One of the first things I did when I got my 3D printer was to make Nomad from the original Star Trek series. Modelled in Blender, printed at roughly 1/4 scale on an Ultimaker 2 3D printer in PLA filament, surfaces levelled with Smooth-On XTC-3D epoxy, and painted with Model Masters and Alclad paints.
I originally modelled it with all three antennae retracted, because I knew if I had one or more of them extended, I would eventually knock the model over and snap it. But then I had the idea to use magnets to make the forward antenna swappable between extended and retracted (and, more importantly, replaceable). They're strong enough to keep the antenna in place, but weak enough to release it before it breaks.
Close-ups of the greebles on top of the main body, with a quarter for scale. I didn't use the XTC-3D on them, out of concern that it would obliterate some of the finer details. The tradeoff is that the 3D-printed nature of the parts becomes pretty obvious up close.
I thought I might eventually want to install lights in the model, so I planned ahead and made the bottom of the base removable, and left a hollow path all the way up through the model to the very top for wiring. I also decided it might help in the wiring process if the back panel were removable, too, so I used small neodymium magnets to clamp it to steel plates affixed inside. Because the side panels were fairly thin and somewhat flexible, I added some bracing to make it a bit sturdier.
The model consists of 47 3D-printed parts, plus five short lengths of piano wire for the antenna cluster, five small magnets, and two steel plates. It's in so many pieces because I wanted to avoid overhangs and support structures, for the cleanest possible exterior.
Most of it was printed in Ultimaker Silver Metallic PLA. The "eyes" on the very top are printed in colorFabb glowFill PLA/PHA, which I wouldn't recommend (Prototype Supply's glow-in-the-dark PLA is much brighter and longer-lasting).
A couple more WIP shots. Due to the scale, the printer had trouble getting all the little fiddly bits around the holes to stick to the build plate. So I made the first couple layers of the body panels solid so the hole borders had something tangible to fuse to, then drilled through them from the back. All 660 of them.
(As an aside, I see people posting pictures that display larger inline than the thumbnails these are showing up as. Had a look through the FAQ, but couldn't see anything that explained how to do that. Sorry that you can't really see much without having to click on the thumbnails.)
