Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov

Whats that you cry: "Steve, why don't you post some artwork instead of these bull**** movie reviews?"

Well, since you asked so nicely, here's something I built for Admiralty Modelworks last year . Of course if you're reading this blog then you most likely already know this is from the show 2010: The year we make contact. a sequel of sorts to the seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey, which though it carries the surface narrative along nicely nev...

"I said stop reviewing movies, dammit!"

Ok, ok, here's some finished pics, if you put the blasters and warhammers away can I at least talk about the background of the design in a minute?

*sounds of guns, swords, spells, hexes and curses being holstered, slung, retracted and absorbed.*

In this exciting pic from Babylon 9 the next generation, Lt Colonel Boris Spry lines up to level another salvo of hot lead toward a Vorlon bird of prey. 

So, this vessel was originally designed by legendary futurist Syd Mead, who after a curing all known diseases in his youth, and winning every sporting award available, boldly threw his vaccine in the bin, opened a box of doughnuts and started drawing spaceships instead.

Fans of Babylon 5, officially the best scifi TV show ever as revealed in my exclusive opinion poll, will of course recognise it as being really rather similar to one of the main ships of the humans, the Garibaldi class corvette and tediously point that issue out to seem clever to strangers.

Babble on Five of course produced many years after 2010, in 1992. No, wait, 2010 was over Unger, and Unger was over 1984.

Adding more 'science' to the fiction, the large section in the middle rotates to produce artificial gravity (the kit is formed around a metal tube to allow the centre to rotate), has a deployable 'Ballute', like an inflatable heat shield (not pictured or depicted in the kit), and reverse thrust engines (depicted in normal, not retro mode in the kit).

Also the clamp at the bottom can move and attach the ship to other ships, so on the kit itself you can position the clamps and attach the model kit to the Discovery model kit (detailed elsewhere in the blog) as depicted in the movie.

For all sorts of reasons I won't even attempt to understand or explain, it becomes clear when the ships are docked together that Discovery is now much larger externally than in 2001. It has to be, because otherwise there's no way people, let alone landers and probes and other things could fit inside Leonov's sprawling and spindly hull, and still have Leonov as the smaller of the two. Unfortunately this is not reflected at all in the set design, so the pod bay of Discovery is much too small on the set and much too large on the miniature. In the case of Leonov, careful Anal-ysis reveals that the sets are way too large for the miniature exterior but who cares about that really? It's just a cool looking ship.

Anyway, here are some WIP pics made a year or two ago to show how we got here:

Closeup on the airlock, can you say 'chicken' in Russian? You may be able to after watching 2010 in 2012... but can you think it?

The entire centrifuge assembly rotates around the central tube - just a normal metal tube - and the other lateral tubes are for reinforcement.

WIP shot showing the parts breakdown for resin casting.

Wip pic taken while working on the bow details, trying to get it as close to the movie version as possible within the limits of producing a digital prototype.

WIP pic taken of the centrifuge detail.  All the pipes and details are solidly fused into the hull to make one continuous skin, rather than placed on top of and intersecting with other parts as usual in 3d modelling.  

Big thanks to my buddy 'Brickhead' (not his real name) for sharing his stash of reference material with me.

Do svidaniya Komrades!

Caiman APC

Previously previewed on the blog, now masterfully brought to production by Khurasan Miniatures.

Production mini, Painted by Dwartist 

Pre-production render. 

The Time Machine Chair - WIP

From the George Pal movie over half a century ago, way before Deloreans and even Police Boxes, the time machine this chair belonged to was at one point the only way to get around in time and create plot holes in screenplays.  

It's still the one of the coolest of all the time machines, of all time, with its elegant  steampunk styling, before steampunk was steampunk, by Bill Ferrari.

To give it that classic look, the chair used in the original late 50's production was a suitably ornate and complicated looking real barbers chair from the protagonists Victorian era, a Berninghaus Hercules; It was modified slightly in a few ways to give it a more purposeful look as the time pilots chair, or perhaps simply to disguise it a little.

 A recreation of this same chair was also used in the 2002 remake with even further modifications to the basic shape situated in a far larger and more elaborate machine.

High-Tech Human Hover Tank

or, HTHHT!

Gesundheit!

Production model, Painted by Dwartist

Original "Quickie" concept painting

3D pre-production rendings.

Parts breakdown rendering

Available from Khurasan Miniatures as XM6 superheavy grav tank.

Heavy Metal

Since these images are probably no longer online (And the project is not one thats abandoned, just on a long list of stuff to-do) I'll repost them here for old followers of the project and new alike. Hopefully i'll make some more progress on this vehicle this year.

Its your one way ticket to midniiii.... umm, Mars.

It is intended to be a 50+ years future spacecraft: Powered by Helium 3 fuelled Fusion engines it can take off from a (very long - like Area 51 long)  runway built as a custom spaceport.   As you can tell, the vehicle is huge and is needed to take a lot of passengers on journeys between the earth End Mars.

Once at Mars there are perhaps several options:  Docking with a spacestation and shuttling down to the surface; the spacecraft in its entirety could land on the surface using VTOL engines or the front section itself could detach and take all passengers and crew to the surface. This feature might save weight due to less VTOL engines required or increase safety.  During all manoeuvring passengers are contained in the front section, as well as a landing module this could also serve as a lifeboat.  A requirement if Zapp Brannigan is at the controls. 

Docked at a mockup spacestation with centrifuge deployed.

