Polar Lights Ghostbusters Ecto-1

Oh yeah, love your approach on the detailing, man ;D
Can't wait to see You adding all those elements, dude - going to look killer! ;)
 
Solander said:
Oh yeah, love your approach on the detailing, man ;D
Can't wait to see You adding all those elements, dude - going to look killer! ;)

Thanks guy... I'm gonna try and get it as accurate as possible.. gonna take my time and not rush anything!
 
Well... I've been busy dusting off my old 3D modeling skills to try and make some more detailed parts for the back. My idea is to try and make the back of the Ecto-1 as accurate as possible and as far as I can tell from my research, no one has ever actually mapped out the back properly (even on the full scale replicas). So I'm gonna try and make the back as screen accurate as I can get it. But it's gonna require some highly detailed parts. For example... all the consoles... There are so many buttons, switches, knobs, and wires running everywhere, there's no way I'd be able to scratch those accurately by hand. So I'm gonna try my hand at having them printed at Shapeways. So far, I've got 4 proton packs with guns, 2 traps and one of the console plates finished. I'm hoping that I get the size right for the scale. If I'm judging this correctly, the packs should measure about 25mm tall. Should be about the right scale for this kit. Here's just a little teaser of what I've gotten modelled in 3D so far.


e1-3dpacks.jpg



I'm gonna try and get everything printed in one shot. So far, at this size and scale, it looks like it'll cost less then $10... which is amazing if all the details come out right (You can see all the little switches on the panel). I left off all the wires on the packs because I'll end up using real wire to give it more detail. You can get down to about .02mm in detail... anything below that won't work (I believe... it could be .2mm... not sure off the top of my head). More to come.
 
Ian said:
Shapeways is excellent. My wife actually has a store there and has printed a bunch of things.

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/raetracer

My recommendation, based on my testing of their materials sample kit, would be "Frosted Detail Plastic".

http://www.shapeways.com/materials/frosted-detail

It's pricer than their basic "Strong & Flexible Plastic" but offers much greater detail and paintability.

Yeah I was thinking about that... it was either gonna be a toos up between the Frosted or the White Detail which is something new I think... haven't tested it yet, but am probably gonna do a test run of a couple of small pieces first in different materials to see just how the detail comes out. BTW - Your wife's jewelry looks beautiful.

I'm making more of the consoles today. Almost got the one behind the rear seat done. The major monster of the bunch. Not going to be super detailed because at this scale it's not gonna be noticeable... but enough to know that what you can see will be accurate to the stuff you see in the back area. I don't think anyone has ever detailed the back like this. And there are major differences from the Ecto-1 to the Ecto-1A... the 1A has alot more finese then the 1... more finished out consoles and areas like the computer screen etc. The 1 looks like they just threw a bunch of computer/radio/techie equipment in the back and bolted it down then added wires everywhere to make it look busy. Very unkempt. So will be interesting to see the Ecto-1 rear area in an accuratized manner. I'm just taking general location and size/shape from the backlot Ecto-1 before it was restored. The images that were taken show it rotting away from years of just sitting in the sun and elements. But I hope it'll be at least semi-accurate to what has never actually been seen much in the movie.
 
I've been going over my reference pics and noticed something that I'm not sure many people have caught before. It appears as if the phone that is sitting beside the back chair isn't actually by the back chair. Here's the original ref pic I was using:

e1-ref3.jpg


It's actually on the wall by the front chair. By flipping the image from the reference site you can clearly see that it's the front chair the phone is by. Here's the same image flipped around:

ref7.jpg


And when looking at the rear compartment, there's a little crevice between the door and the seat where the box goes that's hooked up to the phone that's mounted on the wall beside the front seat. That means I don't have to cut that little section off beside the rear seat to fit the phone in. Can't believe I almost missed that and wonder if anyone else noticed that at all.
Still working on making the consoles in 3D. Got 4 of 8 done. More to come!
 
Learning more about the Ecto-1 than I thought I ever would. Interesting to see the details on the inside....
 
Off to an excellent start. Thorough research you are doing to make it accurate. Very nice.
 
Who you gonna call??

LORD SATYR!!!! ;D

Really cool build. I love the research you're doing and planning for it. Going to be one to watch this. Bookmarked! 8)
 
Thanks all... you guys have been great...

[quote author=Grendals]Learning more about the Ecto-1 than I thought I ever would. Interesting to see the details on the inside....
[/quote]

Believe it or not... ME TOO! My first thought about the phone being by the back seat was off until I turned that photo upside down. Really blew my mind that no one else has caught that!

