1. The material that I will be working with is Hi-Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) (here after called ‘styrene’). It is the standard material for injectio...

2. The choice of subject of course comes down to personal taste. I wasn’t interested in recreating a screen accurate model of a movie subject due t...

3. The next section to consider was the hull. I decided to make the front portion as one vacuum formed piece, because of the large radiused corners...

4. Next a box was built out of sheet styrene to fill in the rear of the hull. The sides were cut from .030” sheet using the scribe and score techni...

5. To detail the rear engine portion of the hull I turned to a technique called kit-bashing. Kit-bashing is the process of using commercial model k...

6. I had no idea how I was going to make the bulbous rear section. After reading that styrene printer filament was available, I decided to try prin...

7. The large rudder-like things were next. These would have been easy to cut from sheet stock, but I wanted them to have a tapered cross-section, s...

8. Now all that was really left to do is painting and weathering. At this point the model was still largely unassembled, with the model broken into...

9. Once all the parts were weathered, I did the final assembly and attached it to the base. All that's left to do is some painting touch up and a f...

1. I began with a 1/8' styrene sheets that I cut into all of the major body panels using nothing more than a box cutter and a ruler. The body p...

2. After the panels had been refined they were glued together with super glue. Any unsightly gaps were than filled with body filler and sanded smoo...

3. Once the bulk of the ship was complete I began adding small detail panels which I cut from the 1/16' styrene. I also used a lot of little wo...

4. The next stage in detailing was etching which was achieved by scoring the styrene with an x-acto hobby knife. Etching is great for the really fi...

5. Some of the details on the shop were just  styrene. Some of it was pulled out of old toys or even random bits of plastic I pulled out of th...

6. Next comes the lights. The small pin hole lights that you see on the hull of the ship were achieved by drilling hundreds of small holes than run...

7. The thruster lights were just LEDs.

8. What cant be seen in the photos is that all of the lights were controlled individually by six separate switches. IE; if you flick the first swit...

9. After everything was done it was time for paint .  Looking back on the paint I wish I had do more with the paint. Maybe add some decals and...

10. The experience of building was very fulfilling and I have already began on my second Spaceship. As well as a script for a short Sci- fi fantasy...