Looking for techniques on making detailed UFO models.

I'm sure you've done the math.

The biggest one of the three, the H3, would be 980 mm or 490 mm at your chosen scales, or 710 mm at 1:100 scale.

The smallest, the V1, would be 160 mm or 80 mm at your chosen scales, or 115 mm at 1:100.

Big models for the most part.

I'd run this by the modelers in the "Science Fiction" forum here. My own immediate feeling would be to carve them from sculpture foam. The best of it; Balsa Foam, gets pricey but there are other choices.

And unless you have a diorama planned on the South Pole Ice Cap with figures, think about a metric scale.

Bill

There are a couple of methods you could use.  3D-printing is one.  Carving foam is another.  That leads me to the idea of vacuforming, because you can make the masters from foam and treat them with a hardener.  Making a master from carved wood, like balsa, is another method.

Or you could use styrene sheet to make a framework, and use body putty to fill the spaces and shape, and then carve or sand it till you get what you want.

If there are details that you need to repeat a lot on the model, you can make masters from putty, styrene, wood, and make molds and cast them in resin, too.

Those are all methods that modelers working in various genres use, to make a unique model from scratch.

Hope that helps!

Brad

Hi,

I think that the Baron provides a good recommendation.  One issue with 3D printing is that you can end up with "steps" in way of where your model changes shape, that you will need to sand and/or smooth.  It is doable, but can be time consuming.  As such, if you plan to build multiple models, you can build one master, either from foam, balsa, bass wood, plastic and putty or 3D printing, that you can clean up and then use to vacuform parts for the other builds.

With vacuforming you can also break the model into smaller pieces, such as breaking a circular shape into quarters, so that you only need a vacuform table capable of making a 5"x5" piece instead of a 10" x 10" piece, if you were to try and build a 25m disc @ 1/100 scale.

Regards

Pat 

the Baron

There are a couple of methods you could use.  3D-printing is one.  Carving foam is another.  That leads me to the idea of vacuforming, because you can make the masters from foam and treat them with a hardener.  Making a master from carved wood, like balsa, is another method.

 

Brad

 

If you elect to try carving wood, do not use balsa.  It is too hard to finish.  Basswood or several others are much easier to finish, and carve easily.  Basswood is God's gift to woodcarvers.  A few coats of a thick auto primer and you can make wood finish just like plastic or metal.  I am old enough to have gotten into modeling before plastic kits.  Wood was the material that all kits were made from and lots of people did scratch building.  The kits in those days were just wood blanks sawn to correct overal size and needed to be carved to shape, and most people learned wood carving very quickly.  Many, many scratch builders still use it today.  It is relatively cheap compared to carving foam.

Just the idea of carving wood gives me the creeps.  One slip of the knife, and you could lose a part of your anatomy in a most painful and ugly way.  I admire those who can do it!

Another way to go is found objects. Roam the aisle at Target for plastic mixing bowls.

GMorrison

Another way to go is found objects. Roam the aisle at Target for plastic mixing bowls. 

One of the guys in our club did something similar, but with toys from a vending machine.  He found little toy UFOs in a 25-cent machine.  They looked a little like the Jetsons' flying saucer.  And they worked out to just about HO scale, his preferred diorama scale.  So he made a diorama of a used-flying saucer lot, with a service department.  It was pretty cool.

Cadet Chuck

Just the idea of carving wood gives me the creeps.  One slip of the knife, and you could lose a part of your anatomy in a most painful and ugly way.  I admire those who can do it!

Hi,

If you don't like the thought of carving, another option is clay.  A few years ago I bought a car design kit that came with a foam base shape, a supply of car model grade clay, and a DVD of instructional videos showing how you could design your own car body with the clay and foam base and the use that to vacuform body shells for display or even potentially RC cars.

I haven't really done much with it yet, but the techniques described looked dound for trying to model a lot of different things.

Pat