Digital modelling

[Fitz]

I'm (slowly) teaching myself how to use Blender by building a 1:100 scale Vickers Medium Mk.III

I'm keeping a WiP post going on my blog, for those who care to read about my pain.

In truth, the modelling side of it has been fairly straightforward, and with the help of the internet I'm gradually coming to grips with Blender's rather byzantine UI.

I'm building it in pieces in separate files, with the idea of eventually importing them all and assembling the components for 3d printing.

The running gear is proving to be a sticking-point though — building it was OK, but now whenever I try to import it into the "everything all assembled" file, I get a vastly long and verbose error message which I don't know enough to be able to interpret. In other words, I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Anyway, though it's proving to be an entertaining project, I'm beginning to think I may have been a bit ambitious for my very first 3d printing project, and I might shelve it in favour of something a bit simpler until I learn enough to know how to fix my mistakes.

[Arlequín]

As a none modeller I find this very interesting, thanks!

As a suggestion, if the Medium is a challenge, how about a Vickers Light Tank Mk. II? It shares a lot of the features, but is somewhat simpler in the design.

Plus nobody makes one. 

[Amonglions]

I'm afraid all I can give you is moral support here, as I'm utterly useless when it comes to any kind of computer aided design.

Keep us posted on how you make out with this. I'd love to see more interwar 15mm stuff.

Really like the blog too by the way.

Hope you work it out!

[Happy Wanderer]

...and if you made a Vickers Mk II light then presumably you could resize it as a 1/56 scale model. Then you would be the only maker of such a model and no doubt you'd have a few people who would like to buy one or more off you to help compensate your hard toil ;-)

...an interesting post so do persist...please consider the Vickers Mk II 

Cheers

Happy W

[Fitz]

I finally figured out (with the aid of the internet) how to fix the issue that was preventing me from importing the running-gear file, so I could put together this mock-up assembly of all the components.

For 3d printing purposes, the colour is really irrelevant. I thought I'd give it some though, because why not? In the process, I discovered that the turret and sub-turret files really need a bit of refinement. They were my first attempts in Blender, and it does rather show.

Now it's on to 3d printing the thing. I don't have local access to a printer, unfortunately. Even a relatively low-resolution printer would be useful for testing purposes, since the alternative would be to get Shapeways or one of those companies to do it, which would likely end up costing me an arm and a leg before I get a successful product.

[Fitz]

I was looking at some pics of the Vickers Light Mk.II, and it looks to me like it would be a pretty straightforward digital modelling task. The tricky part about it would be making some decent scale drawings to work from; since I can't just stroll along to Bovington and measure up their example, there would inevitably be a certain amount of approximation and guesswork involved.

[Fitz]

After a hell of a lot of wrestling and redesigning, I finally managed to get some printable files up on Shapeways. It's at https://www.shapeways.com/shops/mojobobdesign, in both 1:100 and 1:300 scales, along with some bits for converting Battlefront's WWII Rolls Royce armoured car into a WWI version.

I've got a 1:300 Frosted Ultra-Detail Vickers on its way to me, but I haven't yet tried actually printing any of the others, mainly due to lack of money.

[FramFramson]

What about a 1:56 version? 

[Fitz]

What about a 1:56 version? 

There's already one available (from Copplestone, I think), and I'm concentrating only on stuff that isn't available elsewhere.

Besides, I'm pretty sure that a 3d-printed version, even in their cheapest WSF (White Strong & Flexible) material would end up more expensive than a cast resin model

[Fitz]

Just uploaded, a 1925 Birch Gun in 1:285 scale.

The limitations of the printing process means that things like the gun shield, track guards and track cleats are hugely over-thick in scale, but most of the model could just be resized upwards to form the core of a 15mm model, which will be able to display a lot more detail around the gun and so forth.

On the plus side, this is the first model I've submitted to Shapeways that passed all their automated pre-acceptance tests first time, so I'm clearly getting a handle on how to design for the materials.

[Fitz]

Here's a 15mm (1:100) version. I had to fudge the gun controls a tad; I couldn't find any good pictures of them, and some of the spindlier protrusions would be very vulnerable to tabletop damage.

[Happy Wanderer]

Great work Fitz. Really impressive...hope you make it to that Vickers Mk II Light tank 

Cheers

Happy W

[Fitz]

It's definitely in the pipeline, and if I can get some concrete measurements for it I think I have enough photographs from various angles to be able to build a reasonable representation of it.

For the moment though, what I'm working on is this:



Since I'd already gone to all the effort of building the running gear for the Birch Gun, I thought I might as well make my next model the Vickers Medium Mk.C, from about 1925, which uses basically the same chassis.

I don't have scale drawings for this one either, so I'm working by best guess from some very old, grainy photographs. This particular one is designed at 1:100 scale for 15mm; I'll probably do a redesigned version* for 1:285 (6mm).

I don't believe it saw service with the British army, but Vickers supplied some to the Irish, and to  the Japanese who modified it and turned it into the Type 89.

Edit:
* I did do a 1:285 version. It's available as singles, or as a 5-up sprue.

[Arlequín]

I'm suitably in awe and impressed by the design process. When 3D Print began a mere few years ago I thought then how it could potentially revolutionise the hobby... the final hurdle seems to be price.

 

[Fitz]

I'm more excited than is truly proper for a Gentleman of a Certain Age, as the very first actual physical 3d-printed results of my labours has just arrived.

The raw resin

It's the two-piece 1:300 scale Vickers Medium Mk.III, in Shapeways' Frosted Ultra Detail resin.

I'm pretty impressed, I have to say. And it shows me a lot about what I need to be adjusting and exaggerate when designing in this very small scale, and what can just be left to be suggested.

The rivets, for example: they're visible (in places), but they don't get across the rivetiness of the tank. There could be fewer of them, but larger. There is visible striation on vertical surfaces, though it isn't visible from arm's length, and I doubt that it would be visible at all on a pewter casting.

The model, primed for visibility

I'll be interested to see how the Frosted Extreme Detail resin fares. It's more expensive, but in terms of the overall labour and expense involved in creating a master for moulding and casting, the difference isn't that great, and hopefully it will deal better with vertical surfaces.