[quote author=CTspeedshop]Off to an excellent start. Thorough research you are doing to make it accurate. Very nice.
[/quote]

Thanks CT... when I get into a build my OCD kicks in big time and I can't stop myself sometimes until i got everything right. Sometimes I have to stop myself and say... ok that's good enough... don't go too deep or you'll never come out again.

[quote author=Igard]Really cool build. I love the research you're doing and planning for it. Going to be one to watch this. Bookmarked!
[/quote]

Thanks bro... wait til I get into actual building... then you're gonna see fingers flying and glue spurting everywhere... you can almost here the music in the background like one of those really bad 60's porns! LOL

[quote author=Scott Girvan]This is cool. Great work so far...all the reference will pay off.
[/quote]

Thanks Scott... I truly hope so.


And now on with the build....

Well I've almost got all the consoles and widgets done for the back... may end up doing a test printing here in the next couple of days. There's still a few things left to make. I want to make a replacement part for the spot light that was missing, and I want to replace the siren part because the front is completely wrong to the movie (it looks like they took a spot light and just added it to the kit, totally different grill on it). Of course there's the box fan for the roof rack, a cylinder type thing for the dash, the hose panel on the roof rack and of course the gurney rack for the packs. I did a few test renders to make sure they will all fit. I took a few photos of the rear compartment in different positions and then composited the rendered parts over it to show where all the pieces will go when they arrive from the printer. Hope you all enjoy them. Lemme know!

e1-inside1a.jpg

e1-inside2a.jpg

e1-inside5a.jpg

e1-inside6a.jpg

e1-inside7a.jpg


More to come...
 
It will look great if you can pull it off. But a question: Why go to all the trouble to 3d model this? It looks like it could be scratch built pretty easily.
 
CTspeedshop] Wicked Detail!!! [/quote] Thanks bro! [quote author=Quaralane] Definitely looking good here [/quote] Thanks Q... I just hope they come out looking as good once printed. [quote author=Grendels said:
It will look great if you can pull it off. But a question: Why go to all the trouble to 3d model this? It looks like it could be scratch built pretty easily.

I've thought about the scratching... but alot of the buttons, switches, knobs just wouldn't look as good and the GB fans themselves would tear it apart! :) I may end up scratching a couple of them, but I'm sure i'm not the only one that would want the accuraized parts for their kit. I just got some more really good detailed pics of the restored Ecto with alot of good shots of the back that are gonna help get these peices alot more detailed. I just hope that when the parts come back from the printers that they will look as good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If they don't, I'll probbaly end up scratching them but at least I tried! The biggest thing I'm trying to tackle is the scale/measurement system that Shapeways uses. If I can master that, then I shouldn't have a problem.
 
Now I understand, and thank you for the response. If the printers do a good job at fine detail, then you will have much better parts. If not, it is only time lost and maybe you can add the small details that are missing from the consoles.
 
Grendels said:
Now I understand, and thank you for the response. If the printers do a good job at fine detail, then you will have much better parts. If not, it is only time lost and maybe you can add the small details that are missing from the consoles.
Pretty much yeah... it may seem like I'm wasting time, but it actually isn't... it doesn't take very long to make the details in 3D... and if I mess something up I can always go back and change something before printing out the complete piece. You don't know how many times I've started a console over again. There's a couple I still have to fix before I'm happy with them. I couldn't do that if I scratched it. If I glued a bunch of buttons on a piece of styrene, and I had to redo it, I'd have to rip off everything, sand it all back down, and start over again from scratch, but in 3D I can just move the button over, or remove just the misplaced one and/or place them anywhere I want them. Really makes things so much easier. I know some of the finer things won't print (like the wires) but I can always use real wires to make em in the build. Personally I'm surprised no one has actually made an entire printed kit yet. Think about it... would you buy a complete kit of something like a good 1/10th scale Probot... now think about this... what if you could print up the entire kit completely accurate to the original and if you didn't like the details you can fix them before it's printed. You print up just the parts you need... I think it would be an awesome thing to do. Who knows... if I can get the details printed properly I may attempt it... a completely printed kit! What do you think?
 
When I first saw 3D printing machines coming down in price, I thought it was only a mater of time till they entered into the modeling hobby. Maybe in time will be able to down load a pattern from somewhere or design your own, then print out the parts on your own machine or at a local service. What you are doing LrdSatyr is just the beginning.

Jim
 

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