Wolvster (the sculptor) thought you Core-Techs might like to get a closer look at the mastering process. So he sent me a bunch of pictures showing how he cast the cargo bay and support struts – the two wall-like sections that come down on either side of the cargo bay and the bay itself.
A couple things to note before we dig into the pictures (if you’re already familiar with the model mastering process, feel free to jump down to the pics): What you’ve been seeing of Serenity up until now has been a mix of master pattern and test castings. A master pattern component is the shape from which a mold is created and a casting is the part that comes from that mold. When Serenity is done, each kit will be pulled from a mold taken off the original master. That means the kits we’ll be using to make the Artisan-edition Serenity replica will be only one generation removed from the master.
A 1G kit is as close to the master sculpt as you can get with any replica and are generally indistinguishable from the original sculpt (as you can see in the images below). For all practical purposes, a 1G kit is the best quality and most-accurate.
Many replicas tout being pulled from a screen-used prop or model. This sounds good in theory, but by definition a mold that’s created from a screen-used prop is at least second generation, and that’s assuming the reference prop wasn’t itself pulled from another casting or that, when mass produced, the molds weren’t pulled from other casts. Sometimes this is unavoidable because the original master of a screen-used prop was used up or destroyed or simply lost (this is the case more often than you might think). That’s part of why we sometimes refer to our Artisan replicas as “film quality”, because, just like most screen-used models, your replica comes directly from a master mold.
Hope that explanation wasn’t too long-winded. On with the pics:
When you master a part from CG files you start with a rendering of that part. Here you can see the two support struts that go on either side of the cargo bay; the cargo bay was removed in the rendering so you can see both the inside and outside of the strut.
And here’s the cargo bay itself. Notice the notches in the side? That’s where the struts will attach. The piece above is the master pattern for the cargo bay. Remember this when we get to the casting of the cargo bay below.
Back to the struts. Above is the master pattern (left) and casting (right) of the struts, showing the outside surface.
Here is the inside surface of the struts. Again, the master is on the left and casting on the right.
And here’s the mold that was pulled from the master.
A close-up of one of the cargo bay strut castings.
Back to the cargo bay itself : Here you can see the inside of the cargo bay master pattern. This does a pretty good job of showing exactly how the struts and bay interconnect.
Finally, a casting of the cargo bay. Go check out the master pattern earlier in this article. Spot on, eh? (Note: For those of you who caught this article in the first couple of hours since it went live, I *did* manage to reverse the pattern and master images. That’s how close similar they are!)
It was on this site that I learned that the cargo bay detaches, so I’ve watched the development of the cargo bay on the model with interest. Very clean and precise work.
Thanks for the great explanation of the casting process Andy. All the parts look great. Thanks to you too Wolvster. Grate work as always.
jim
what about the extenders? wouldn’t want it to shake. great work on all parts as always. keep flying
You really appreciate the work that goes into something as seemingly simple as a model when you get a chance to track the development. This has been great.
Very cool!