[BFG] Attempt at 3d-printed Ork fleet

[pivole]

Hello all,

In my looking at the shapeways provision for BFG, I could not but feel that none of the Ork proxies quite cut it for me (And pray don't take offense if you are their creator and reading this, for none is intended), so I've set myself a summer project to delve into shapeways, and at least begin by making nets for a modular Ork fleet.

My intention is to design several escort and cruiser hulls, and then a variety of bridges and weaponry attachments for each of them, as per the following list:

• 5 Escort Hulls (to fit 1 escort bridge and 1 escort weapon
• 3-5 Escort Bridges
• 3 Cruiser Hulls (to fit 1 cruiser bridge, 4 cruiser broadside weapons, and 1 cruiser fore weapon)
• 3 Cruiser Bridges
• 3-4 variants of each weapon

And hopefully the following weapons

• Gravity Field Generators
• Guns (all)
• Heavy Guns (E, CF)
• Lances (E, CF)
• Launch Bays (CB, CF)
• Rams
• Shock Attack Guns (CF)
• Torpedoes

So naturally this is a fairly weighty project, and bound to be full of technical difficulty because I am not good at computers or understanding limits of 3D printers, but I thought I'd just keep a log of it all here.

Until next time, here's a picture of escort hull 1 with escort bridge 1. Probably overdone, sorry about the lines. Oh well, I like it.

[harec]

Good luck

Lets see what you can do

[Malika]

You're using SketchUp I see? You might want to get the Solid Inspector and CADspan plugins.

[pivole]

Nope, wings 3D. Clunky and not great and few tutorials, but my first love. Any advice on that would be helpful though.

[Lyksus]

Good to hear!
Always excited for more ork stuff!! 

[pivole]

So I finished the first gun prow for the escorts today. While I realise that it is not a popular design amongst members here, I went along with a good old-fashioned shark/pig/squig-headed design. It's classic, tried and tested, ugly, and has some common ground with official models, so it'll suffice for now as almost Orky.

So here's my first conformation of pieces:



and from the other side (I'm not good at cameras and sizing):



And finally an exploded view to demonstrate how it all goes together:



It's far from the best, probably has nowhere near enough vertices, and I'm not happy with that neck (and the eyes), but hey, I'm impatient, and it's a start.
Ideally this has been designed to a scale of 1 unit=1cm, so it will hopefully be about 3-4 cm long at the end. I'm expecting all manner of printing faults from this, and a lot of filing required, but I'm going to get this uploaded and try and get a test print.

Edit: On the off chance that anyone Cares, I've opened a shapeways store now.(https://www.shapeways.com/shops/pivole)
The model needs some thickening if it's to be reliably printed though, and it's far too hefty to be viably costed in FUD.

[Malika]

If you want to sell them on Shapeways, don't forget to hollow out the models. That way you can really bring down your printing costs.

[pivole]

Yes, thanks, I noticed that it was really rather high cost when you looked at not SWF. I'll look at doing that

[Malika]

By the way, keep in mind that with Shapeways' quality it's only worthy to print your models in FUD or FXD. It's pricy, but the other stuff just can't handle the detail and looks too grainy or shows the print lines. Even FUD kind of has that problem, look at the ship I designed to see what I mean: link.

[pivole]

Ah, I see the problem, thank you for your help!
Also, Working in wings 3D, there is no apparent easy way of hollowing the model out post-creation. Do any programs easily allow this or will I just have to build it from the outside in?

[Malika]

I don't think there's an easy way for it. Maybe programs like Blender or Rhino might allow it, but they also have a higher learning curve.

What I try to do is to actually hollow out the models in the program already, so design them in such a way that they aren't solid blocks.

[Lyksus]

It reminds my of Kirov airship from red alert! 
It looks kinda cool,  but I think the gun in the mouth should be smaller so there is room for more of them, and maybe some module "wings" of sorts? The side looks of the ship looks kinda empty.