44 Space P38

Finished: 26/2 2004, Pieces 209, Steps 7+30
L/W/H: 35/41/16 studs, 27,59/31,86/12,25 cm

Inspiration:

The P38 from the final days of WW2 seen on the right.

I made this model as part of the P38 contest on Zemi.net back in 2004:

Rules of competition:
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was one of the most unique aircraft built for World War II. Check out this page for more information on the P-38. (http://p-38online.com/)

For this contest create a spacecraft that exhibits the P-38's signature design. Build a spaceworthy vessel that features the split fusilage, wing and cockpit configuration of the P-38. The rest is up to you. New creations only please!

Email a 640x480 picture of your model, along with your name and a link to any additional images.
Submissions can be in minifig or microfig scale. There will be a winner chosen for each scale and some sort of small award.

Contest ends March 31st. [used to be February 29th!] Have fun!

Design

I kept pretty close to the original design, but with my usual pointy and angled wings, and quad rocket engines, instead of twin propellars (it is a spaceship after all). As with some of my earlier models, this one lands on the wingtips.

Hangar Scene

After the contest, I made a "Navy" version of the craft with foldable outer wings: This made it possible to pack the crafts closer together in a hangar ship.

Subsequently, I spend quite a lot of time setting up my first rendered space scene with mulitiple crafts exiting their "shelves" inside a spaceship hangar.

It ended up looking pretty crappy for various reasons: First, I'd hoped that you would actually be able to see the lightsource placed inside the red flashing lights above the spacecrafts (which you can't inside POV-Ray). Secondly I used pretty strong lights without falloff for both red lights and engine glare that created too much green light out in the hangar proper. It would have looked so much better with photoshopped lighting.

Originally I made a fairly basic presentation of this model, which you can see here.