Quatermass and the Pit - Martian Ship CG model

[skiffy]

Here's a quick turnaround of how the crystal structure fits in the inner and outer hulls. I've not started thinking yet about exactly where to put the part line for the printed hulls to allow assembly / painting etc. That's a task for future me. Still, progress is progress.

 

[Dinojoe]

Following progress on this one very keenly how goes progress?
is it going to be available for one off use ?

best wishes J

 

[skiffy]

Back in the saddle, DinoJoe!

I split the large version of the model and figured out how it would go together.

Next up will be fixings for the inner and outer shells but I'm happy with this.

 

[skiffy]

A little update - I'm doing some test exports to see if the shells are thick enough when sliced for printing. So far the walls are just under 1mm thick - so 2 passes with a 0.4 nozzle. They'll need thickening up but I might run a test print to see how well it keeps its shape - and to see how strong it is / isn't

I could do a much thicker shell which requires a level of infill - and might yet go that route. At the moment this development work is biased for FDM output rather than resin.

 

[skiffy]

There's a little progress on this today since I'm working in the digital realm. I've scheduled to do a test print tomorrow so we'll see if that works out.

It looks a lot more like a kit now - which is good. I have some support structure in there to help with placement of the interior shells. There's also a one-piece insert for the 4 cells where the Martian bugs are located. They'll be sculpted later.

I've made my best guess at scale adding Metric Man (TM) who helps me out when sizing models.

More soon!

 

[publiusr]

This build has quite the hidden complexity.

 

[skiffy]

This build has quite the hidden complexity.

Yup, it certainly does. It's all organic shapes, hardly a straight line except for the crystal cells. Plus, I want it to be an easy build - I've seen some horrific STL files for sale, some of which must be nigh on unprintable.

I threw the model into Cura to see how the slicer copes. I generally use Prusa Slicer but Cura seems less forgiving and will show areas that are concerning, like this:

The top of the tail will need some serious bridging which I'm doubtful most printers will cope with unless they are very well dialled in. So, I'll build some support into the model at this point and any others I spot.