Shuttle tydirium pyro model

[morsesith21]

Ok, so I mentioned in my scratch built snowspeeder thread that I was taking a little time away from this model to do a side project and someone sent me a pm asking to see this project. So here it is.
A buddy of mine is making a fan film and he is using actual models. In one of the shots an imperial shuttle gets taken out with a proton torpedo and he wanted to actually blow a model up. I told him to just use the amt model but he wants it to have more size and weight to it so I am building a quick one for the shot. He wants it relatively quick so I am building it very fast using very primitive methods as it will be destroyed anyway. So all of the pieces of the hull will be built separately and then glue instead of vaccuforming the hull. This way they will come apart easily.
I have only been at this for almost 2 weeks, but I have got a lot done actually. I began by building the dorsal fin and they upper parts of the hull. I just used a crude method of just cutting out the shapes and then burning them with a lighter and simply bending them to the position I wanted.
In the last picture you can see that I am not adding details to this side as it will not be seen.

 

[morsesith21]

Next I started building a crude frame.

The piece of wood is temporary as it will be removed for the explosive and random pieces thrown inside to fill it with debris n stuff. It is just serving as a mount for now.

 

[morsesith21]

Instead of going out n getting koolshade, I made the grill out of pencil lead. I didn't want to spend money just to damage the koolshade. plus the lead will break apart much better anyways. This whole project is built out of stuff I have lying around. No money has been spent thus far! Knock on wood!
Of course I will finish laying in the grill. I just wanted to test it to see how it looked.

 

[morsesith21]

Now came time to attach the two upper pieces together. I just simply glued them together, used a little superglue and baking soda to fill the seams and then tested it with primer. I think it worked pretty well. It looks like it is all one piece yet it is fragile enough that it will come part in the blast.

 

[newmagrathea]

You are a machine. Clever idea with the pencil lead. That is going to look great. Please tell me you are going to post a clip of it being blown up so we can all cringe at such a lovely model getting destroyed.

 

[morsesith21]

I then cut the upper and lower body panels and attached them to the frame. Then laid the pieces together to see how it was all fitting. For the curved edge, I just folded a thin sheet of styrene around the frame. I will add a second layer later to make it thicker. This is just taped right now. it will be glued once I have the wings in place.


- - - Updated - - -

Yea I will definitely include a shot of the destruction. It aught to be fun! Thanks very much!

 

[morsesith21]

Here I started with the wings. They are taped on in the pictures and have not been set yet so they will look more accurate unfolded.



THIS IS WHERE I AM ON THE MODEL AS OF RIGHT NOW. NOT TOO BAD FOR A WEEK AND 2 DAYS. IAM TAKING A BREAK FOR THE HOLIDAY AND WILL BE BACK AT IT THIS WEEKEND. I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A GREAT HOLIDAY! THANKS FOR LOOKING!

 

[JediMichael]

Very nice. So how are you guys doing the explosion? type? etc?
I was just watching Star Wars blu ray commentary while painting my death star and learned quite a bit. Like with the explosions, everything would quickly fall down and not look like space. So they had the camera on the ground pointing up with the charge set up above. Those guys were brilliant for the 70s.
So just things to keep in mind to hopefully help.
I actually have a background in video editing, only self taught, but have done some pretty cool stuff. Thats all on major hold right now in life. I miss it greatly.

 

[Avanaut]

This is a very interesting project. Long, LONG time ago, I tried to figure out how to explode models so that there will be the much desired ball of fire effect. I never succeeded and gave the whole thing up. But then, I never had a camera that would shoot in a speed fast enough to slow such explosion down sufficiently. Subscribed, hoping to see a nice model blown gloriously to bits.

 

[tek2graphics]

Very nice! Too bad it's going to blow up! :cry

 

[Galactican]

This is a GREAT build! Will you use several charges to blow the ship to pieces in multiple steps or one big one in the middle and hope for the best?

 

[morsesith21]

Thanks a lot for the comments guys. to answer all the previous comments at once, my buddy has a guy who is going to rig the model for the explosion. The model will be suspended at a normal upright position and detonated like that. As they did with the old movies, we are going to shoot a second explosion using a charge suspended above the camera with the camera facing upward. this charge will then blow causing sparks to rain down toward the camera. Then the two elements will be composited together. As far as what kind of charge, I don't really know about that. As I said my buddies friend is doing that but once I know the details I will share them. I do know he is going to rig it with two separate charges. One smaller one at the rear where the impact of the torpedo will be, then a larger one in the main body of the model to destroy it. They will be triggered rapidly one after the other and shot at high speed. It will be fun! But probably heartbreaking as well. :cry

 

[newmagrathea]

I think that I remember reading somewhere that they put saw dust in with the explosives to create the spark shower effect.

 

[JediMichael]

Thats sounds like a good idea.
Do what they did on the white house model for ID4 and add chairs and stuff in it.

 

[Albertese]

In Star Wars, they composited a gas explosion over the pyro models. The reason is the the pyro models always looked really whimpy on screen (even slowed to a scale speed) so the fireball amped it up.


--Alex

 

[morsesith21]

Yea the saw dust would be a good idea I think. I know we are for sure gonna throw a lot of miscellaneous bits inside to thicken up the debris. I'll just have to wait n see what my buddies friend has up his sleeve for the actual explosion.

 

[morsesith21]

With the holidays, progress has been slow. However, I do have a small update.
Here I attached the upper part of the fuselage to the lower section and sprayed a thin coat of primer to test the sealing between the pieces. Again it won't be perfect because they need to come apart.


I also started mapping out the wing detail.

 

[kruleworld]

interesting stuff. it's a good thing you are doing it fast'n'dirty. it would be hard to put your heart into it, just for it to get blown up. (ie ID4's white house model)

 

[gooses2]

Looks sweet man, nice work! Can't wait to see what this looks when blowing up!

 

[morsesith21]

interesting stuff. it's a good thing you are doing it fast'n'dirty. it would be hard to put your heart into it, just for it to get blown up. (ie ID4's white house model)

Yes that's true. I do plan on building a keepsake shuttle that will be more accurate and durable to withstand time. Hopefully.