Building an Alien Satellite

[CosmicQuest]

Greetings I have started to work on my newest build. This will be an "alien" artifact satellite that I envision the crew of my pathfinder build find orbiting around a planet nearby to the one that the diorama is based on. At its core is a set of blue LED lights that I have set up to slowly pulsate. It is supposed to look like a power core. I created it to be 1/48th scale. It doesn't look like much yet, but I have big plans for it

In the small container is a pile of misc pieces I am planning on using for greeblies.

I have also created a few pieces in Tinkercad and 3d printed them. They will come out of the top end of the satellite like an antenna.

The very bottom houses the battery compartment. It will have a separate cover held in place with mini magnets.

A very rough beginning to the shape of the satellite. When I see the builds looking like this at the beginning, I keep telling myself that I gotta have vision, lol.

 

[CosmicQuest]

The weather was pretty snowy around here this past weekend so I had the chance to get a bunch done on my new alien satellite build. I still need to add lots of piping and wiring, etc.. But it is starting to take shape.

 

[joberg]

intrigued by the shape and design...following

 

[Carlb]

Agree with joberg.... interesting form. Did you make a sketch of your idea to follow, or are you "winging" it?

 

[CosmicQuest]

intrigued by the shape and design...following

Thank you!!

 

[CosmicQuest]

Agree with joberg.... interesting form. Did you make a sketch of your idea to follow, or are you "winging" it?

Thank you! I did make an initial sketch to base my idea from, just to give me a starting point. I can definitely share the sketch but it's pretty rough, lol. I figured the shape of the structure would start "talking" to me once I started to build it.

 

[Carlb]

I can definitely share the sketch but it's pretty rough,

Please do.

 

[CosmicQuest]

I can definitely share the sketch but it's pretty rough,

Please do.

I have a small notebook that I have my written ideas for the ships and dioramas in. I have the written plan and rough order of what I'll be building in the progression of my "story line". For instance, after this satellite is built, the first alien vessel will be introduced, so that will be the next scratch build.

You can see the pretty rough sketch of my initial idea. Originally the satellite was going to be based off of a copy machine toner cartridge, but I didn't want to deal with the mess of the dry toner.

 

[Carlb]

Thanks Cosmic!

 

[CosmicQuest]

Thanks Cosmic!

You bet! Thank you for your interest

 

[joberg]

Rough sketching is a good way to flesh-out your ideas (especially at night while trying to not wake the wife).
TFS with us that idea/sketch.

 

[CosmicQuest]

Rough sketching is a good way to flesh-out your ideas (especially at night while trying to not wake the wife).
TFS with us that idea/sketch.

You're welcome! It's funny you say about not wanting to wake the wife. That is actually where I do most of my sketching, while laying in bed at night.

 

[CosmicQuest]

I did some work on the satellite a couple of days this week and this morning. I'm looking forward to getting some paint on this sucker and adding some real life to it!

 

[joberg]

Looking sharp! Eager to see with all the parts put together Any thought about the paint yet?

 

[CosmicQuest]

Looking sharp! Eager to see with all the parts put together Any thought about the paint yet?

Thanks Joberg! I'm thinking after the primer coat, I'm going to spray the whole thing with Vallejo metal jet exhaust then do detail painting from there. My thought is that large portions of the satellite will be made from a metal called unobtanium. The crew from my first diorama build found raw ore samples of this metal on the planets surface of that build.

 

[CosmicQuest]

I worked on some pieces today. These will fit into the four slots that are in the bottom sections, pointy ends go up. The pistons on the bottoms will end up being something like thruster for propulsion purposes, or something along those lines. I still need to add some piping or something to the pistons to do a better job at disguising what they are.

 

[CosmicQuest]

Got some more work done on the satellite the weekend! I thought I'd share a couple pics of the progress. Still has a bit to go before it gets its primer coat!

 

[Carlb]

Looking good.

 

[joberg]

Spiffy for sure

 

[CosmicQuest]

Looking good.

Thank you!