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Peter Foti
7 articles

Sci-fi Airship

July 19, 2020 · in Sci-fi · · 11 · 2.4K

This was based on a sketch by artist Rob Turpin. It was my first attempt at scratch building. It’s a weird design, but I really liked it right away. It reminded me of science fiction paperback covers from the 70s and 80’s and the magazine Heavy Metal (Metal Hurlant), particularly the work of Mœbius.

I found a plastic test tube to use as the bubble canopy and scaled the rest of the ship from that. It worked out to be 1:87 (HO). The front of the ship was vacuum formed over a carved foam pattern. Most of the details were model kit parts (Mostly tanks and helicopters). The pilot is an HO scale astronaut.

The rear bulbous section was 3D printed in polystyrene filament and a few parts were turned on the lathe from polystyrene rod. It was painted with Vallejo acrylics.

Reader reactions:
14  Awesome

22 additional images. Click to enlarge.


11 responses

  1. The sketch reminds me of the work of Moebius, and you rendition is very cool!
    https://www.iamag.co/the-art-of-moebius/

  2. That "thing" is positivly weird...but I love your take on the inspirational scetch. Great colours. Whats coming next from your studio?

  3. Nice! Yes, Heavy Metal magazine.

  4. Wonderful imagination and scratch building talent.

  5. 🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂 :
    Very colorful work Peter, love the colors ... very different.

  6. Agree with the above gents, Peter.
    This is a wonderful out of the ordinary scratchbuild!

  7. TOP !
    Realy like the design ,colours and weathering are great to .

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

  8. epic from start to finish

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