In a previous post I showed a work in progress of some silver space ships that are meant to be evocative of the ship from The Day the Earth Stood Still.
A few folks have asked for some more details on how they were constructed.
I started with a microwave steamer meal. After eating the meal, the outer bowls went through a cycle in the dishwasher to make sure they were thoroughly cleaned.
I used a paper plate that matched the diameter of these bowls for the lower hull. The bottom of the bowl, which will be the top of the space ship, has moulded writing on it. I cut a piece of stiff cardboard from a microwave popcorn box to match the diameter of the top of the ship. I tried card stock and other materials, but even when I sprayed both sides of the top piece, it still seemed very susceptible to warping due to gluing and humidity. Best would probably have been sheet styrene, but I didn’t have any large sheets of it handy.
The feet of the space ship were made of a washer, a disk magnet, an end to a coaxial cable. I was able to get a pack of ten of these cable ends at Lowe’s for a couple of dollars. I glued three washers to the bottom of the paper plate. This was so that the legs could securely connect to the bottom of the ship but were removable for storage.
Then I took all the parts outside and sprayed everything black.
After the black paint had dried, everything was sprayed silver.
In the picture (above), you can see that I cut a doorway in one of the space ship upper hulls. In the picture (below), you can see three legs attached magnetically to the bottom of the ship.
The final space ships are not glued together. By keeping all the parts separate, I can easily disassemble them and nest them for storage.
Two views of the final space ships are below with one of Mark Morin’s space tanks and some 28mm Slave2Gaming aliens for scale.
I like the look of the open hatchway and the ramp made of think card.
