The Union of Scale Model Building, 3D Printing and Art
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.
Now if I could only paint this well…
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.
A short post to mention and show the finished rigging work on the Revell Arizona, 1917 Dreadnought Conversion project. Follow the link for more pictures and whining about my biggest regrets…
Schledwick Holstien wasn’t in the US 1/500 scale German Naval Recognition Set. She was in the 1/1200 scale version, and she was a cool looking pre-dreadnaught, so I wasn’t going to leave her out of my 1/500 scale set. Again I got busy putting her together and forgot to take pictures of the Elegoo Saturn’s resin parts before I broke them up for cleaning and finish curing. I did take a shot of the assembled but unpainted model, the Elegoo Saturn’s resin parts are slightly lighter than the FDM hull printed by the Ender 3 Pro, and you can see how they fit together. There’s also a shot of just the FDM hull and a Blender render.
This Schledwick Holstien was a joy to print and assemble and all went smoothly. Like the Kormoran, she may have a tad more detail then an actual recognition model of Schledwick Holstien in 1/500 would have had, but not by much.
Next up will be the light cruiser Emden, getting slowly closer to a completed set…
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.
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
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.
Joe
This post introduces the Charles Martel project page. The Charles Martel was a French pre-dreadnought battleship from the end of the 19th century. Her 1/200 scale model has been by far my most ambitious 3D build, taking over a year and a half from Blender design to display case. Her project page has a ton of Elegoo Saturn print example shots, in-progress build pictures, and comments from the assembly process, below are a few images from it.
