[Starship Modeler's fourth on-line modeling contest: starships & vehicles from written sci-fi.]

By Aaron DaMommio

Rock and Pebble



^ Rock and Pebble

ss_s20_SideView.jpg

^ Side view


^ Front view


^ Top view

Scale: Not Stated
Source: Traveller RPG

This project is a scratchbuilt version of an asteroid starship from the Classic Traveller role-playing adventure "Expedition to Zhodane." I've been meaning to build it for a long time, but it took this contest to get me to sit down and do it.

This ship is not only tunneled out of an asteroid, but also designed to be able to masquerade as an ordinary space rock by closing sculpted shutters to cover its laser gun, observation lounge, engines, and shuttle bay. Rock is the main ship, a sort of houseboat of the stars with five staterooms, a bridge, and an observation lounge on its upper deck.

The model includes several operating features:

  • Removable top section to expose the interior.
  • A pop-up laser turret.
  • Removable ship's boat (shuttle), named Pebble.
  • Shutters covering the observation lounge window, the pop-up laser turret, the top and bottom bay openings for the ship's boat, and the engines. All of these open and close and are designed to look like the asteroid surface.

    The ship is roughly 14.25" x 11" x 14". I started from deck plans and two silhouettes of the asteroid, but had to improvise the details of the asteroid's shape. I used closed-cell styrofoam sheet as the base material, stacked and then textured with joint compound (spackle). Engine details came from plastic Easter eggs and other items from my parts box, while details from a WWII bomber helped enliven the interior. Since the exterior of the ship is mostly bare rock, I chose to model the upper deck interior. This took more time than anything else. I built the rooms from sheet styrene in three subassemblies, painted them, and then glued them into cavities I carved in the foam. The bridge is decorated with graphics I downloaded from a diorama web site, Niubniub's Universe.

    A material which I had never used before but which quickly became essential was Crayola's Model Magic, which formed the camouflage for most of the shutters. It is light, flexible, and takes paint well. I used rolled-out cylinders to form a gasket for the removable top section.

    Image: Pop-up turret

    Image: Overview of the interior

    Image: Bridge

    Image: Closeup of the observation lounge

    Image: More bridge details

    Image: Engine details

    Image: Bottom view




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    This page was last updated 28 November 2000