BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser - Finished!

[ShowCraft]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

Doing some preliminary artwork for the lattice structure has shown me that the domes are not simple upside down bowls as I sculpted my plug to be, but are actually made up of five faceted segments like a gem stone.
Its obvious in these pics of the studio model.

To make the necessary alteration, I'v cut up my plug and inserted thin metal partitions between the pieces.

Using a steel template as a blade, carefully shaving off just the right amount of material by sliding the blade along the metal wall inserts.

The new dome plug sealed in Evercoat.
The gap between the blade and surface shows how much the shape has changed. it doesn't look like much, but it will make a huge difference in the final appearance of the latice structure.

 

[friednoodles]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

This is phenomenal O_O

 

[ShowCraft]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

Been working on two of the three different interior environments for the domes.

For the desert/oasis, I formed some sand dunes from medium density foam glued to an acrylic plate. Vac formed in 020 styrene.
Next, a few extra hills were added in the middle-flat area to form the snow and ice environment.

For the oasis, some clear plastic sheet with a rippled texture works well to resemble waves on water.

My desert and snow environments compared with the studio model.

 

[star-art]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

Wow!!! :eek Incredible work my friend.

 

[t2sides]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

UNBELIEVABLE Jim, you are taking this to a whole new level of studio replica model building!!! thumbsupthumbsup:thumbsup Thanks a ton for sharing all these wonderful details!! I love your construction techniques, and your process for creating this stuff. This will be one of the most incredible builds that I think has been created!! Nice job, and please keep the updates coming!
-Sean

 

[Devin]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

I'm not sure what is more impressive: your attention to every little detail, or your ability to replicate everyone of those little details. Amazing.

 

[Tom Sheldon]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

This is soo great! I cant describe my admiration for your work

 

[darquewanderer]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

This is an interesting build. I'm going to keep an eye on it.

 

[ShowCraft]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

The snow and desert domes in place.

After quite a bit of trial and error, the forest environments are finally done.
I first experimented with every model train type of landscaping I could find and it turns out its all basically latex based materal which would deteriorate and fall apart over time, also, it just wasn't exactly matching how I thought the greenery should appear. It was all too "toy" looking. What I needed was something that would literally last forever with no maintenance and match as close as possible to the look of the CG studio model so I figured why not actually use the studio model itself. First I sampled a small bit of the greenery from an image of one of the domes and then clone stamped it to get enough image to work with, printed it on heavy paper, then lasered out tree canopy shapes and backed that with thin styrene. These were then affixed to the vac formed "ground" plates that were airbrushed and hand painted to match what's seen on the studio model.
The landscapes look a little open and sparce here but that's because once the lattice work is applied, the view into the domes will be restricted to mostly a top down view so the tree canopy shapes have been congregated in the center to give the best appearance.

 

[ShowCraft]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

I got bored making all the forest domes look the same so I decided to turn one of them into a walking park with lighted lamp posts.

 

[shaunsheep]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

truly awe inspiring! jim,

 

[drknotter]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

I lovelovelove watching this come together. Truly inspiring work. The walking park dome is awesome!

 

[ShowCraft]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

A way-over simplified explanation of how Im doing the lattice structure to cover the clear domes..


First, with graphic tape, I recreated a segment of the lattice pattern on a styrene dome.

Cut from the dome, the segment was then cut along the horizontal lines so the compound curved shape would lay flat. This piece was scanned into corelDRAW so now its digital and can be imported to the laser.

Its all cut from .040 thick Vellum.

Using some ridiculously expensive super glue specifically for clear plastic, I layed up the five thin stanchions that sperate the segments

and fit the lattice sheet

 

[Captain April]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

With your access to the computer files it seems like you are going old school on the domes,it works but it doesn't have the precision of a CGI model, more like the hand made masters of the original Galactica Rag Tag fleet. great to finally see the lattice going on.

 

[hihik]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

:O how do you do this?!

little bit of background: this evening i thought to myself "i love sci-fi, why not get into spaceship modeling?". i googled standard model kits - results for the most part were poor. then i saw this page - oh. my. god. seriously how do you make all those parts? 3d print from a computer model?

have you considered selling a slightly simplified version of this as a plastic model kit? i'm sure it'd be wildly popular .. i'm just saying because i just did some research on this and there isnt much on the market - glueing together 5 pieces cant be considered modeling ..

i'm just a noob and probably talking nonsense .. but again, this is amazing! love it!

 

[MFP]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

This is one of the most incredible models I've ever seen. The attention to detail you are putting in would send me around the bend if I had to do it.

 

[moffeaton]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

The old school dome lattices are my favorite thing so far about this model!

 

[Eagerly]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

Simply astounding my friend....You have some awe inspiring skills......Love..Love....Love it !!!

 

[ShowCraft]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

With your access to the computer files it seems like you are going old school on the domes,it works but it doesn't have the precision of a CGI model, more like the hand made masters of the original Galactica Rag Tag fleet. great to finally see the lattice going on.

Hey Captain,
Iv just gotten a home 3D printer and im experimenting with it now and will definitely be using this new tool in the future, but it was just easier for me right now to make things up by hand, drawing on my memory of doing magazine and newspaper layup with tape back in school. I think my old school - hand made parts turned out pretty darn good if I do say so

 

[ShowCraft]

Re: BSG Agro Ship / Botanical Cruiser

Finishing the last dome and I need one more lattice panel.

Found the artwork.

Lasers - YEAH!!!

The 75th and final one.

All set.