Collektor
Sr Member
With the untimely demise of my graphics workstation about a week ago I found myself with a lot of free time. I decided to do a build up of the Voight-Kampff machine from Blade Runner. Looking up references I came across Syd Mead's concept sketches for the device. I decided to deviate on the build and combine elements from the concept version and the screen version and come up with a new variant of it.
After doing a few dozen sketches to get the shapes together and understand how they fit together and how they would be built, I started drafting blueprints to use in the construction. One of the first challenges I ran into was how to transfer the blueprints to the sintra. I was using black sintra so standard graphite or acetone transfer was out. But I did stumble on a method that solved two problems in one go. I taped the blueprints down to the sintra board, then going carefully with a ballpoint pen, I traced over the blueprints, applying light pressure with the pen. The 1/8th sintra board took the pen lines as indentations on the surface, allowing me to trace both the cut lines, and any panel/detail scribe lines into the surface of the board. No more having to scribe the lines with a small file. The result was much cleaner scribe lines as well.
Once the blueprints were transferred, I began cutting out the various component parts. First the basic box frame of the base was built, then the front face with the monitor housing and button slots was cut out and attached. A rectangle was cut out of the top of the base frame's 'lid' to accommodate the detail panel seen in Mead's sketches which is located behind the two small monitors. This part was built separately using the same transfer method to inscribe the detail lines into the panel. A little kitbashing yielded a few interesting parts for detailing the panel. This panel was then glued into the cut out.
The next challenge came in the bellows. Mead's concept shows the bellows as being integrated into the top of the unit and folding into the whole unit when closed. However I wasn't able to wrap my head around how to fabricate what looked to be both solid and flexible components in the bellows mechanism, much less how to get it to stay open. Following the screen used build, I would have to fabricate at least 6 bellows, and lacking a vac forming rig, I didn't think it was going to be possible to maintain symmetry in the nested design. I finally settled on merging the two designs.
The bellows on this VK would comprise a top lid and bottom lid that had a similar shape to the screen used bellows, but the interior section would be bellows like on a folding camera. After a bit of research into how to fold paper bellows, I drafted a few bellows diagrams and set to folding them. Not insanely difficult once you get your head around how all the folds go. My first set of bellows was built using a heavy black construction paper, but once folded the bellows had so much spring resistance that they would warp the plastic top if compressed. So it was back to the drawing board. I reworked the drawing to make bellows with only 5 sections and built it up from heavy weight drawing paper. It was tougher to maintain clean folds with this paper, but the end result was bellows that didn't have an excessive amount of spring tension.
I then tried coating the white paper with Plasti-Dip spray. While it did work to give the bellows a rubberized appearance, it also warped the paper even with multiple light coats and made gluing the bellows to the lid almost impossible. At that point I had to rebuild another set of bellows, only this time I applied several light layers of black satin spray paint which did not warp the paper they way the Plasti-Dip had. At that point the bellows were attached to the top and bottom panels of the assembly.
From there I made two small boxes that would be the two small monitors seen in Mead's concept sketches. These were built up but not attached to the main body. I knew that I would have to make use of a limited color palette and I wanted the two monitors to be in a flat black against the dark metal of the upper part of the machine body. Once the bellows placement was marked off on the main body, the housing for the main monitor was built and attached.
I then turned my attention to the arm and scanner eye. I chose to stay as faithful as possible to Syd Mead's design for the arm and the scanner eye. The entire scanner eye assembly was built up using a sandwich of 1/8th sintra sheets cut to shape, with the camera eye cut out so a piece of clear plastic could be sandwiched between the two outer layers. Since the arm does articulate up and down I had to study Mead's sketches to see how the eye would move when the arm was lowered. Once I saw where the pivot point was on the eye, I drilled out a hole in the eye and the corresponding support post, and using a scavenged dial from an old compass I was able to attach the scanner eye to the support with a hand tightened nut that allowed it to pivot through a limited range of motion. The support post's rotating mechanism was beyond my engineering skills so it is simply glued onto the top of the arm in a position that matches the concept sketches.
The back of the unit was detailed using a mix of prefabricated styrene parts and sintra scraps. Once the arm was installed Additional detail panels were attached to the sides to finish out the design. On the front of the unit below the twin monitors is supposed to be a dial or a gauge depending on which version you're looking at. I wasn't able to find a round lid that could be re-purposed into a gauge, and I didn't relish the idea of trying to cut a circle out of sintra at that size, so I opted instead to build in a card slot which will hold the VK Operator's card prop that I got from another propmaker.
Once the card slot assemble was mounted into the base, the lid and monitor housing was attached along with the bellows. At this point the build was pretty much ready for paint. After sanding and filling I shot the whole unit with a satin black, then masked off several different areas so that the upper housing could be painted in a dark gun metal color. I wasn't able to source any white push buttons so I fell back on Mead's design which has two rows of 5 buttons stacked in two columns inset into the frame. The buttons were made using a sheet of white styrene with the buttons scribed into the sheet. The various LEDs and indicators were done using reflective tape cut to shape and adhered to the model.
