Any kit that has an interior would be more expensive then a kit without. Yes, just a shell could be made more reasonably but you also have to factor in the time and cost of the molds as well. It's not just the resin or resin and fabric. Molds arent cheap and the builder has to recoup the cost of the molds. In the case of a popular kit you need more then 1 set of molds because a mold is only good for so many pulls.
R2 probably spent $10K on tooling but they spread it across thousands of kits, thats why its a $120 kit. Look at comprable kits in the junkyard (size etc) and see where the pricepoint falls. In many cases fibergalss kits are more then all resin ones.
I just finished my Shado Mobile which is comparable to the Galileo but has no full interior.
You make a very good point there, Szyntax. To be honest, I'd forgotten to take into account the added cost involved for the various RTV silicone molds for the different kit parts. That would certainly drive the pricepoint up for such a kit, even just a basic shell kit. Like I said before, I have no experience in mold making myself, so I could've easily missed a thing or two (which I did).
I would pay $400 plus for a (well done) 22-incher with an interior in a heartbeat.
I would too
I'd actually begun working on some of the different interior parts (ie. chair, forward control console) as I progressed on the hull itself, but regrettably the interior parts were destroyed in an unfortunate accident.
It's actually kind of a mixed blessing that it happened, as in going back to look at them I noticed what I consider "glaring" flaws in my design of them, so it will give me the opportunity to go back and correct those errors.
I do have every intention of redoing them for a complete interior, but only after I've finally completed the Shuttlecraft itself.
I think its ridiculous to put an interior into a model that was never scaled for one in the first place. Best way to please the ones who just have to have one is by selling a separate interior kit for the shuttle. That way everyone's happy.
Which is exactly what I proposed in my last post (#15) above. Offer both a shell kit only for those who want to keep it screen accurate, and a shell kit with interior parts for those who want an idealized version of the Shuttlecraft as it should've been. That way, it caters to both mindsets, and the price differential should be fairly significant depending on the buyer's disposable income for such a purchase.
That is a point but most hollywood set pieces use a different interior then exterior
Thats true but if you will notice that in the Next Generation series and the other Trek series to follow , the interior set matched the scale of the model. Even the full size shuttles that had interiors were scaled to match.
TymerDC's got a point with the interiors matching up with the exteriors for the TNG-era Shuttlecraft, however I don't know if that continued on afterward into DS9 and VOY. I take a look at the interior sets for the
Danube Class Runabout and
Delta Flyer, and it seems like the size of the interior sets don't necessarily match up with the exteriors.
In the case of the TOS Shuttlecraft, I think it should be fairly easy to rescale the interior to fit within the confines of the outer shell so as to properly fit inside, and still have all the interior parts scaled correctly to one another without significantly affecting the overall visual effect. That's kind of what I plan on doing when I revisit the interior parts, which is one thing I didn't consider when I did them the first time around.
