Tiny Astronaut figure - Step 6 (Conclusion)

The figure was tested on top of the lunar surface before gluing both in place onto the wooden base. My wife did a great job with the stain and varnish for the circular base. The Gnomon tool was put in place. A small antennas was drill on the top of the life support pack, it is a cat whisker, don't get me wrong here, cats looses once in a wile some of their wiskers, you just have to be extra attentionate to find them on the floor before passing the vacuum cleaner, cat wishers have the property to be very flexible and straight at the same time, they greatly simulate the properties of antennas.

Here we can see size comparison. The helmet front was painted in a way that we could see the reflexion of the moon surface with the sky, the sky being black and the moon surface being yellowish, because of the gold plate visor.


Here's some details works for the tools equipments, I think the pictures are speaking for themselves, you can also see the size of the home made decals.








Go to Step 7 or back to Step 5

Tiny Astronaut figure - Step 5

The new hands were installed and sanded. We can see that they had burn more because of their thickness, that’s an issue with Fimo or Sculpey, you have to be careful with the thickness our your objects during curing.


The surface of the moon base was created with a reverse process, meaning stamping sand pattern into the compound. The foot prints were created by using some car epoxy putty were I had printed a boot pattern on it (little grey part on the right) , using a small screw for the sole pattern (as discuss earlier).

Painting the figure white








Some blue tape were use to create some steady red lines curves.








Blue tape taken off, some shadow was painted, I still need to read more on this matter, my skill is not good enough to represent proper shadows effects.






Go to Step 6 or back to Step 4

Tiny Astronaut figure - Step 4

Bags on legs were molded, but they were too big.
Camera holder on chest was installed.





I resize the legs bags and put some pockets on both shoulders.









Cooking time: Another set of hands was molded, even thought they were not as expected. I still don’t like the right hand on the finish figure, it looks as so the astronaut hit himself with a hammer and the hand inside had swollen, I will probably remodel others hands later and cut the final one away. A little watch was put on the left arm. 3 hoses were install on the left of the stomach, and 2 on the right going all around to the life support pack. At this step I've put everything in the oven for a final curing.

Go to Step 5 or back to Step 3

Tiny Astronaut figure - Step Final

Here are the final pictures of the little astronaut.
Final decals have been put, and the drill is being hold by him.


































This conclude the steps of building this small Astronaut, it also conclude my vacation for this summer, back to work tomorrow. (Sigh!) If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post from the comments link below, It will be a pleasure to respond back on this blog.

So long! Until the next project.

Animek

Go to Step 00 or back to Step 7

Tiny Astronaut figure - Step 3

The helmet was attached by adding a small roll of Scupey around it. The front panel covering the urine bag was put in place.




The backpack (life support) was attached with small pins so that I wouldn’t have to push to hard to make it stick there.


Life support and side back in place.









The hands were the hardest to model. I had to create 3 pairs, and I'm still not satisfied with the final ones.








Hand holding a miniature drill bit.










Go to Step 4 or back to Step 2

Tiny Astronaut Figure - Step 2

The body was sculpted by attaching the arms and legs. A round ball was done for the helmet.








This picture shoes the plans used for sizing the model, several pictures of astonauts in different views was use as base reference for the scuplting.







Go to Step 3 or back to Step 1

Tiny Astronaut Figure - Step 1

The base was painted, and we can see the body of the astronaut, the V shape on the lower part is to later accept the 2 legs.

Some boots pattens were tested also.


Go to Step 2 or back to Step 00

Tiny Astronaut Figure - Step 00

With the inspiration that Johnno's little astronaut gave me; I've decided to build one myself. You can go see Johnno's cool astronaut here !

The astronaut on the picture here was scrap back to a ball of compound. It was only built to test size and methods of modeling; I've never tried to sculpt such a small figure before. The wood base was turn onto a big lathe, its modeling surface is 5 cm in diameter, and it will be painted and varnish later.
Deferring from other sculptor’s methods, I've decided to use Sculpey III compound instead of the green epoxy stuff. The benefit of it is that you can work timelessly on your subject.

Here we can see the legs being molded, I've used different screws in size to emulate the front and the sole of the boots.






Sole of boot seen in closer detail. The sole print on the boot was only done to create a walking partern on the moon surface.






Go to Step 1

L.E.M Stage 1g - Final details

The high gain antennas were made of paper molded over a pointed shape. Then they were varnish to solidify them, each point in the antennas are tooth pick points reduce to smaller size.

The ladder was made from a mosquito screen.

The exit ramp and it's sidings was double printed on the printer, cut and glued in place.

Some antennas and small details are missing plus all 4 thrust plume deflectors, they will be put later, for now a little astronaut had caught my attention.

