Shapeways Off-Topic --- Non WoW - WoG Models

[Scott]

Hey, I am sending this out in hopes some Shapeways MODELERS (those of you who CREATE shapeways files) can help me out. In addition to WoW - WoG, I enjoy the game battletech. I saw a photo on a Battletech forum where someone had purchased F-Toys Star Wars models in 15mm scale and used them in the Mechwarrior game. (Mechwarrior is the "clix" version of Battletech and plays in a different scale than the 1/285 official Battletech scale).

I'd love to create some star wars like speeder bikes on Shapeways in the appropriate 1/285 scale to use in my Battletech games. To get around copyright problems, I'd probably just design & print on Shapeways the engine, seat and rider part of the speeder, and add the steering vanes out front at home by glueing in a length of metal rod with some triangular "fins" glued to the front. I am imagining a sprue with three or six "bikes" on it as they would be small.

But, I don't know where to start. Is it hard to create a shapeways model? Any design suggestions are appreciated.

Cheers,
Scott

P.S. Sorry if this is too far outside the scope of the aerodrome; but it seemed like a reasonable place to start to me.

[jbmacek]

So far the trick for me has been getting the scaling right while maintaining the minimum wall thickness. Designing the stuff in Blender hasn't been much of a challenge, and I believe creating things from one's own imagination would be a lot simpler than trying to duplicate something that really existed.

[jbmacek]

Of course, if you are doing something like a speeder bike at that scale, you are looking at doing it in FUD, so the tolerances are a little more forgiving since FUD has a much smaller minimum size than WSF does.

[Oberst Hajj]

Shapeways also has a forum where you can request quotes on your ideas.