Scratch-Building Styrene Space Ships

In this 23-minute video on BP Custom Creations, Ben scratch-builds a 1/32-scale space ship inspired by sci-fi artist Ian McQue. There are tons of videos out there on kitbashing and trash bashing (making models almost entirely from junk). There aren’t as many videos on building everything from scratch.

For this ship, Ben intended to create an almost entirely scratch-built model, but the use of kit-bashed parts for the greeble (details) was just too tempting. In the end, he uses cardboard, styrene, and EVA foam for most of the main construction.

The video includes a bunch of great tips, like prototyping your design in card first and using EVA foam behind cuts in styrene to create bends that won’t break. And this pearl of wisdom (about painting and weathering a model): “It often looks like a mess until it doesn’t.” That has been my experience, to the hilt, and a distinction between a newbie and a more experienced modeler who’s learned to trust the process.


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