Other Spaceships

This is a sampling of some of the other science fiction and fantasy models I have built...

This is the Luna, from the 1950's SF film "Destination Moon". I photoshopped in a starfield to recreate the look and feel of the movie. I love the simple elegance of vintage spacecraft.

The Eagle, from Space 1999, represents the flip side of the vintage rocket. Its all-business look of exposed machinery and piping is the polar opposite of the sensuous lines and shiny metal of the 50's spaceship. The cratered moon surface of this display was created the same way they did it in the TV series, by flicking drops of water onto wet plaster of paris.

This is a diorama of two familiar figures and their vehicles.

I had difficulty finding a classic Wonder Woman in this scale (approx 1/24), so I had to make do with a more modern version, which I carved and completely repainted to look like the more iconic Bronze Age Amazon. Her magic lasso was made from gold jewelry wire. Her star-spangled shorts were decorated using dry rub transfers. Her jet is a see-through Hasagawa 1/32 scale F-86 Sabre. I would have preferred an F-104, which more closely resembles her jet from the seventies, but see-through model jet kits of any kind are as rare as hens teeth, so I couldn't be choosy. Who really knows what her invisible jet looks like, anyway?

The batmobile model contains some interesting detail, including what may be one of the smallest things I've ever fabricated for a model: the phone cord for the batphone. It was created by wrapping fine copper wire around a slightly larger wire.

This is the C-57D suspended by hanging in front of a suitable backdrop. (Robbie is a vintage talking Trendmasters toy). The saucer is supended with tungsten wire, just like the original studio model. Tungsten wire is great for flying movieminiatures, as it is both very strong, has a matte finish, and conducts electricty (which can be used to power the model). It absolutely sucks to work with, though, being so brittle that a single kink will inevitably result in a break. I went through 25 feet of rather expensive wire just trying to get four strands tied off. I would recommend using fishing line sprayed with a matte coat for hanging your own miniatures.

This is Gwangi, a resin kit sculpted by the brilliant Joe Loudati. Gwangi is the star of the Harryhausen flick, "Valley of the Gwangi", and is shown here rampaging in front of the Cuenca Cathedral in Spain, where the movie was filmed.

This is one of the killbots from the 80's cult classic, "Chopping Mall". The film was initially released under the more descriptive title "Killbots", which is why this particular bot is redecorating the mall. This model was 3D printed from files generously contributed by a friend. My biggest challenge was recreating the pay phone. Judging from the few models I found online, no one young enough to master 3-D modeling has ever actually seen a pay phone, so I had to make my own.

That project proved to be my gateway into rolling my own 3D models, which has really unlocked the power of my 3D printer. I created this replica of Dorothy for my son, who is a big fan of the movie "Twister", and sized it to fit into the back of his diecast Dodge.

This is a blend of illustration and model photography, which is something I have been enthusiastically exploring. It is a resin model kit of Project Pluto, a stillborn weapons program of the USA during the cold war. Pluto was a supersonic cruise missile designed to deliver over a dozen nukes and powered by a nuclear ramjet. The unshielded nuclear powerplant was considered a secondary weapon, but it proved impractical to safely flight test, and ICBM development rapidly superceded it, so the project was mercifully shelved. I photographed the model in front of a rear-projected image of some of my art, then digitally painted out the support stand. The superheated red glow of the ramjet intake was created by shoving an LED taped to a coin cell into it. (It's still in there, somewhere)

I have a penchant for modeling aviation subjects. Here is my Pluto model (with magnetically attached boosters) on the shelf next to a 1/32 scale Stuka, which I used to create the below image. You can read more about it on my Boom and Zoom Graphics website.

Meanwhile, in outer space...

Above is some more creative miniature photography that blend photographic and illustrative elements. Both the saucer and the X-15 were off-the-shelf kits, although I 3-D printed a new ventral fin for the X-15. (The plane jettisons it's lower tail fin before landing, because the gear are too short to accomodate it: so the kit, which depicts a landed plane, did not include it) The alien was reposed to express his feelings to the driver of the X-15. I added a bit of exhaust smoke and some text digitally, as well as a few humorous warning placards on the plane, but the image was mostly produced in camera.

Here is another flying saucer, which you will likely recognize. Atlantis Models produced a model kit during the nineties of the saucer image made famous by the X-files. I found one and recreated the iconic poster using a stock photo and the model itself. The original poster itself has an interesting history: There were actually a number of posters hanging in Mulder's office, depending upon which episode you watched. The poster that appeared in the first few seasons was cropped from a photo by a Swiss flying saucer enthusiasist and resident weirdo Billy Meier (who also took his photos from models he built himself, according to his ex-wife). Billy called the network out for copyright infringement, so later episodes featured a photo they shot themselves in their back lot. This image uses a licensed stock photo and a model that I built and photographed myself, because I just wanted to have a poster of a UFO that wasn't blurry for a change.