Building the body

The first step of any project is the plan. Since I already had the 6mm scale mini, I simply measured all the sides and multiplied by 4 (yes, I realize that only gives me a 24mm scale model, not 25mm, but dealing in fractions of millimeters was just too taxing for me). From there, I made a 3D 1:1 scale drawing of the model I was going to make. Some of the measurements required “fudging,” and I found that I had made some conceptual mistakes along the way, but most were easily fixed. One important hint a friend of mine told me a while back was not to worry about measuring the angles, measure the sides. If you measure all the sides correctly and draw them in their correct relationship to one another, the angles draw themselves. This method works well for a “box” design, but doesn’t work for sides which cannot be seen and measured in profile on the 3D drawing. For that, I had to use another method.

I began by creating a basic frame out of styrene. Styrene is my scratchbuilding material of choice, because it’s easy to work with and durable. After measuring the inner struts for the frame, I trimmed off about a millimeter, since the styrene I was using was .8mm in thickness. Another nice thing about styrene is that it can be sanded. I used sandpaper to bevel the inside edges, so that the seams as tight as possible.

After I made the basic frame, I added the sides and front. Since the model has a slight “bulge” at the bottom, I decided to work down from the top of the model, that way any inconsistencies that came about in the construction process would be less visible.




The corners are a little tricky, since they can’t be directly measured from the 3D drawing. Plus, the fact that they are triangular, without any parallel sides makes the “side measuring” method impossible. The way around that I found was to just place the sheet styrene directly over the space to be covered, and marking off the corners. Then, I simply cut the piece to fit, and sanded down the edges. I used this same method to fill in all the corner pieces.