SPACE IN MINIATURE

Many leading authorities of the 1950's believed that by 2001 we'd all be flying around the Earth and nearby space in dome covered saucers, avoiding all the traffic and pollution associated with modern automobiles. These predictions led to many hundreds of designs that were conceived, and many more that were patented. It was even believed the Navy had designs for futuristic saucer-shaped aircraft. It's really too bad their predictions didn't come true (yet?), as I would LOVE to pop into one of these babies on my way to work each day, as well as take a weekend drive to the moon with my family.

This contest was the long needed excuse I had been looking for to build this model. My initial inspiration for this project came from science-fiction and science-fact magazines from the 50's and their fascination in all things saucer shaped (and my fascination with all things retro!). The design of my one-man flying commute saucer is loosely based on the spaceship for Calvin and Hobbes' alter-ego character, SpaceMan Spiff, as drawn by Bill Watterson, as well as the flying saucers I watched whizz past on episodes of the Jetsons. I wanted something that looked less cartoony, and more plausible than either of these and improvised where necessary. I felt this design resembled the aesthetics of the 50s sci-fi pulps and the futuristic vehicles described therin.

ABOUT THE MODEL

This model took more hours to create than I'd like to admit. The main body was lathed from high grade basswood, to the appropriate shape (the top and bottom are separate pieces with a shim between them). Many well sanded coats of primer and metallic model paint followed, as well as several highly polished layers of automotive clearcoat. The interior walls, dashboard and seat were sculpted with milliput and super-sculpey and sanded to an extra smooth finish before coating it with several layers of a custom mix of semi-gloss enamel model paint (I made the interior first as to ensure a tight fit between it and the body). The headlamp trim was bent from copper wire and painted with alternating coats of non-buffing and buffing metallizer (along with the other 'metal' trim pieces and landing gear). The dome is a custom ordered acrylic resin casting, again highly polished and fitted with a small hinge to allow for opening and closing. The steering wheel comes from an old car model (1/12 scale) and the knobs and levers are made from small sewing stick pins. The landing gear belonged to an aircraft model, customized with pieces of tubing and springs.

I photographed the model surrounded by modeling material (that I didn't use, it's just there for looks, ...and scale) and some old pulp magazines I borrowed from a friend's collection when I was looking for saucer designs to base the model off of. I used a Fuji finepix4900 for the photos and some shop lights for lighting.

Image: Side view