Death Star Surface Tiles - Full scale 2x2 replicas

[t2sides]

It was very satisfying indeed Dan to get that out of the mold with you and see the perfect mold with details come out!!! What a fun and amazing Journey this continues to be!!

And in those 50 years, it looks like the Chip brushes have remained the same!!

Can’t wait to see the castings!!

Excited to get the remaining tiles done!!

Sean

 

[Combat Baby]

Awesome to see those other molds complete. The side by side of now versus then is special all on its own.

Thanks for sharing those behind the scenes images. It's interesting the difference between doing this project in modern times balancing work and family and thinking about the former model shop workers who had to do this in crunch time.

 

[3DImpact]

And...

The first casting! It's a test, 'clean-the-mold', cast and I was working fast on my own (and I'm not as good at this as Sean is) so there are a few minor flaws here and there, but it's nice! The key is that the mold has all the fine detail and it'll come out with careful casting. I won't bore you with a bunch of step-by-step images - you all get the idea by now.

I do have to comment here - it's nice to see the foam volume come out just right! This stuff ain't cheap and it's a shame to waste any. The key is that modo can tell me the exact volume of the 3D model and we know the expansion ratio of the foam so if careful you can come darned close on the volume of foam to pour. Not bad for a first pour!

I'll focus efforts now on getting that 'Three Fins' mold all finished and ready...

Dan

 

[joberg]

Wow, you guys are quite the team These, IMO, cannot be too crisp either. Love the little holes and imperfections!!

 

[Scott Graham]

These are so beautiful. I always loved the design of the tiles and this is perfect!

 

[3DImpact]

Wow, you guys are quite the team These, IMO, cannot be too crisp either. Love the little holes and imperfections!!

Sorry - second casting is darned near perfect...

Dan

 

[swgeek]

That is a lot of H&R brick sheet! Nice.

 

[t2sides]

Picked up the “Chimney” mold from Dan and have begun casting over here. WOW - like Dan said - this is a monster to pull out of mold box.

Here’s a few pics of the process on my end…

The resin skin mostly poured in:

Slowly removing from mother mold

Ahhh it’s out!

And the castings are clean and near perfect

The detail of the brick pattern is perfect!

 

[t2sides]

And next is a comparison to an original tile casting (white primer), and the raw resin casting.

This really shows off the incredible job Dan did modeling and creating the Master for this tile.

Just amazing to see one of the most iconic of these tiles finally come to life.

And with the Kit Kat cast and the soon to be completed square tower master.

Still amazes us how they possibly made hundreds of these tiles!

Cheers!
-Sean

 

[Searun]

Pure art work. Iconic greeblies frozen in carbonate. Beautiful, Awesome, Incredible tribute to the Star Wars craftsmen of ILM.

 

[joberg]

Loooove it to bits

 

[3DImpact]

And... the Three Fins tile has seen its first casting!

Fresh out of the silicone mold:

All the edges are sharp and straight and the greeblie details are crisp:

For those of you who can do it, here is a crossed-eyed stereo pair of the first casting out in the sunlight:

I intentionally slightly over-volumed the FoamIt expanding foam for this first casting to be sure that I completely filled everything and to see how close the 3D model volume calculations matched up. In short - trust the numbers! I'll be able to fill these perfectly from here on out. And the silicone soft mold containing the casting pops free from the expanding foam hardshell much easier that the Chimney tile does.

SO fun and satisfying the close the loop on this last tile!

Dan

 

[3DImpact]

Castings of all three of the recently-completed tiles together in the sunlight:

Dan

 

[Combat Baby]

Awesome round of updates recently.

Very glad to hear the process and materials are performing as needed to get the best castings and retain detail.

Those driveway photos are awesome to see natural light. These could be very fun to experiment with in studio lighting too.

One of the coolest display options for all those spaceships out there. Great work.

 

[joberg]

Amaze-balls for sure

 

[3DImpact]

Oh, 'cuz, you know - why not?

(The usual cross-eyed stereo thing)

Just a couple hundred more to go... (I kid, I kid!)

Dan

 

[Scott Graham]

Is that warm color olive?

 

[3DImpact]

Is that warm color olive?

Oh, none of these are final colors. Half of these aren't even painted at all, just raw resin. That tile in the center was just an experiment with off-the-shelf rattle cans to try some different tones other than the usual primer grays.

For our own display tiles at least, we're researching the screen-used grays and colors and will be custom mixing rattle can matches to those colors...

Dan

(Edited to add: That brownish color on half the tile in the center is an off-the-shelf approximation to what has been color matched to a screen-used article by the ArchiveX folks - their version is called "Olive Oxide")

 

[t2sides]

Dan - Wow - that lighting is perfect to show these off!! Great photos showing our progress on these tiles! It’s so rewarding after all this time to see these all together!

Looks just like the old ILM days!

Can’t wait to get that last revised square tile master finished and we can get our full size trench built!