Spaceship Models With No Imagination Limits And Near Movie FX Model Quality

Every person who has dreamed about science fiction and making futuristic spaceship models has wanted to get towards personal custom versions of spaceships with 2001 and Star Wars FX model quality.

However, the pre-built models or pieces limited your imagination. The Lego and other kits did not let you make custom pieces. You were building the Death Star or an X-wing.

Combining model kit parts is known as kit-bashing. Lego has made it difficult. Decades ago there were the range of standard Lego pieces. Lego made it easier to make a real-looking Death Star model but they made it harder or vastly more expensive to customize.

Snapships makes it easier to use software to model and design what you want for a model spaceship. You start off with their designs and then you are freer to work out changes and customization. Snapships pieces are made to 20-micron precision. This is the level of Lego precision but without forcing you to buy the next $50-1000 kit for special pieces.

Snapships lets you build and rebuild. They do not let you make your own 3D printed parts yet, but in a Tested interview, they seemed open to the idea. They need to be able to allow that but still have the parts snap together.

13 thoughts on “Spaceship Models With No Imagination Limits And Near Movie FX Model Quality”

  1. And all with the aerodynamics of a brick.

    This style of spaceship has been rather common in sci/fi illustrations for a while. But I recall it was practically absent before Star Wars made fantasy spaceships that look like airplanes with poor aerodynamics acceptable again.

  2. You are confusing “space” (100 km, vacuum, etc.) with “deep space”(beyond Earth orbit).
    It’s analogous to ships in the ocean that either hover near coastlines versus those that can cross deep oceans (off the continental shelf, where waves and storms are potentially much worse and they are much further from resupply). Compare a typical cruise ship (very top-heavy, shallow hull) with an ocean liner (deep hull, minimal stuff above the waterline to reduce risk of capsizing).
    In space, it’s beyond the Earth’s magnetic field and gravity. Apollo was equivalent to a deep space ship (outside the radiation belts) environmentally, but was still technically in Earth orbit, because the moon orbits the Earth. It also could return to earth in days rather than months.

  3. Umm…”Never even went into space.” 100km is the conventional definition of “Outer Space”, and most of the shuttle missions ranged from 304 to 528km. Source: Nasa.gov

  4. Shuttle was a glider that rode a rocket up and fell back to earth. Pretty specific reason for those wings. Never even went into space. Not a spaceship.

  5. Mat… Would be next to near impossible to 3d print my concept model for a spaceship using 3d printer. As my ship would be many layered like a wedding cake. Concept would be practical for space, lightweight and be able to see the potential for protection against radiation and offer the appearance of the use of artificial gravity.

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