3d Printing

A while back, I got on a Star Trek kick, and built a bunch of ships from Micromachines and home cast resin parts.  At the time, I was thinking about what the Cardassians would look like in the TOS era, and kicked around some ideas with the folks on the StarShipModeler forums.  My idea was that the Cardassians would be a cruiser heavy force, with their cruisers relatively scaled to the Enterprise of the era (small). As with the Enterprise to Enterprise D transition, the over all shape would be similar. Unfortunately, I did not have the time or skill to make anything of my ideas.

Fast forward 10+ years, and I started to play around with TinkerCAD (since that is what the local library's 3D printer lab recommends).  After quite a few building facades, I started to think about those TOS Era Cardassians again, and after mulling it over a bit, went ahead and sketched out a design, which gradually grew into a finished model.

I uploaded the model to Shapeways, and used their tools to figure out where the model needed additional support or filling.  I then ordered it in "white strong and flexible" material, which is very light and grainy (but very cheap).

A week or so later, a very light box turned up in the mail with this inside:

As provided from Shapeways

On a standard GW flight base

3D model for comparison

As compared to a Micromachine Connie

Quite pleased with how this turned out, both in terms of the reproduction of my design, and in terms
of meeting my design goals.

I think I could paint this pretty much as is, or finish it with putty etc and cast a few copies... although considering the ease and relatively low cost of this process, I am not sure how much sense casting would make as compared to ordering higher quality prints (or just more of these)

It is possible that I may have gone a bit overboard with making more designs.