I finished a model: an Edwardian Aerial Housecar

Cafe Society
1

It’s been a while since I posted an “I finished a model” thread, but by gum, I’m a-gonna do it now.

At Wonderfest last May I bought an interesting-looking resin kit of a flying tugboat-thingie, the Celestial Traveler by Aperture 360:

Well, of course I can never build anything straight out of the box, so the next thing I knew, I’d whacked the whole center of the hull out to add some sort of living quarters:

There wasn’t enough space for bunks, so I found myself extending the pilothouse roof aft to create a bedroom:

I dumped the steam boiler and put on a state-of-the-art (well, for 1916) rotary engine:

I built a rather complicated pilot station:

…and some furniture for the parlor:

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z256/hilbyf/Edwardian%20Aerial%20Housecar/file_zps98145d30.jpg

Two days ago, after 279 days (I know, because I documented the build over on a sci-fi forum :slight_smile: ), I finished the Edwardian Aerial Housecar:


Whew! Next project: A Mechanical Mole for a group project, to be finished by the big September Galaxy Hobby sci-fi model contest.

2

Love it! I’m not familiar with the background of this model, or modeling in general, so I have some ignorant questions.

First (not so ignorant) what is the scale?
Is it tethered to that steeple just as a way to display it?
Can you buy things like the dishes, like for a dollhouse?
I love the brass railings, are those fittings generally available or did you have to do some manufacturing?

Anything else you want to share about the process, for the non-modelers among us? Maybe you should do an “ask the” thread.
Roddy

3

Impressive job.

4

Good lord, that’s cool. You do wonderful work.

Remind me, do you sell any of these? I have to assume there is a market for this kind of thing…

5

Fantastic! :o

Is the model based on something like an actual design or a science fiction story, perhaps?

6

Very cool, love the pilot house design and the great paint job, especially the weathering on the steeple. What is your favorite part of the completed model? Anything you wish you did differently? Did you scratch build the furniture from styrene, or were they kits?

7

Wow! I stand in awe - that is wonderful work.

8

  1. The scale is 1/35th; a human being would be, um, (calculator) just about two inches tall.

  2. The Housecar is moored to the steeple by a rope tied around the cross. I feel that models engage the viewer better if they’re tall, so the steeple was a way to elevate the model a bit. You’ll note that the steeple is built with forced perspective (ooooohh aaaaaahhh) :wink:

  3. Most of the plates, silverware, etc, are purchased items. There’s not as much variety available as there is in the larger scales used for dollhouses, but thanks to the military modelers’ practice of making dioramas of wrecked houses to display their Panther tanks in, there are a few manufacturers making household items in 1/35th. One problem is that the furniture available is WWII stuff, not suitable for the Housecar; so I ended up building all of the furniture except the chairs.

  4. The brass railing stanchions are from a purveyor of model boat parts, which saved me a lot of work. I ordered them from a “stockist” in England; England has all the cool stuff :slight_smile:

Not usually. I’ve built a couple models on commission, and once after a model car show I sold a '58 Cadillac that some guy just had to have; but not as a general rule. For one thing, you can’t charge enough to pay for your time; for another, they’re a stone-plated b**ch to ship; and lastly, that would make it into work, which would be… bad. :wink:

Nah, it’s straight out of my own pointy little head :smiley:

  1. The parlor just sucks me in. I had expected people to be attracted to the woman getting a letter, since people are usually drawn to figures, but so far they seem to zero in on the parlor.

  2. My weak point is painting, and I always seem to be a bit dissatisfied with my paint jobs. it’s especially tough knowing just how far to go weathering things; is it too dirty yet? How about now? How about—oh, blast! Too dirty! That said, I had a lot of fun weathering the steeple. :slight_smile:

  3. The furniture, except for the chairs, is all scratchbuilt. I enjoy building stuff and showing off something especially intricate to my modelling buddies; my friend Jeff’s “Blast you, Steve!” is music to my ears. :wink:

9

How do you like working with resin kits? Especially in comparison with metal, polystyrene or wood.

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Resin is great if you’re modifying figures because it’s solid all the way through. So to repose a figure, you just saw off the limbs, drill holes in the stumps for brass rod, bend the rod until the limb’s where you want it, then fill in the gap with putty.

Styrene figures are made of half-shells glued together (i.e, right leg front half, right leg back half, etc), so a (large-scale) styrene figure is hollow, and you have to fill the hollow limbs with epoxy putty first before you could drill holes for the brass rod. That said, styrene models are a fifth the cost of resin models of comparable size/complication.

Thin resin things tend to warp, though, so you find yourself soaking a wing in hot water to soften it so you can straighten it; and even then it’s a bit iffy if you can get it to stay straight.

