Ah, I kinda get what you mean, I might give it a shot!

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I've been working on the ship some more and I'm running into a major problem: costs.

I did a test run on Shapeways, not actually printing the model, just uploading it to see how much it would cost. At the moment I'm at $45, and that doesn't include the mark-up, furthermore, the model is far from finished.

For a ship the size of an Ork Kroozer, this is simply too expensive. I tried putting the model in a pack of two, or even three, but then it lowers to around $40 a model. I've been trying to hollow it out, but that's a rather complex task, considering the shape of the ship.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how I could lower the price?

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How long is this beast?

Around 76mm long. I've considered shrinking it, but then I need to thicken many walls and other aspects.

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I'm afraid I don't have many suggestions to reduce costs, apart from hollowing the model as much as possible... Since my models are planned to be printed only in frosted detail and ultra detail, I try to keep all walls 0.8mm deep, but still I get pretty high prices!

I've seen some models that have large holes on the bottom side to save material, since the bottom is out of sight most of the time; it kinda works, but I don't like that very much!

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I know that's what the guy over at Grimdarkbits does. Whilst I like the designs of his ships, I feel that the removal of the bottom is just a cheap trick. Personally I want the ship to look awesome at whatever angle you hold it, meaning that people could convert it in any way if needed.

I realize that casting might be the only real solution. But then I'm at the same problem as I was with my Legion ships. Perhaps I should mainly focus on smaller stuff for now, at least for the Bits Blitz shop on Shapeways.

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don't stress too much over hollowing out - punch out big volumes where available.

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My shifting projects

Back to the Orky like ships! I've shortened the ship, replaced the engines, tweaked it like crazy!




The ship is 4cm long, making it an escort of a sorts. I'm testing a little bit with hollowing it out to see if that's even possible. A lot of the details are super small, I wonder if they'll be that visible, I guess this means I'll be doing a few more test prints soon.

Looking at the bigger picture, I can see these ships as raiders of a sorts, not sure yet how I would explain their shape and everything. They would make a nice thing for the Legion ships to fight against...

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Almost done!

Left side:


Right side:


Back thrusters:


Head on the front:


Bottom:


Top:


Some final details need to be added to the head and engines, then I need to keep on scraping tiny bits off it to make it look more wear and tear.

I would love to do some test prints soon to see how the details will look, a lot of it is very small, meaning it might be totally visible.

The more I look at this ship, the less I'm inclined to sell it through Shapeways. I might put it up there in the beginning, just to make it available, but in the end I just want to print this fellow property and see it cast. These make nice little buggers for the Legion ships to shoot at!

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Placed the model next to a Legion ship to give it a sense of scale. Ideally the ship would have been 50% smaller, but as a model that simply wouldn't work. But for the artwork that might not pose such a problem. The picture posted here has the ships in 'model sizes', not 'artwork scale'.



I'll consider this ship done for now. I've tried hollowing it out, but it's impossible because the model is such a mess on the inside, trying to add multiple of them in a single .stl file has failed as well because the file would become too big.

At the moment it's too costly to sell them individually through Shapeways, printing costs alone are around €20 per ship, too expensive for a mere escort ship.

Plan now is to make a new version of the ship, make it hollow and multipart (separate head, main hull and a few weapon systems), and then see if I can get it printed at a better place after which I'll try to have it cast.

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Just started on version 2.0. As you can see the design has changed somewhat. The head has been replaced for an array of weapons. To also link it a bit more to the rest of the setting I've also included some Legion ship styled guns in the mix.



It's still a very early WIP, most of the body still needs to be added, more weapons, etc. Not sure yet what will happen with the previous version of the ship, but the plan is to have 3-5 variants of this little fellow which could then be printed and cast. Since the models are quite small (3.5 - 4 cm long max) I'm tempted to keep them single piece. It wouldn't be too hard to cut them up and mix the components together.

But first I'd need to get this fellow finished...

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Another step closer...



I've added some extra guns (still not enough!), as well as a torpedo launcher on the top, kinda like how certain submarines have it I guess. Now it's adding more details and such to it. At the moment the ship lacks any 'damaged' parts like the previous one had. I might look into that a bit, would love to make some of its interiors more visible.

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Still not enough guns...

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Don't they look cute together?



Note that they're both still WIP, the one in the background almost done, the other one need a bit more work.

The main challenge will be how to cast these things once they're printed, seems like quite a nightmare to do so. Any tips regarding that?

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After some thinking I quickly put this together:



As you can see an early WIP of scrapyard ship, version 3.0. Already keeping in mind the casting process, there should be no undercuts or anything in this model.

Furthermore...


It's modular! The way I see it at the moment is that the ship will consist of three main component parts: prow, bulk, and thrusters. Then these main components are also split in smaller parts. As you can see the bulk has separate sides. I'm planning on making a few variants of those side components, thereby allowing you various types of weaponsystems aboard. Also keep in mind that each side component has a left and right version.

Ok, back to work!

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