The only thing that still remains to be done is to rework the monitor graphics into color versions and install the monitor glass. If I had it to do over again, there's probably about a hundred different things I'd do differently, but overall I enjoyed the challenges presented by this build. I'll post better photos once I've finished fully, but in the mean time here are a few snaps of the model in its current state. Thanks for looking.
After doing a few dozen sketches to get the shapes together and understand how they fit together and how they would be built, I started drafting blueprints to use in the construction. One of the first challenges I ran into was how to transfer the blueprints to the sintra. I was using black sintra so standard graphite or acetone transfer was out. But I did stumble on a method that solved two problems in one go. I taped the blueprints down to the sintra board, then going carefully with a ballpoint pen, I traced over the blueprints, applying light pressure with the pen. The 1/8th sintra board took the pen lines as indentations on the surface, allowing me to trace both the cut lines, and any panel/detail scribe lines into the surface of the board. No more having to scribe the lines with a small file. The result was much cleaner scribe lines as well.
Once the blueprints were transferred, I began cutting out the various component parts. First the basic box frame of the base was built, then the front face with the monitor housing and button slots was cut out and attached. A rectangle was cut out of the top of the base frame's 'lid' to accommodate the detail panel seen in Mead's sketches which is located behind the two small monitors. This part was built separately using the same transfer method to inscribe the detail lines into the panel. A little kitbashing yielded a few interesting parts for detailing the panel. This panel was then glued into the cut out.
The next challenge came in the bellows. Mead's concept shows the bellows as being integrated into the top of the unit and folding into the whole unit when closed. However I wasn't able to wrap my head around how to fabricate what looked to be both solid and flexible components in the bellows mechanism, much less how to get it to stay open. Following the screen used build, I would have to fabricate at least 6 bellows, and lacking a vac forming rig, I didn't think it was going to be possible to maintain symmetry in the nested design. I finally settled on merging the two designs.
The bellows on this VK would comprise a top lid and bottom lid that had a similar shape to the screen used bellows, but the interior section would be bellows like on a folding camera. After a bit of research into how to fold paper bellows, I drafted a few bellows diagrams and set to folding them. Not insanely difficult once you get your head around how all the folds go. My first set of bellows was built using a heavy black construction paper, but once folded the bellows had so much spring resistance that they would warp the plastic top if compressed. So it was back to the drawing board. I reworked the drawing to make bellows with only 5 sections and built it up from heavy weight drawing paper. It was tougher to maintain clean folds with this paper, but the end result was bellows that didn't have an excessive amount of spring tension.
I then tried coating the white paper with Plasti-Dip spray. While it did work to give the bellows a rubberized appearance, it also warped the paper even with multiple light coats and made gluing the bellows to the lid almost impossible. At that point I had to rebuild another set of bellows, only this time I applied several light layers of black satin spray paint which did not warp the paper they way the Plasti-Dip had. At that point the bellows were attached to the top and bottom panels of the assembly.
From there I made two small boxes that would be the two small monitors seen in Mead's concept sketches. These were built up but not attached to the main body. I knew that I would have to make use of a limited color palette and I wanted the two monitors to be in a flat black against the dark metal of the upper part of the machine body. Once the bellows placement was marked off on the main body, the housing for the main monitor was built and attached.
I then turned my attention to the arm and scanner eye. I chose to stay as faithful as possible to Syd Mead's design for the arm and the scanner eye. The entire scanner eye assembly was built up using a sandwich of 1/8th sintra sheets cut to shape, with the camera eye cut out so a piece of clear plastic could be sandwiched between the two outer layers. Since the arm does articulate up and down I had to study Mead's sketches to see how the eye would move when the arm was lowered. Once I saw where the pivot point was on the eye, I drilled out a hole in the eye and the corresponding support post, and using a scavenged dial from an old compass I was able to attach the scanner eye to the support with a hand tightened nut that allowed it to pivot through a limited range of motion. The support post's rotating mechanism was beyond my engineering skills so it is simply glued onto the top of the arm in a position that matches the concept sketches.
The back of the unit was detailed using a mix of prefabricated styrene parts and sintra scraps. Once the arm was installed Additional detail panels were attached to the sides to finish out the design. On the front of the unit below the twin monitors is supposed to be a dial or a gauge depending on which version you're looking at. I wasn't able to find a round lid that could be re-purposed into a gauge, and I didn't relish the idea of trying to cut a circle out of sintra at that size, so I opted instead to build in a card slot which will hold the VK Operator's card prop that I got from another propmaker.
Once the card slot assemble was mounted into the base, the lid and monitor housing was attached along with the bellows. At this point the build was pretty much ready for paint. After sanding and filling I shot the whole unit with a satin black, then masked off several different areas so that the upper housing could be painted in a dark gun metal color. I wasn't able to source any white push buttons so I fell back on Mead's design which has two rows of 5 buttons stacked in two columns inset into the frame. The buttons were made using a sheet of white styrene with the buttons scribed into the sheet. The various LEDs and indicators were done using reflective tape cut to shape and adhered to the model.
The only thing that still remains to be done is to rework the monitor graphics into color versions and install the monitor glass. If I had it to do over again, there's probably about a hundred different things I'd do differently, but overall I enjoyed the challenges presented by this build. I'll post better photos once I've finished fully, but in the mean time here are a few snaps of the model in its current state. Thanks for looking.
