#3d print

There are a lot of starship designs that I'd describe as "cool." This is one of the rare few that I'd call "beautiful."

There's a bit of a story behind this one, if you'll indulge me. 6 years ago, there was going to be a kit of this ship, and I was super excited for it... but then covid happened, and it was canceled. Two weeks ago, I discovered that one had finally been released. I don't know if it's the same kit or if Kotobukiya decided to make their own, but either way, I was obsessed. One week ago, mine arrived. Six days later, I was done. I may have gotten a bit carried away.

The other piece of the story is that last year, I bought a KOSMOS FM Aerial lighting kit to give to a friend for Christmas, and for some reason, they sent me two. The extra one has been hanging around in my workspace ever since, while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with it.

This was such an interesting puzzle to figure out, because some of the lights in the lighting kit are full RGB and can be given all kinds of cool patterns, but some of them aren't, and sometimes they're on the same string right next to each other. I knew I wanted to have some parts of the kit able to "shimmer" with lights while others stayed steady, so I needed to figure out how many fiber optics I could fit and route through this tiny space to make the different lighting effects go to the right places.

For instance, I wanted all these blue lights in and around the engines to stay blue regardless of everything else, so all of them are connected to those two blue LEDs.

Meanwhile, there were those two big red circles on the bow, which I also wanted to stay steady and not change color. I was able to do that by using two of the steady white lights and painting the kit itself clear red around them.

I was able to make use of most of the lighting kit, though I did end up wrapping that green LED in electrical tape to keep it from contaminating the lights around it.

I modeled/printed/painted replacements for the turbines so that they could get lit up properly. Unfortunately I didn't have any steady white LEDs left in the kit, so they're part of the RGB system.

I scratch-built a stand using pla plate and a metal rod, and then painted it in Musou Black, one of those paints that absorbs 99% of all light.

The kit itself, meanwhile, I painted in TurboDork Motherlode, to give it a mother-of-pearl iridescence. It's a little hard to see on camera.