BSC 2025 – Wirelizard’s Shuttle, Part Three

Decided to go with the nose next instead of the wings and engines, and as predicted in my last post, it required a lot of mockup work, in two stages.

First, I did an internal frame to establish the basic proportions of the nose and give me a nice solid frame to hang the skin from.

I redid parts of the skin mockup three times, including scrapping round three for part of the sides and going back to round two’s ideas. The advantage of all of the fiddling with cardstock and masking tape, of course, is that I knew what I was doing (mostly) when I switched to 1mm sheet styrene and started the real thing.

I also cut back the outer (top/bottom) corners of the sides where they extended forward, and that was the right call, it made integrating the nose and sides easier.

The hammerhead nose was a spur of the moment idea while planning the first mockup piece and I really like how it’s come together; the hammerhead let me play with the angles and bulk of the nose area more than a more straightforward taper would have.

I really like how the whole thing is shaping up, it has a good bulky angular look to it. There’s going to be a round of detail panels over this initial skin, after the endless sanding and puttying is done – some of the seams didn’t come out quite as well fitted as I’d like, so there’s going to be some remediation before detailing can start!

Still to do, in rough order of size/complexity of the subassembly: the engine pods and wings; the roof for the cargo bay; landing gear and landing gear bay doors; skin on the belly.

I’m away this coming long weekend and have some things to get organized before we go away for the long weekend, and as mentioned, the next while is likely to be mostly sanding, so it might be ten days or so before there’s another blog-worthy update to this project!

My Build Something Contest 2025 thread on LAF is here; the rest of the contest has some very cool entries – there’s another couple of shuttles or dropships, some neat magical walking constructs, and a bunch of other cool concepts among the other contestants! Entries just closed on February 8th so everyone who’s in for this year is in!

BSC 2025 – Wirelizard’s Shuttle Part 2

Progress on my Build Something Contest 2025 entry, the small shuttle.

Some of these photos have shown up on my Lead Adventure Forum BSC thread but others are original here. Captions have more details.

Very pleased with progress so far. Up next will be either the engine/wing subassemblies on either side, or the nose, depending on my mood. Both are going to require more cardstock mockups, especially figuring out how the nose is going to join up to the front of the current body assembly…

Build Something Competition 2025 – Corey’s Distillery planning

It’s Build Something Competition on the Lead Adventure Forums again and once again I’m running them, so have been a bit behind on my own entry (unlike Brian, who is racing ahead with construction).

This year’s theme is Vessel or Conveyance, so most are doing movable things like shuttles. Although we have law firms, we do have two alcohol-related entries – my distillery and Tarnegol’s brewed. May the best booze win!

Inspiration and initial thoughts

to start, I did a bunch of Googling to find good images. There’s actually a whole 3D printable stl for a distillery by MiniatureLand on MyMiniFactory, so that was a good place to look for inspiration:

Distilling itself is a product of alchemy, which are basically the same art with different outcomes. And historically, people did a lot of a alchemy, but strangely really only started distilling drinkable alcohol in large quantities in the early Renaissance, right as European alchemists started building on what the Arabic scholars had done. That does mean we get lots of great art about alchemy:

And of distilling itself, it really flourished in Renaissance Italy, which happens to be what I’m based on fantasy city on, so happy times. There are lots pieces of art of the key part of distilling: the still (the vessel from the competition theme):

Planning the building

With all those inspiration pieces done, I start the process of figuring out how big I wanted to make the building. I really want to tie it into my planned sewer/basements I’m doing for my city, so that fixes one part of the building: one edge must be 3″ tall for the basement, with the building on top.

With that set, I drew up some simple plans, ultimately deciding on a 6″x9″ building, with big double doors in the long end. The base of the building will be 3D printed, with foam building on top.

Base of the building including the basement.

And thus ends today’s post – with an initial base printing. Onward to actual construction tomorrow

Build Something Contest 2025 – Wirelizard’s Shuttle Begins

As mentioned last post, I’m in the Lead Adventure Forum’s Build Something Contest 2025. I’ve entered a few over the decades, finished my entries in even fewer, and ever gotten out of the first round of voting, so we shall see, but it’s always a great contest to watch even if you aren’t participating.

My BSC2025 thread is here; the entire BSC sub-forum with every other entry is here. It’s day one, there’s not a lot there yet, but some very talented people have been making some very cool plans!

Photos to date below – today (Sat 1 Feb) I got the floor and three main walls of the cargo bay built and assembled. Engines and landing gear next, then figuring out how the actual skin of the shuttle is going to cover all this stuff!

The main thing now is going to be maintaining momentum and not getting bogged down in overthinking this damn thing. Onward!