Author Topic: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul  (Read 17672 times)

Offline Frank3k

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"Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« on: May 25, 2016, 10:09:09 AM »
Frank R. Paul was a prolific science fiction illustrator. He had a distinctive style with imaginative space ships, aliens and Skiffy situations, all painted in bright primary colors. He was probably the first person to illustrate what we would now call a "flying saucer".
The designs are clearly dated - compared to modern SF illustrations - but they're fun to look at. I'm sure that 85 years from now, people and AI will be laughing at quaintness of the Enterprises and Millenium Falcons that pass for fantasy space ships today.

I've been trying to convert old pulp magazine covers to 3D models. It's harder than it seems, since these artists were not working with modern CAD software and were probably on a tight schedule, so perspectives tend to be "good enough". Paul's work is good in this respect, since most of his artwork does seem to have the proper perspective.

This is the second of my attempts to render Frank R. Paul's work into 3D. Both are currently being printed at Shapeways, but this one is my favorite. Here's his cover, for the Fall 1931 issue of Wonder Stories Quarterly, illustrating the story "The Asteroid of Death" by Neil R. Jones. The distinctive looking spaceship is clearly out of warranty:



The whole magazine can be found at: http://www.pulpmags.org/wonder_quarterly_page.html here's the PDF: http://www.pulpmags.org/collections/pdf/wsq19311000.pdf
Neil R. Jones also wrote "The Jameson Satellite" which is pretty good.

I rendered the ship in 1/350 scale. Unfortunately, this was not one of Mr. Paul's most accurate drawings - there's no way of getting the ship to have the same orientation as the cover, with the rear of the engines and the nose of the ship both easily visible. Here's my best attempt:



The ship is lacking the holes in the hull; the lower sphere is removable and I'll think about making a damaged version if the current print looks good. I had to make many guesses and approximations, but I think it looks close to the cover design. Don't count and match the engine tubes; I didn't! I have roughly the same number.





The ship is 108mm (4.25"), long, 56.6mm (2.23") wide and 54.75mm(2.15")  tall.

I should get the results in a week or two. I have a feeling that masking this for painting will not be fun.

« Last Edit: July 17, 2017, 06:22:18 AM by Frank3k »

Offline elmayerle

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #1 on: May 25, 2016, 10:27:46 AM »
If memory serves me correctly, "The Jameson Satellite" was the first of a series that got collected in paperbacks back in the 1960's or 1970's (back when I was a youngster).  If you get any illustrations of the "Bullard of the Space Patrol" series by Malcolm Jameson, those should be most interesting to model.  Those were good stories, too.

Offline LemonJello

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #2 on: May 25, 2016, 07:33:01 PM »
Looking forward to seeing your 3d print of this.  It's a pretty cool design, and could be the base kit for a lot of different variations.

Offline Buzzbomb

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2016, 08:25:16 AM »
Frank, it is a cracking design.
I have an 3d Printer as well.. and would really like to try this if you are willing to share your .STL file ?

Offline Frank3k

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2016, 10:38:29 AM »
Looking forward to seeing your 3d print of this.  It's a pretty cool design, and could be the base kit for a lot of different variations.

From the top iso view, it almost looks like a steam punk submarine.

I read the story and the ship section is only a couple of pages near the beginning. The rest takes place back on Mars.

Evan - I didn't realize that Bullard was a series. I read "Bullard Reflects" in a collection of classic SF and really enjoyed it. The whole sere is is on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bullard-Tales-Patrol-Malcolm-Jameson-ebook/dp/B00EPFJ87W?ie=UTF8&redirect=true

Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2016, 02:47:31 PM »
Frank3k, thats a cracking shot at an old cover design, it's going to look ace once she's painted up. Can't wait.


One thing though:

I rendered the ship in 1/350 scale. Unfortunately, this was not one of Mr. Paul's most accurate drawings - there's no way of getting the ship to have the same orientation as the cover, with the rear of the engines and the nose of the ship both easily visible.

You know, I'm not convinced the cover has depicted the main "hull" as a sphere, it looks more like a squashed tennis ball, i.e. it aint as thick as it is high or long, its more lemon shaped. That's theonly way you could see nose and tail etc. As you said, ut was a case of 'close enough good enouhg' and maybe he didn't want the sphere as it would have covered up the nose? Just MHO.

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Offline elmayerle

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #6 on: May 27, 2016, 08:23:33 PM »
Evan - I didn't realize that Bullard was a series. I read "Bullard Reflects" in a collection of classic SF and really enjoyed it. The whole sere is is on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bullard-Tales-Patrol-Malcolm-Jameson-ebook/dp/B00EPFJ87W?ie=UTF8&redirect=true
Yeah, that was the first one I read, likely in the same 2-volume collection.  I've since managed to acquire a copy of the collection, edited by Andre Norton, of most of the Bullard stories and photocopies of the stories she didn't include (include one without Bullard per se but which helps set up "Bullard Reflects").  Thanks for the tip on that ebook, I definitely will need to acquire it.  BTW, if you can find really old issues of Astounding, Malcolm Jameson has some other good work, too.