Go back to Stage 1f

L.E.M Stage 1f - Trust nozzles

They were in all 16 small trust nozzles to create, each one of them were created from the sanded point of some round toothpicks.
Each nozzles are about 0.5mm long.

A small pyramid pattern was sanded on the end of a match stick.
Then 3 holes were drill to insert the nozzles points. When the 3 points were glue dried the end part was cut to install the fourth nozzle.

Forward to Stage 1g final details or Go back to Stage 1e (continuation)

L.E.M Stage 1e - Landing legs (Continuation)

Here, the remaining legs structures were assemble. Those were all pre-assemble V shape structures. 4 V's for the top, and 4 V's for the middle sections. Unfortunately the picture does not show how I installed them, but the main frame was put on its underside and 4 little sticks (on the left) were used to give an angle setup to all 4 top V shapes arms. Once they were glue dry, I installed the remaining 4 sections in the middle, those were pretty easy to install, since the top and bottom were there to support.

When everything was fully dried, I applied the 4 sticks that serve as legs. A small grove was made on each pentagon points so that the vertical sticks would fit right in.


Forward to Stage 1f or Go back to Stage 1e

L.E.M Stage 1e - Landing legs

Building the Lander legs were the most challenging part of building this craft. Each legs had a pentagon shape to be reproduced, with a very small X structure inside. They were all prepared independently and glued on the octagonal base frame. CA glue (Crazy glue) was used to glue all 4 legs to the frame. Since CA glue has a solvent characteristic, it dissolve the ink in the foil and does not stick to it. That is why I drilled some small holes in the foil at each attaching points so that the CA glue would penetrate and bond to the balsa wood behind the foil. We can see the holes (silver color) on top of the frame, being there to attach the remaining structures of each legs. (The cone shape on the left is the command capsule being test fit with some alu foil cut to a conic shape)

This pictures shoes how the command capsule was turn on a lathe. In the middle we can barelly see the 4 pentagon shapes legs already painted gold on one side only, and on the far left, the gold foil being prepared to put on top of the frame.

Forward to Stage 1e (continuation) or Go back to Stage 1d

L.E.M Stage 1d - Landing section

The underside of the landing section has an engine cone well positioned inside a smaller octagonal part.

Before squaring the part, the shape was rounded in the middle to accept the curve of the thrust cone. It was turn on the lathe.

The main engine cone was also turn on a lathe. We can see the cone on the right of the picture.


This picture shoes everything in place.








Forward to Stage 1e or Go back to Stage 1c

L.E.M Stage 1c - Front fuselage

The front fuselage was quite hard to model; it has several different shapes and angles (mostly the weird triangle windows shapes)

At first: The basic round shape on the left of the picture was turn on a lathe ( Unimat 1 ).


Then the angles were cut off with a razor blade.

The nose and door sidings were put after the windows angles were cut; otherwise it would have not been possible to cut the straight angles shapes. The nose was sanded to dimension directly on the fuselage.

Forward to Stage 1d or Go back to Stage 1b

L.E.M Stage 1b - Octagonal part of the landing section

Using a Gillette blade broken in half, all 8 sections are cut following dimensions.

Then using a nail file, minor defects are sanded off.


Forward to Stage 1c or Go back to Stage 1a

L.E.M Stage 1a - The fist steps of building the Lem

Traced from the reduced nasa plan, the middle shape was cut to dimensions.

Balsa wood was used for 90% of the parts, the other round shape parts were made out of pine wood, mostly all turn on a miniature lathe.

Forward to Stage 1b or Go back to Stage 00

L.E.M Stage 00 - Details on how to build a 1:220 scale Lem Model

Introduction and basic story of Apollo 13:
This little craft (scale of 1:220), was constructed for the Starshipmodeler heroes contest. Here you will find some of the basic construction process stages. They are explain with the best of my ability, never the less, some detail work could be left out, so if you need more info, just leave me a note about it in the comments link below.
The Story: Apollo 13 was to be the third mission to land on the Moon. An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks crippled the spacecraft during flight, and the crew were forced to orbit the Moon and return to the Earth without landing. During the time it took to come back to earth, the lunar module "Aquarius" was used as a lifeboat.

After having jettisoned the service module, there was only one thing left to do before reentry.

Unlike Odyssey, the lunar module Aquarius had no heat shield and was not designed to withstand the fiery plunge into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Before they could come home, Lovell, Swigert and Haise would have to say goodbye to the craft that had saved their lives.

With Lovell safely inside the command module, the men sealed off the hatchway and then, with a mixture of sadness and gratitude, cast off the lander.

In Mission Control Joe Kerwin radioed an appreciation: "Farewell, Aquarius, and we thank you.

Forward to Stage 1a for the start of the construction process.