OK, so following on from StevenBills' 1/48 Y-wing thread (which I unceremoniously gatecrashed). I purchased a B-wing 3D model and now I'm printing it out. Hopefully I can show you the mistakes I make and hopefully you can all give me some advice on how to fix them! I have basically bought every Star Wars model I can find in 1/48 and now I've started making my own.
The plan is quite simple - print out the B-wing at 1/48 scale (this already sounds more simple than it is) and then build it. I will probably at least light the engines. I normally end up lighting the laser cannons and cockpit as well, even though my Arduino programming skills are so limited that I very rarely get the lasers to fire when I press the button. And I normally put so many lights into the cockpit that I can't fit the whole thing together. I usually include an internal battery to add Play Value for the kids.
The model itself is quite small scale. I worked out that if I want it to be the same height as wookiepedia tells me a B-wing is then I need to print it at something like 152.76% scale. Somehow I got this massively wrong with the first print, and it was huge. I think I probably upped the size in the cad programme and then again in the slicing programme. Rookie error. V1 at the top, v2 and v3 below.
I stuck all the cockpit pieces together in tinkercad and printed them out in one go, but because of the supports inside it was quite awful looking. I then separated the back wall from the rest and printed it again. Much better. Below is version 2 versus v3.
I printed out a pilot (having modded the helmet into a more B-wing shape, and the arms and legs into a slightly more natural pose) at what I think is the right scale and, as you can see, he is a bit big. I might try sanding him down until he fits and see if it looks weird. I don't really want to reduce the size of the whole model to fit him, as I think it will end up too small. You can see in this picture - his head shouldn't come above the back of the piece behind him.
Currently I can't really see a way I will be able to add much lighting to the cockpit. I could print all the control panels in translucent resin I suppose? I tried putting small holes for fibre optics in the back wall, but they didn't print as holes. I think because they were too small - 0.3mm, but I don't see why that happens, as there are plenty of other details that are smaller than 0.3mm that print fine.
Just in case anyone gets excited, as always my aim is not to build a model that is 100% film accurate, it just has to look "Star Wars" and not be too awful in terms of fit and finish. In terms of the shape and details of the model I am relying 100% on whoever built the 3D model. It looks close enough for me though.
The plan is quite simple - print out the B-wing at 1/48 scale (this already sounds more simple than it is) and then build it. I will probably at least light the engines. I normally end up lighting the laser cannons and cockpit as well, even though my Arduino programming skills are so limited that I very rarely get the lasers to fire when I press the button. And I normally put so many lights into the cockpit that I can't fit the whole thing together. I usually include an internal battery to add Play Value for the kids.
The model itself is quite small scale. I worked out that if I want it to be the same height as wookiepedia tells me a B-wing is then I need to print it at something like 152.76% scale. Somehow I got this massively wrong with the first print, and it was huge. I think I probably upped the size in the cad programme and then again in the slicing programme. Rookie error. V1 at the top, v2 and v3 below.
I stuck all the cockpit pieces together in tinkercad and printed them out in one go, but because of the supports inside it was quite awful looking. I then separated the back wall from the rest and printed it again. Much better. Below is version 2 versus v3.
I printed out a pilot (having modded the helmet into a more B-wing shape, and the arms and legs into a slightly more natural pose) at what I think is the right scale and, as you can see, he is a bit big. I might try sanding him down until he fits and see if it looks weird. I don't really want to reduce the size of the whole model to fit him, as I think it will end up too small. You can see in this picture - his head shouldn't come above the back of the piece behind him.
Currently I can't really see a way I will be able to add much lighting to the cockpit. I could print all the control panels in translucent resin I suppose? I tried putting small holes for fibre optics in the back wall, but they didn't print as holes. I think because they were too small - 0.3mm, but I don't see why that happens, as there are plenty of other details that are smaller than 0.3mm that print fine.
Just in case anyone gets excited, as always my aim is not to build a model that is 100% film accurate, it just has to look "Star Wars" and not be too awful in terms of fit and finish. In terms of the shape and details of the model I am relying 100% on whoever built the 3D model. It looks close enough for me though.
