Epcot Attraction "Horizons" Space Vehicle scratch-build

[joez2391]

Does anyone here remember the old attraction at Epcot Center called "Horizons"? It used to be one of my favorite rides as a kid but it closed down in 1999 unfortunately, being replaced by mission space. (This blog has some of the best pictures of the various elements of the ride from different perspectives: Mesa Verde Times go to the 2nd page) In my opinion it had some of the most interesting designs of vehicles that were supposed to exist sometime in the future. I always wanted replicas of the vehicles and spaceships seen throughout the ride, but it was never around long enough to have any merchandise, except for a few pins. So I decided to try out my first scratch build on this guy:
Pic 1.http://jefflangedvd.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/horizons025.jpg
Pic 2.http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qqA2FMhXpwM/TAhPA0UGxCI/AAAAAAAAAnU/cMnm2sfJGjM/s1600/hor181.jpg
Pic 3. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qqA2FMhXpwM/TAhPuQlAjwI/AAAAAAAAAnc/CMb3hJZJ1Bc/s1600/hor182.jpg

So basically I decided to do a project where I only had three tiny reference pictures to work with, which I normally would not choose to do, but I had a lot of freedom to add my own personal touches to it. I'm currently about three quarters of the way done and had to put the rest on hold until December for the time being because imp away at college. I just wanted to see what you guys think of this because I know a lot of people on these forums are into Retro Space capsules and stuff. I hope you like it and I'll be posting build up pictures later. I hope you guys like it and remember I'm still very new at this :rolleyes

 

[Bradleyfett]

Nice! I can't wait to see it! I'm a Horizons enthusiast myself!

One of my personal dream projects is to model the tiny one-man subs and spaceships see in Horizons.

What scale are you doing your model in?

M

 

[joez2391]

Yea I cannot tell you how badly Ive wanted those as well, it seems like as long as a basic body could be built, then converting them either to the spaceship or the sub would only require minor details to be added. Its really nice to see another Horizons fan here! As for the scale of my model, I haven't really been sticking to a specific scale but it is about 10" inches tall without being mounted on the base. I was originally going to build the Harvester from the orange grove scene, but I figured I needed to practice on something smaller to start off with before taking on a bigger scratch build. Here are some progress pics from a few weeks ago.

This is the main body, which is basically two pvc pipes that are being supported by 1/4 inch copper tubing:

The control station is made from a cut mpc snowspeeder cockpit, some small kit parts and the rest is scratch built.

I had no idea what to do about the base to support this, I ended up stumbling upon some extra hardwood flooring left over in our garage so I put together something quick.

 

[joez2391]

More pics:

In the attraction the space station Brava Centari can be seen spinning in the background, so I ended up finding a great picture of this online, blew it up and cut it out. This will be going on the back part of the stand.

Here is a testfit of the raw model, without any detaing, as it looks on the base, i wanted to give it an appearance of it floating in space.

 

[joez2391]

I then sculpted a figure to stand in the cockpit out of aves apoxie. It was my first time working with apoxie clay and i really loved it. I tried to sculpt it out of regular modeling clay but I just was not happy with the result so I ended up throwing away the clay sculpture while it was about half way done.

Raw parts before being assembled:

Quick testfit:

all glued and assembled:

The figure is still not 100% finished in these pics but dont worry it will look much better being seen through the clear plastic sphere(which I didnt take the plastic off of yet, to prevent scratching before it is finished).

 

[joez2391]

Making the arms out of copper tubing

Building the space station pipes (holding in the capsules hands) conisted of a 6 part process, the structure of the beams were made out of long wooden skewers glued to toothpics. After the basic structure was sturdy enough to work with, I glued styrene rod matching the reference photos. I made the ball joints holding everything together by using some apoxie sculpt.

This was then masked and painted aluminum and red

Here is a comparison to the rest of the model.