Offline Dr. YoKai

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2016, 01:34:36 AM »
 Frank,
   Figures it would be you to do old Paul justice.  :) My only observation would be to agree with Mushi - I think
 it might flattened vertically.

 Good to know about the reading references, too!

Offline Frank3k

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #8 on: May 28, 2016, 05:44:03 AM »
You know, I'm not convinced the cover has depicted the main "hull" as a sphere, it looks more like a squashed tennis ball, i.e. it aint as thick as it is high or long, its more lemon shaped. That's theonly way you could see nose and tail etc. As you said, ut was a case of 'close enough good enouhg' and maybe he didn't want the sphere as it would have covered up the nose? Just MHO.

Ciao

I tried to model the ship as you and and Dr. Yo suggested. First, I calculated the angle into the page by measuring the engine end ellipse dimensions.
Assuming it's circular and applying the dark magic of trigonometry, I get an angle of around 56 degrees into the page. I drew a circle in the right diameter, rotated it and it matched the engine end. So far so good.
I retraced the vertical fins and sphere/ellipse, added the engine circle then rotated the assembly back into the plane of the picture. The crew section can be almost anything, from a sphere to a skinny ellipse. The fins are elliptical and the combination looks like a fried egg. Here are my original and the test, rotated to match the picture:



I guess the drawing isn't as distorted as I had thought, but I think there's still something off with the perspective. I prefer my version to the fried egg, though.

Offline Frank3k

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #9 on: May 28, 2016, 05:49:22 AM »
Yeah, that was the first one I read, likely in the same 2-volume collection.  I've since managed to acquire a copy of the collection, edited by Andre Norton, of most of the Bullard stories and photocopies of the stories she didn't include (include one without Bullard per se but which helps set up "Bullard Reflects").  Thanks for the tip on that ebook, I definitely will need to acquire it.  BTW, if you can find really old issues of Astounding, Malcolm Jameson has some other good work, too.

I still have that 2-volume collection. It had some classics, like "The Stars my Destination" by Alfred Bester and "The Weapon Shops of Isher" by A. E. van Vogt

Offline elmayerle

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #10 on: May 28, 2016, 11:39:35 AM »
Yeah, that was the first one I read, likely in the same 2-volume collection.  I've since managed to acquire a copy of the collection, edited by Andre Norton, of most of the Bullard stories and photocopies of the stories she didn't include (include one without Bullard per se but which helps set up "Bullard Reflects").  Thanks for the tip on that ebook, I definitely will need to acquire it.  BTW, if you can find really old issues of Astounding, Malcolm Jameson has some other good work, too.


I still have that 2-volume collection. It had some classics, like "The Stars my Destination" by Alfred Bester and "The Weapon Shops of Isher" by A. E. van Vogt

Yep, I've got it, too.  Way too good to ever get rid of.  Mind you, I've collected a lot more sf since then.  According to available data, he was retired Navy.  His ISFDB entry is here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?448

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #11 on: May 29, 2016, 03:58:24 PM »
Frank, thanks for the file I put on my UP! 3d printer and this is how it turned out

Printed at .15 resolution using normal ABS you can see some artefacts of the process

But Shapeways processes will give you an excellent result. Overall, it like it. A lot

Well done! Your 3d Render work is excellent as all I did is flip up to 90degrees so that is used less supports and I am a total 3d printer nuffy.

I will remove from the supports and take some more shorts a bit later.

Offline Frank3k

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2016, 12:40:14 AM »
Brian, that looks great! I don't think Shapeways has started to print mine yet, so you have the first one. Did you scale it up? I didn't think the filament printers would be able to handle some of the details and wall thickness.

Offline Buzzbomb

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2016, 06:53:00 AM »
Frank,
Not scaled up, direct from the STL. Only change was the orientation of the print because it made more sense to me to print vertical.
My printer or probably more so software, may have missed a lot of the detail around the drives, but but that could all be support structure, tell you after I strip back to actual components.
Some smoothing work and this will come out ace.

I reckon Shapeways will do you proud. Well done.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2016, 06:59:01 AM by buzzbomb »

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2016, 08:24:30 PM »
So after removing the supports, which makes my idea of rotating it even stupider, this is what you end up with

This ABS is pretty tough because getting the supports off was not that easy and the model held up well being so thin


I can work with that.

Frank, terrific work


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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #15 on: May 30, 2016, 09:40:22 PM »
Not "stupider", mate, "empirically experimental". ;)
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Offline Frank3k

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #16 on: May 30, 2016, 10:01:57 PM »
Thanks for making that, Brian! It looks really good.  It looks like the nose probe didn't fully print, but that's easy to fix or ignore. The little rockets around the edge printed well. The fit will be very tight, since I used very little tolerance between the parts. You'll have to trim the ABS to get a tight fit

I can see some areas where I can improve/do a better job at matching the drawing, though.

Offline Frank3k

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #17 on: June 07, 2016, 12:34:16 PM »
I wasn't completely happy with my interpretation of the ship, so I went back to the drawing board - so to speak - and examined the artwork in greater detail. The spherical section really is a sphere - I traced the white fin and rotated it along the axis of the ship to match the curves along the windows.  They matched, so I'm going with a sphere. The drawing perspective is clearly for dramatic purposes and not a technical drawing (duh).

