having a backlog of unsold models.
Certainly easier for the manufacturer than hanging out in a resin-fume-filled garage pouring resin into RTV rubber molds.
A lot of companies are using rapid prototyping. The big reason why it’s not universal is that the printing cost is still pretty high, but we’re still in the “Hey, have you heard about those new fangled video cassette recorder things that will allow you to record Flip Wilson” stage of the technology. Come back in ten years and Exacto knives will be these arcane things findable only on Ebay.