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Old 03-17-2009, 06:45 AM
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I'm Thinking About Designing a Paper Ship

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post to the forum so I'll start by saying hello.

I'm considering designing a paper model of a modified Leander light cruiser (HMAS Sydney II/Perth/Hobart). I haven't built a purchased paper model since I was 9 years of age or built one to my own "design" since I was 13 or so (I used to enjoy making my own cardboard rockets, lunar landers, planes and the like as a kid). As part or this process I'm going to need to build a professional model or two to gain some experience.

I have enough hobby 3D experience to be dangerous but none whatsoever for creating shapes in a developable way. The software I am using is MoI 3D which doesn't have specific tools for this sort of thing but is an otherwise excellent nurbs modeller.

I am in awe of the design and build talent I have seen here on the forum pages. Hopefully, any questions I ask along the way won't seem too newbie.
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Old 03-17-2009, 08:28 AM
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Welcome Mark.It looks like you have a good set of plans and are off to a good start. I look forward to seeing your project move forward. I really enjoyed your www page. You are obviously a very skilled 3D artist.

~ cheers
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Old 03-17-2009, 08:38 AM
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Mark, it is FUN to design your own ships! However, there is a learning curve. I made the mistake of building my favorite ship as my own first design. It really stinks compared to what I can do now and I will soon redesign it. Depending on your commitment to designing I would actually recommend doing something interesting but sort of compact. It is not just about modeling skills but about how you lay things out to do what you want.

I also had built a ton of commercial kits before trying it so that I had an idea of what I liked and what I didn't like in model designs. If you want to learn about the value of framing, a Halinski airplane kit is a great example. If you want to learn about ship models, try building a frame at least for a JSC kit (they are bizarre box frame designs) and something else so that you can see the problems and possibilities.

If you just want to do the one ship and move on then you probably should ignore my entirely unasked for advice! Good luck with your work.


Carl
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Old 03-17-2009, 05:34 PM
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If you have 3D experience, then you'll steam through this design... It's looking great already, and obviously a veteran's work :D
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Old 03-17-2009, 06:56 PM
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I'm delighted to see someone tackling these beautiful ships. Like you, I went into paper model design with little real paper modeling experience and a whole lot (three years worth) of CAD experience. My designs are far from perfect, but they're fun, and hey, people like 'em. What more could I want? I'm very interested in your CAD program too, I want something to supplement sketchup, which is imperfect (very labour intensive) for building complex hulls. MoI is relatively cheap and your hull looks nice, and I see you can loft, which is not possible in sketchup.

Have fun, and I'll be watching closely.
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Last edited by APA-168; 03-17-2009 at 06:59 PM.
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Old 03-17-2009, 08:21 PM
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Thanks everyone for the kind words about my web page. I'm also considering turning the model of the Indefatigable BC into paper if I can. That model is polygonal, done in trueSpace with 2 levels of SDS in the hull. I couldn't use the hull directly but MoI allows you to import polygon models to use as construction points for nurbs curves. The rest of the model would probably be OK to unroll with some tweaking.

Many thanks Carl for your advice. I am amazed by your pre-dreadnoughts and will be buying your first kit when it is available. I have been through your design/build threads many times over the last few weeks. For something compact I have a model of a steam pinnace that was my learning MoI model. It was done as a test with no prior nurbs experience. MoI is very easy to use. The pinnace was built for the model of HMAS Australia. Apart from the prop which is horrible most of the rest is OK I think.

MoI discussion forum > Steam Pinnace

I'm looking forward to seeing the Leningrad progress APA-168. The shape of the hull looks great and buildable. My worry about using MoI for this is that it will happily create some very complex curves. The plans I'm using don't have many frames and they are oddly spaced so I'm letting the software pick a best fit curve in places. After that I'm going to use this hull to create my own frame curves at my own spacing and loft it again using an exact fit. Even then I think it is still going to be tough to unroll.

I'm starting to ramble. Many thanks again everyone for the kind welcome.
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Old 03-19-2009, 05:04 AM
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Hi Everyone,

Some progress shots. I've taken a bit of a guess with the stern underwater parts. There is a big gap between frames on the plan I'm using and the only photos of that area I can find are small images of HMAS Hobart undergoing repairs from a torpedo strike. The damage distorted that whole section of the ship so they aren't exactly reliable.
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I'm Thinking About Designing a Paper Ship-leander_hull_02.jpg   I'm Thinking About Designing a Paper Ship-leander_hull_03.jpg   I'm Thinking About Designing a Paper Ship-leander_hull_04.jpg  
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Old 03-19-2009, 05:18 AM
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Smooth and nice hull, the stern has always been a troublesome area, your way of modeling it is very nice.
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Old 03-19-2009, 06:41 AM
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Hi Lex,

I've just done a little experiment in MoI to place some frames of my own on the current lofted hull (actually not lofts, I'm using the "network" tool). Was really easy to do using the "project curve" tool by projecting some lines onto the hull.

Is there a rule of thumb regarding the number of frames I should use to build a paper hull?
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Old 03-21-2009, 11:45 AM
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That looks great! I think the picture is good enough sections, what scale and size are you planning on...?
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