Star Trek Enterprise

Took a small version of the Enterprise from Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:64937

I scaled it up to 1:350 because it seemed most of the models were that scale and figured I'd be able to find decals for it. I was wrong. I got vinyl masks but they didn't work. Then I found images of the decal sheets and printed them on decal paper. Those wouldn't stick, even with the liquid decal stuff. Finally I tried vinyl sticker printer paper and as long as the surface wasn't to curved, they stuck. Not real happy with either solution though. While I loved building models as a kid, I never had the patience to turn anything into a work of art like you'd find on YouTube videos, so I didn't sand like crazy, didn't go for a perfectly smooth surface. I think the nature of layer on layer printing doesn't bode well for fine detail painting like text unless you spend a lot of effort preparing the surface. I had to cut all the files into a size that would fit Robo, for example, the dish is four pieces. Also had to use Netfabb and Meshmixer to separate the different pieces that were put on each file into individual files. I printed this about a year ago but because of the decal issue, I put it away until I got the bug to finish it recently.

 

Very nice. I think you did a great job.