Plus, for a strong bond, resin has to be glued with super glue, which sets fast and doesn’t give you much time to adjust things.

Styrene is wonderful for “mechanical” stuff. It’s easy to cut and file, and it glues wonderfully; and the glues are slow drying, so you have time to fiddle with the joint and get everything perfectly aligned. It’s my favorite scratchbuilding material.

Wood is nice, too, but I’d never use it for anything that wasn’t wood in real life, because it’s a pain to fill the grain to get a smooth surface. That said, it can be a useful substrate; the steeple is made from a solid wood core, sheathed with styrene sheet.

Metal. Well, brass is nice; Easy to bend, easy to file, solders well.

White metal, used for wargaming figures, is a pain in the patoot. Clogs files and saw blades, can’t solder it, have to use super glue. You can bend it a little, but too much and it snaps; and it’s hard to tell exactly where that limit is. Bleah.

11

Where did you get the Cavorite? :wink:

12

What do you think 3D printing is going to do for the hobby? Add more depth and variety? Or take the art out of it because anyone can order up what they want without having to put any talent into it?

Fantastic work btw. I snooped what I assume to be some of the rest of your collection from the first link. :slight_smile:

13

Amazeballs :slight_smile: For some reason I am incredibly turned on by this lol

Did you send your photos to Aperture 360?

14

From a “stockist” in England. Like I said, England has all the cool stuff! :wink:

At Wonderfest last year I attended a presentation on digital sculpting using Zbrush. In about half an hour, the presenter had created a pretty nice-looking goblin head inside the computer. If he were a resin caster, the next step would be to 3D print it, then tidy up the “print” and use it as a master for casting resin copies for sale.
The big advantage digital had over real clay was that it was much much faster to recover from mistakes. Face too thin? Apply a stretching “tool” and make it fatter instantly, a correction which would take hours if you were using clay.

The disadvantages are that even the finest “prints” have layer lines and/or a roughish texture. If your print has fine surface detail, you’re going to obliterate some of it making the surface smooth enough to be presentable.

Also, as far as I know the current plastics you can “print” in are not easy to glue; not a problem if you’re making a master for a figure kit, but somewhat of a problem if you’re planning to assemble printed chassis rails and crossmembers into a 1932 Ford chassis.

But you can make some wonderful stuff, intricate stuff, hollow stuff, very complex single-piece “assemblies”, that would be exceptionally challenging to do in real materials. So if the materials become more friendly, and the cost drops, well, wow.

But I spend my whole day looking at a computer screen already, and I like to do things with my hands, so I doubt I’ll be getting into it.

As far as taking the “art” out of it, well, you can already buy lost of pre-made aftermarket accessories. For instance, resin casters offer complete exceptionally detailed replacement cockpits for practically every model airplane kit out there–so now you don’t have to spend hours building your own details. So to some extent, the availability of cheap resin casting has already taken the “art” out of lots of stuff.

I pretty much stopped building accurate scale models of real things several years ago; now I build sci-fi and fantasy stuff, where you can do almost anything you want, as long as it looks cool (and reasonably plausible). Availability of aftermarket parts, whether resin or 3D printed, isn’t going to eliminate the artistic aspect of model building, the attempt to express that vision in your head, which is the real challenge; it just makes it easier by clearing away some of the underbrush for you. [soapbox OFF] :wink:

Oh, and snoop away! Have fun!

15

No, I haven’t, and I’m of two minds whether to. But if he’s at Wonderfest again this year, he’ll see it. :smiley:

16

Rocketeer - gorgeous work - absolutely beautiful!

17

Wow, Rocketeer. I love this! Dioramas and miniatures are just so delightful.

I wish I had the digital dexterity to make models, but sadly I am a total klutz. I just make stuff in 3D CG instead.

However, I really like this guy’s art, and he even made a kit model for one of his designs, which I suggest you may like to play with.

18

I wish I had the time/patients/skill to do this kind of thing. Awesome work Rocketeer. Thanks for sharing.

19

Wow, just wow.

20

My (mad) friend Mad Paul has (the first issue of) that kit; it’s lovely. However, Paul decided to replace all the countersunk screw head detail with rivet heads instead, which involves drilling about a bazillion tiny holes. Understandably, his progress has been slow. :wink:

That outfit, Industria Mechanika, uses computer design and 3D printing for their prototypes. Their kits are really nice and wonderfully imaginative; Mad Paul also has their Kastor hovertank, and I’ve got the Hornethopter, the Fantastic Fish-Shaped Submersible, and Dr Manchu’s Steam Car. (Incidentally, the Steam Car, though a lovely bit of casting, has some warpage issues like I discussed above and will require some fettling to get it together.)