This past weekend, my better half and I made a weekend getaway to Seattle and went to the Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds, 50th Anniversary exhibition at the Sci-fi Museum which is part of the Experience Music Project Museum (EMP).
This past weekend, my better half and I made a weekend getaway to Seattle and went to the Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds, 50th Anniversary exhibition at the Sci-fi Museum which is part of the Experience Music Project Museum (EMP).
movie Just finished reading Paul Olsen’s eBook “Creating the Enterprise” which is an interesting read, though far more biography than anything else. It uses that as a larger framing story and run-up to how Mr. Olsen came to work at Magicam, Douglas Trumbull’s effects studio (who built the and filmed the Enterprise, and most of the other spaceship effects shots for the movie) as well as working on the V’ger cloud effects.
This morning I cut out my test print (and paint) of the upper half of one of a workbee I started last night.
Just working on testing out some printed up acetates and clear laser print labels with some new Model Masters acrylic paints I picked up today from The Hobby Smith, while enjoying the great new album Rosetta by Vangelis.
So after work I picked up some clear laser printer mailing label media from Avery at the local Office Depot. I wanted to pick some up to test how it behaves when being cut, applied in multiple layers, and even a quick test splash of Testors Acrylic paint with a brush to see how it adheres.
After a couple of evenings experimenting with printed acetates, cutting, folding them, etc. yielded some promising results and some problematic issues in the approach.
First, with the new magnifying head visor which finally arrived, I can now easily have both hands free to cut, and hold acetate while having high-powered magnification. This has been a true relief in trying to work with pieces at this small scale.
As I mentioned in a post the other day, working backwards into some of the small detailing pieces that will eventually be part of the model is part and parcel to how I plan on having the level of detailing in my model be realized.
So I have been working up micro-scale Illustrator files as a sort of miniature “blueprints” for a micro-model of the workbees.
Did some more customization and format tweaking for the website this evening. I think I have it close enough to be a useable space now. Where at least it won’t offend me visually, but still be useable in the near-term without investing too much more time right away. The things I want to fix and alter now are more long-term “down the road” stuff.
One of the reasons why I anticipate the building of the kit for my Enterprise project taking quite a long time, is that a lot of researching and exploration on some of the intricate detail and lighting of the model has to be worked out. How those minor details, even about parts of the overall final display which are some of the “secondary” detailing, have a large impact on how the model is built, painted and assembled.
This is a project that started almost nine years ago when I purchased a model kit of the Starship U.S.S. Enterprise from the Star Trek film series. Ever since the original movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (ST:TMP) came out in December 1979, I was enthralled with the big screen presentation of the beloved starship Enterprise from the television series, in a new, sleek “refitted” design.