Landing would be tricky at high speeds and high angle of attack (AOA) so the pilot would need extra assistance.  When complete the model will be usable in Orbiter and perhaps other applications as it is designed as a real time model to be used in real time applications, despite its large size.  This is accomplished through extensive use of texture tiling.  I would like someone to be able to stand on the hull and not see the pixels so the approach to detailing is more along the lines of an environment than a vehicle in traditional terms.  Along similar lines of approach is the Normandy SR1 and SR2 from Mass Effect.

As with any high AOA landing vehicle, this will land fast and nose high. 

A fully (or perhaps limited to couple of decks) explorable interior, including flight deck/virtual cockpit and access to the centrifuge is planned.  Since lighting will have to be all in the textures themselves, 'baked' into the texture tiles a day/night cycle is accomplished by flipping the texture sets on a regular interval in flight, satisfying the primitive hu-man need for sleep.  Personal entertainment is probably more likely over the traditional two week long inflight movie but the occasional classic might be broadcast on the decks info panels. 

this area, a zero g zone within the forward hull, might be full of seating, a concern for a real time model due to the vast amounts of seats that could be fitted in the cavernous hull! 

Any further development of this project will be shown in its entirety in this blog, thanks for reading. 

McQuarrie inspired oldies.

All of these were built pre-2005-6: While I consider them original designs in their own right, the influence of mcquarries style, looking back is evident.  

Originally completed in 2002 its all engines and guns and little else other than a frame and skin holding the parts together; I have been often told it would 'fit right in' with Star Wars.   Curiously this is my most often copied design. Someone recently had the cheek to build a copy of it and enter it in a deviant art contest, while I complained at the time I was more annoyed that he didn't win.

BTW rather than copying it vertex for vertex he could have saved himself a LOT of time and simply bought a copy of it from my 3D02 store: http://www.3d02.com/3d_model_index.aspx?OptSearchType=1&TxtAuthor=coolhand 

(Infact blog readers can get a copy for slightly cheaper - leave a comment on this webzone if you want a pizza roll, sorry, I mean copy of the 3d model.)

BSG Viper-ish leanings below (the clues in the name!)

^ Infact the shape was more inspired by the 60's lifting body experimentals like the M2F2 etc.

All Textures for this one became lost in a cumbersome misfortune involving a thunderstorm and exploding powersupply.

Thats all for now.

Movie Time...

I also do animation, perhaps not well, but I do it;)

First up is the Sasquatch Rover, A rugged ATV/Monster truck for realtime 3D - video games etc. This model has been around for a while now and is being put into Orbiter (thanks to my good friend Abhi) and other things.

And finally for now, a short experimental video from a few years back of a dogfight in space, gone wrong - the dogfight, not the animation...

Microworldgames.com TEF 6mm Sci fi mini's

Here are the existing models for Microworlds TEF collection, apparently the last few vehicles are nearly ready to be added. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw them because i think they look great, better than I had expected... I would also like to share the wonderful paint jobs that Aaron Dickey applied to them.

I designed the vehicles and infantry myself, and although I'm biased, I think they turned out just great and will be one of the best 6mm fleets out there, thanks of course to Steve Salotti of Microworld who has patiently assembled the people required for production and got the designs out there, I hope they do him proud.

I've reposted my poster image of the fleet so you can see how they turned out compared to the 3d renderings, I think with the great paint job the production mini's look even better than the renderings.

(I'm extra pleased that Aaron chose similar colour scheme for the real models, as it makes it easy to compare)

Alright, I'll stop gushing now... Check them out and buy a set:) 

All the vehicles seen here will shortly be available, currently you can get the jet gunship, the 4 wheel car, the 6 wheel APC, 10 wheel IFV, the motorbike and the infantry guys, click the link below!

http://www.microworldgames.com/collections/6mm-scifi/TEF

El Diablo de la Carretera

The following information is classified and has been leaked from a government insider....


*******


Currently in use with a black budget task force on the late night highways of the US and Mexico; it's existence is denied by the US Government, it's mission, classified beyond top secret. Never normally seen during daylight, the dark hunched form seen speeding around the border areas has become known as "The Devil of the Highway" and is associated with many burned out car wrecks (which appear to have been pummelled by high powered explosive tipped rounds) and mysterious deaths found in areas where the vehicle is sighted. 


Based on the XMT-168 advanced APC prototype this vehicle is modified for use at high speed on paved roads: It features 6 wheel drive and 6 wheel steering, powered by twin turbo-shaft engines outputting a combined 2000 shaft horsepower. Aerodynamically arranged armour and double rear wheels help keep it on the road, along with a vacuum system (inspired by outlawed Chaparral race cars) that create low pressure areas under the hull around the front and side skirts allowing manuvering that belies its mass - which is minimal through use of composites and high tech materials. The turret has a faceted lenticular shape - similar to an AWACS radar that allows the turret to rotate and cause minimal wind deflection at high speeds. 


To tackle rougher terrain, the vehicle can raise up on its double wishbone suspension and / or detach skirt sections for added clearance, it is also able to fit inside a C-130 transport and compact enough to be practical on a modern road network. The side effect of this is reduced carrying capacity for troops or cargo of its own. Effective Crew is a minimum of 2, typically 3 and provision for carrying a small number of passengers. 

*******

The model itself is built to be 3D printable and while it's also a scifi concept model its also an experimental test bed for very real world technologies that allow the printing of miniaturised working suspension components, or of course any type of working mechanism.

Snowbound! Christmas update / reposting old stuff in my blog:)

A couple of vehicles in the snow... Not particularly festive but it's the best I could do. OK?  

....Wish i had spent more time painting the snow.

This model took me over 2 years of freetime and as yet I've only made this one image with it. 

Merry Christmas