For many years I’ve dipped in and out of 3D modelling, learning very specific tasks such as texture mapping or skeleton binding or arcane format conversions for…projects. Never however have I produced a 3D model of my own from scratch, until now.
Because owning a 3D printer and having no ability to effectively use blender was a tad too daft even for me…
So here we go.
The first 3D model I ever built. I have no particular fondness for the Saladin class, and if I did it would be the refit version, however it was a really nice simple set of shapes and I thought it would give me a nice concept of how much detail would show up at Attack Wing scale. When I’ve primed the physical one and found somewhere to mount the peg I’ll definitely post a picture here.
And while that was printing I set about making myself something a tad more relevant to the things I actually want to play in Attack Wing…notably the Norway Class. This one clearly isn’t finished yet, but I thought for once I’d post a WIP.
The more canon eyed among you may spot various oddities in both these designs. In both cases the designs are a hybrid of various different images of the ships, taking details from a few sources and changing some to account for what works at 5-7 centimetres long.
For example the TOS-Style Saladin is commonly pictures with a Constitution style deflector dish hanging on an arm below the centre of the saucer which would be a complete structural failure in resin, so I substitued an equally era appropriate sensor dome. Also the pipes on the back of the nacelles are closer to solid fins here to maintain integrity without losing the general shape.
The Norway is an even trickier one because just about every image of the Norway Class has some variations. For those not as much of a nerd as myself the reason for this, and why the class never appeared after First Contact, was that the original 3D file was lost and not rebuilt until eaglemoss wanted to produce a physical model, so just about every intervening version takes some liberties with the details of the original…And I do exactly the same here. Hopefully I’ll be able to show off the finished version of this in physical form pretty soon.
Oh and should I deem these good enough I shall post the files here for download, as I will with any other ships I make.