Haven’t done any model building of late but lots of Blender fun. Above is one of my earliest Blender models USS Texas, I thought it would be cool to put the world’s only surviving dreadnought in a digital Diorama and I did enjoy it… Except for all the repair work and texturing needed.
I’m super surprised this model printed as well as it did, I was still using XYZ’s object editor for some parts and man, they are sloppy! Repairs went fast and the texturing of this was fairly simple. Had much fun with the ocean effects.
I haven’t been inspired to do any digital art for quite a while but felt the Revell Arizona 1917 conversion project deserved an entry in the Digital Diorama forum topic. I really liked the watercolor aesthetic I used on the night time Charles Martel Blender render, so stuck with it for Arizona.
I liked how this project turned out enough to make the ultimate sacrifice and build a display case for it, and with it my Revell Arizona WWI conversion project is done.
Since I was a teenager I’ve wanted to modify the Revell USS Arizona kit, building it in her original WW1 1916-1918 configuration. With the advent of affordable and capable 3D printers, the time has come to give it a shot!
Above are the Blender renders of the major parts I’m planing to print to pull this off. I want the new parts to blend in with the existing Revell kit, so yeah, I built me some stepped pyramid stairways, and even kept an inaccuracy in the details on the forward superfiring barbette to better match it’s stern Revell counterpart. I’ll likely need to experiment with the thickness on the individual cage mast rods. The Elegoo Saturn can print details at .05mm but I’m pretty sure if I tried printing them at that thickness the result would be a blob on the bottom of the resin vat.
Update: 6/5/2024
After initial difficulties printing the replacement deck, this project is now almost done and has (so far) come out better than I’d hoped. For a ton of pictures and more info click: Revell USS Arizona WWI Conversion project page.
Joe
Update: Sep. 2, 2025
Finally, my Revell Arizona 1917 conversion project is: done, de-done, Done. Rigged, mounted, name plaqued and cased. Click the image link above for more pictures and the complete build story.
