A little more panel work. See? That printer is motivation!
Love those purple and green toggles – not sure why Lucas didn’t do that in the first place?
Update: a bit more done this evening. Still a bit naked without the pinstripes.
Category Archives: Cockpit
first prints
I’m having fun getting the FormLabs Form 1 printer dialed in. Funny how every printer and printing technology has it’s idiosyncrasies. But here are the first prints!
The Nav Seat is about 1 ¾” tall at 1/35 scale so these are pretty tiny. The detail help up and the stair stepping isn’t too bad. I’m curious what they will look like with a coat of paint on them.
Han half done
A minor update. Started work on Han’s side of the sidewalls and got through the lower two panels. Still a bit of a mystery of what is happing just behind Han’s left elbow – hardly ever see any views of this part. Any help would, um, be helpful…
And a quick render of all the panels together so far.
wookie panels complete
I think I’m about done with these. There are a couple tweaks I will probably make, but wanted to get some renderings out while I’m enjoying the long week-end.
A view from the outside – standings on a mandible perhaps?
Chewie’s stepped out for a wookie break…
I’ll get the console back in at some point.
Update… This image was still cooking when I posted last night.
wookie panels
Just a quick update to show work in progress. Kudos to the SofaKing for actually pulling this off in real life – even the digital model has been a lot of work.
Anyway, I’m migrating my Illustrator layouts to 3D; fixing a few things along the way. Still a long ways to go and the colors and materials are just place holder for the moment. Although all red LED’s bring a certain unity to it all…
sidewall +1
A bit more active work schedule and one of the worst springtime colds I’ve ever had has slowed me down a bit, but here’s a minor update to the sidewall art I showed in the last post. I’m probably 99% done with Chewie’s side and and maybe 90% on Han’s. There are some mystery areas on Han’s side that are rarely seen in the movie. If anyone has some good photos feel free to drop me a line!
Chewie’s Side:
And Han’s:
sidewall
Here is a bit of a behind-the-scenes for how I’m going about reconstructing the sidewall control placements. I started with this reference image (which is my primary reference photo – it shows the cockpit before the “shrinkage”; the chopped-up version seen in A New Hope that was made to feel more, um, claustrophobic)…
I cropped each side panel from the photo, perspective corrected them individually and then strung them together to make one large unfolded panel with the right proportions.
I then created new artwork from the corrected reference photo. This will be used as an underlay for the next round of CAD work. I don’t think I will be able to find as good a reference for Han’s side, but this exercise has at least set a precedent for the grid spacing of each of the elements – which should provide solid starting points for the other side…
Sorry for such a long skinny post…
nose cone
Just a quick update on what I’ve been up to. I’ve been remodeling the cockpit cone. I think this version is a better mash-up of the 5-foot and the full scale builds. It’s mostly an exercise in proportion at this point.
I’m also starting to look at how I might make space for lighting elements. I’m playing with various light-pipe design for the light bars to be lit with a single LED each and fiber optic solutions for the myriad of tiny lights on the side walls.
pilot seats refined
While I’m figuring-out what I want to do with the corridor, I took a bit of time to refine the captain’s chairs. I tweaked the interior panels to have a bit more of a lived in feel. I also noticed in some photos that the quilted part of the seat back has more of a paunchy feel to it – over-stuffed almost – as opposed to my last version that was a bit more taught and tailored.
I also revised the base pedestal to match the Nav Seats better. Not that I know what the pilot seat based really look like – but my assumption is that they used similar hardware.
even more nav comm
I still have some more work to do on the parts that aren’t part of the Martin Baker frame (ahem, Tupperware lid), but I think I’m about as close to the MB Mk4 frame as I’m gonna get without one sitting in front of me.
The catapult tube and top cap have been updated. All the fiddly lever and linkage bits on the sides have been updated. The drogue gun has been resized to be more accurate. Most of the underlaying structure has been adjusted. I’ve recanted on my thoughts about the rubber banding on the seat pads – what I show seems to fit better against photo reference – a 1-inch band coupled with a 1/2″ tube binding the seat frame.
Here is a 4k high res image of the chair so far…
… and I’ve had a few people ask for orthographic projections of my seat in progress.
My daughter refers to the edge pattern on the the seat pads as the “Butterfly”; it’s an artifact of the modeling technique I use to create soft pillowed forms, not unlike the natural surfacing techniques I’ve done on watches for Nike.