I’m new to the community and the subject in general, so I don’t want to pretend I know what I’m talking about.
I’m primarily a sci-fi fan. I like props (replicas) from my favorite film and TV show properties because I enjoy the fantasy of being part of that world and having some piece of future advanced technology. I’m not really into it because I want to own a piece that made it to the screen. These are usually far too pricey for me anyway.
I understand that the whole point of prop replicas is to duplicate the original prop down to the smallest detail. I don’t know how it’s always done, but I’ve been reading on molds are created from careful examination and castings of original props, or scratch built, handcrafted works of art. Sometimes small imperfections or unintended oddities of the originals are translated to the replicas and may require hand cleaning or refinement.
For example, I have a casted resin TNG movie combadge. I love it and it’s as close as it can come to match the ones used on screen, but it’s not a perfect model of what the screen prop is supposed to be. The props from Star Trek represent technology of the future--high tech, built and designed on the computer, and replicated down to the last molecule.
So I thought, now that 3D printing is maturing and we are seeing small-scale modeling operations pop up (like Shapeways) is it feasible or even a good idea to build a prop with the precision of a computer’s modeling software, and then to have copies printed? This way imperfection in the original could be eliminated and even greater clarity and fidelity of the piece in the fiction could be achieved.
Going back to Star Trek, I’m thinking about a DS9 boomerang phaser that can be opened up or a combadge crafted to a greater precision than could be done by hand.
What do you think?
I’m primarily a sci-fi fan. I like props (replicas) from my favorite film and TV show properties because I enjoy the fantasy of being part of that world and having some piece of future advanced technology. I’m not really into it because I want to own a piece that made it to the screen. These are usually far too pricey for me anyway.
I understand that the whole point of prop replicas is to duplicate the original prop down to the smallest detail. I don’t know how it’s always done, but I’ve been reading on molds are created from careful examination and castings of original props, or scratch built, handcrafted works of art. Sometimes small imperfections or unintended oddities of the originals are translated to the replicas and may require hand cleaning or refinement.
For example, I have a casted resin TNG movie combadge. I love it and it’s as close as it can come to match the ones used on screen, but it’s not a perfect model of what the screen prop is supposed to be. The props from Star Trek represent technology of the future--high tech, built and designed on the computer, and replicated down to the last molecule.
So I thought, now that 3D printing is maturing and we are seeing small-scale modeling operations pop up (like Shapeways) is it feasible or even a good idea to build a prop with the precision of a computer’s modeling software, and then to have copies printed? This way imperfection in the original could be eliminated and even greater clarity and fidelity of the piece in the fiction could be achieved.
Going back to Star Trek, I’m thinking about a DS9 boomerang phaser that can be opened up or a combadge crafted to a greater precision than could be done by hand.
What do you think?