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Recreating the PALOMINO (The Black Hole)

1K views 12 replies 6 participants last post by  star-art 
#1 · (Edited)
Since I've been working on the Cygnus, several people have asked me about the Palomino. (My Cygnus is about 85% done but is on hold until I can devote more time to it.) A couple of good friends want to recreate the studio miniature (of the Palomino) so I agreed to chip in and help them out by making patterns for it. We plan to make the finished blueprints available to everyone. Hopefully a nice and accurate studio-scale replica will be the result of this project!


The Palomino is somewhat simple as ships go, but don't let the old girl fool ya. She's got quite a few challenging details to work out. I decided to start with the worst of it, so I tackled the engines and interconnecting girder framework first. So far I feel this is a really good match to the photos I have of the original studio model.

I was fortunate to locate the original studio plans since they have been published. They were slightly distorted and needed some cleanup, and the two views do not appear in scale to each other. Some of the detail underneath the ship is hard to work out due to limited reference. But I think I can get it.

I'll post more progress renders as I finish this baby up. I hope it will be a fairly quick and easy build (since some of my projects can take years!).

There are no less than three threads going about this so I'll try to keep them all updated. But please consider the thread on my site as the "master thread" where all the latest updates can always be found:

http://www.starshipbuilder.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1597

EDIT: The images I was going to attach are too large for this forum. Please visit the link above where you can see a render of the engines and lower truss assembly completed so far and a copy of the STUDIO BLUEPRINTS for this ship.
 
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#4 ·
Major update posted on my site. Sorry the images are too large to post here as an attachment. I'll see what I can do. . .Thanks to a decent set of plans to work from, plus a lot of practice extracting splines/patterns for 3D objects from 2D drawings, I have made a lot of progress in just two evenings working on this project. The lower part of the ship is mostly complete now, minus a few details. . .
 
#7 · (Edited)
Sorry, new registrations are now moderated to keep spammers off the board. Moderation doesn't occur instantly, I try to get to it at least daily. I'll head over and clear you for access. :)

BTW, weren't you already registered? If anyone is and can't get access, the forum will e-mail you your login information (look for the "Forgot your password?" link). If your e-mail address has changed since the last time you accessed the site, you'll need to contact me so I can update your info.
 
#9 ·
star-art said:
Sorry, new registrations are now moderated to keep spammers off the board. Moderation doesn't occur instantly, I try to get to it at least daily. I'll head over and clear you for access. :)

BTW, weren't you already registered? If anyone is and can't get access, the forum will e-mail you your login information (look for the "Forgot your paassword?" link). If your e-mail address has changed since the last time you accessed the site, you'll need to contact me so I can update your info.

Thanks Charles... I thought I was registered, but I wasn't. Looks like its all sorted now, thanks! :thumbsup:

And WOW, that's a lot of work. What software are you using? Some CAD app?
 
#12 ·
Not much. I located a studio plan of the side elevation and started working from that. I used lots of screencaps from the film as reference and every published photo I could find. Many changes were made along the way. It will take some time and a LOT of effort to finish my 3D model, but I'll consider making blueprints available when I'm done. . . :)
 
#13 · (Edited)
I was very sad to hear about the recent death of VFX pioneer Peter Ellenshaw.
I was just rewatching The Black Hole to make screen captures of the Palomino for reference. Peter was credited as Production Designer on that film. A lot of folks don't think it was a good film, but the work both Peter and Harrison did was certainly very excellent and, in some ways, groundbreaking. No matter what you might think of the storyline, the production values and special effects were absolutely first rate for the time.

I had more time to work on the Palomino this weekend. The structure of the model is now basically finished. All that remains are the details applied to "the bucket" (whoever said this was a "trash can ship" sure got it right!). Since the purpose of this 3D model is to produce patterns for a physical recreation, I don't really have to make every surface detail to consider it done. As I have time, however, I'll try to add as many surface features as I can for the sake of completeness and so I can generate thorough blueprints of the finished model.

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Author, MODEL DESIGN & BLUEPRINTING HANDBOOK, Volume 1
Now available from www.ModelersNotebook.com
 
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