Here's the improved design. The main changes are the triangles and angles rockets near the engine end, the engine supports and the rocket ring/fin extends further towards the rear. The nose is a little longer. I may add 2001-style pod bay doors where the meteor damage is, before I have it reprinted:





« Last Edit: June 07, 2016, 12:36:53 PM by Frank3k »

Offline Antonio Sobral

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #18 on: June 08, 2016, 07:24:17 PM »
I am also green...but with envy :)

I suppose this will be eventually the future of modelling and nowadays is becoming standard practice,
but it still gives me the sense of something "magical".

Thanks for sharing!

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #19 on: June 09, 2016, 10:36:24 AM »
I suppose this will be eventually the future of modelling and nowadays is becoming standard practice,
but it still gives me the sense of something "magical".

Thanks Antonio! I don't think 3D printing displacing scratchbuilding or kit basing any time soon. Not only is it expensive, most of the printers available to hobbyists still have printing artifacts that have to be removed. DLP printers are becoming affordable (and they produce acceptably smooth surfaces) but the resins are still very expensive.

I see it as both an education worth paying for and the cost of staying proficient with the software. If I get to build models in the process, all the better.

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #20 on: June 13, 2016, 02:19:26 AM »
I got the first version print back from Shapeways, and the DLP printer is awesome! This is what I had always hoped Shapeways would produce.

It's hard to photograph the black plastic. There are some minor surface blemishes and printer artifacts, but they're tiny and should disappear with only a little effort:


The lower hull sphere is just held up against the rest of the ship. I need to work on my tolerances, because there are none. I'd rather sand a little until the parts fit tightly rather than use putty to fill in a gap:


This is the lower hull sphere end. This is probably where the support "sprues" were printed. Fixing these blemishes will be nothing compared to sanding out all the printer artifacts in the ultra and extreme detail acrylic:


Very few printer artifacts are visible. The raised pipe under the upper row of portholes is around 0.20mm in dia. The pipes around the lower portholes and below them are 0.5mm in dia:


The engine end has some rocket tubes missing, but I was at the limit of the printer or slightly below. Still a good result:


This acrylate material feels more like resin or styrene and doesn't feel as brittle as their ultra and extreme detail acrylic, which is very brittle and needs some extra UV (either from a lamp or indirect sunlight) to fully harden one you get the part. The acrylate material feels ready to go. Just some cleanup and it's ready for printing.

I don't know what DLP printer Shapeways is using, but the results are similar (or slightly better) to those of the Formlabs Form 1+ or Form2.

I'll have to make some minor changes to the current version of the ship before I send it in, but these results are very encouraging.

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #21 on: June 13, 2016, 04:31:56 AM »
Thanks for a great update, Frank! I've been watching with much interest. While this stuff is still a bit beyond me, I'm very much enjoying getting a window into it all.

Work of this precision is amazing to me. It seems this stuff has come a long way since it first became available.

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #22 on: June 13, 2016, 08:56:39 AM »
Amazing stuff! So, if I understand properly, the trick is to design in extra material for sand-to-fit finishing of parts?
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Offline Frank3k

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #23 on: June 13, 2016, 10:11:29 AM »
Thanks guys!

Quote
Amazing stuff! So, if I understand properly, the trick is to design in extra material for sand-to-fit finishing of parts?

The 3D printers aren't 100% exact, so if you want a press fit with minimum sanding (or you want movable parts), you need to add some clearance between the parts. It depends on the material, but for the acrylate, the clearance between parts should be 0.5mm or greater. I often just "cut" the part in the software so the clearance is zero, then sand/trim one or both to fit. I should add clearance, but on one model I made years ago, even cutting the clearance in half produce loose parts.

I've glued the ship and primed it in white. There was some warpage on the bottom hull sphere, but it was easy to deal with. I'll let the primer harden and start the masking.

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Re: "Asteroid of Death" spaceship, by Frank R. Paul
« Reply #24 on: June 20, 2016, 10:04:36 AM »
Even though this isn't the final version, I decided to do a painting and masking test on this print, in preparation for the second version printing now. It will include a damaged lower hull.

I didn't worry too much about the paint seeping under the tape. I just noted the locations.

The white is a new acrylic primer by Badger. It has a ridiculous name - Stynylrez - but I was impressed with the coverage and durability of the primer (I used the white primer, since the resin is black). The other colors on the model are Vallejo reds and yellows, which are not "masking friendly" but they both stuck well to the Stynylrez (I guess it stands for "Styrene, Vinyl and Resin").

I did almost no surface prep, other than fill in some of the divots left by the printing support structure. There are some printing artifacts visible, but they're either hard to see or add visual interest to the surface (from some angles it looks like plating).









It came out OK. I tried filling in some of the windows with Tamiya smoke, but that would have been more effort than I wanted to put into this model.
Masking some of the curved sections was an issue and I may just generate a mask on the computer and cut it to fit. Since the fit is exact, I may print and mask the lower and upper hulls separately.


Thanks for looking!