Painting the crab submersible was fun from beginning to end. I began with two coats base coats of gold. Then I did a blend coat with the gold on the bottom and a blend to a deep red on the top. The model instantly came to life.

Peter had first dibs on the sculpting of the crab submarine but he was called away to do other things. With the deadline quickly approaching that meant the fun job fell to me. I wasted no time in getting busy! I was feeling crabby!

Peter had done a little work and set the direction of the project. So I mixed up a little sculpting epoxy and got to work. I’ve learned to build a stable shell and structure initially. Once that sets I’ll begin the detail, tomorrow. Temporary stands kept everything in line until it sets. Imagine this thing at full size! It will be a little over seven feet tall and about twelve feet long! The kids are going to love climbing inside!

The little tugboat is sporting all of it’s base colors and is ready for the first of it’s glazes.

Angie and I made good progress on the sunken ship model today in two one hour sculpting sessions. She mixed the epoxy while I sculpted, except what I was called away and she got to do the little crab on the rock beside the ship. In an hour or two at most tomorrow we should have this thing ready for paint.  Since its a study model to be used to talk to sponsors of the attraction I didn’t overly fret about detail, instead concentrating on capturing the story and mood. It’s coming together nicely and should paint up pretty nice. Stay tuned…

The second project study model we are building is a submarine. But it’s not a typical sub. This one is designed to appeal to kids… something they would imagine to explore the deep. The model will be a combination of CNC and hand sculpting. As always it started with a concept.

 I drew the needed vectors for the claws, legs and tanks in EnRoute.

Then I began building the reliefs. The cylinders for the legs was first. I used the pill shaped vector to create a round shape using the dome tool. Then the piston rod in the same fashion.

I then created a zero height relief which I would use to trim the cylinder to length using the merge highest function.

 Then I began building the various relief – all as individual pieces.

The larger parts of the legs and claws were modified by sinking the centre portions.

 The rivets and pins were added to the reliefs using the dome tool.

 The dome tool was again used to create the ballast tanks.

 I then combined all of the reliefs to make the legs and claws one piece.

I then nested all of the pieces and created a zero height relief big enough to accommodate all of the pieces plus a border big enough to accept the bits I would be using. The pieces were merged to this base plate using the MERBE HIGHEST command. It was then ready for tool pathing and was sent off to the MultiCam to be cut from 1 sheet of 30 lb Precision Board. I purposely left an onion skin so the tiny pieces wouldn’t remove themselves from the vacuum table. Tomorrow we’ll glue them up and begin hand sculpting the rest of the crab.