Welcome to the Highlander Studios blog.

I won't promise any earth shattering revelations here. What I will be trying to do is post some new products as I release them, share some thoughts on gaming and show some pics of games and other stuff that I enjoy. So come in and make yourselves at home.


Sunday, November 10, 2013

Martians Artillery Requisitioned


     I've had the chance to get back to some 3D modeling lately. I'm trying to do about 5-10 hours a week to keep my skills fresh. It seems to be working.

     This week's project was to return to the Space: 1889 line. I've had to back burner most of the Highlander Studios projects for a long while, but things are starting to fall into place again. The models this week are for Martian artillery pieces. They've been designed for Aero/ Naval platforms first. Later I'll add some field carriages.

Rogue

      I've been using a combination of Space: 1889 sources for the modeling; Cloudships and Gunboats, Cloudships and Gunboats Deckplans and Space: 1889. I've had to extrapolate a few general shapes and simplify the design for mold making.

Sweeper

     The rogue and the heavy gun will be on a separate carriage. for two reasons. First, it's easier to make the molds that way. Second, it allows me to exchange the carriages for the field mounts for later packs.

Lob Gun

     I placed all of the guns in one master file. That's why you'll see the previous models in some of the pictures. From the master file I selected each individual part and saved it as a stereolithography (.stl) file for later scaling and preparation for printing.

Heavy Gun

     The heavy gun is basically a rescaled rogue with an extra bump at the breech.

Rod Gun

     The rod gun and sweeper are modeled as one piece with the pintle. I've cut the pintle at the point where the bottom flare ends. The rod would take up a lot of space in both the printing try and the mold. It might also have caused some casting issues in the long run.

Light Gun

     The light gun is made to be mounted on the gunwale. The reference picture shows it roped in place by the pins sticking out of the lower bar. You can also see that learning has occurred here. I finally discovered the limit renderability button that will remove the other cannons from the scene.

     While rescaling these I was surprised to see how big they actually were in comparison to a figure. But using the 25mm deck plans and cardboard figures as a guide, they seem to be correct. Well as correct as an imainary VSF piece of equipment can be. We'll see how it all turns out when I have the actual models to compare.

     Oh, almost forgot. The final product will be scaled for my 15mm line. Sorry 25mm and 28mm enthusiasts. I don't have a license for those sizes.

2 comments:

Clive G said...

A long-overdue project for Space:1889, and looking good!

Clive G said...
This comment has been removed by the author.