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The Eagle Transporter from Gerry Andersons' Space 1999 TV series is the subject of this project.

Main modelling software being used is Cinema4D 9.6 http://www.maxon.net/pages/dyn_files...welcome_e.html with Maxwell Render being used for rendering.

I decided making the 'spine' would be a good place to start, although with 3d models the starting point is not always relevant. The 'spine' on the real model consists of soldered joints and 3d pipes poking through each other never seem to have a correct 'feel'. So, making use of a pipe joining plugin.

A section of the spine is made. The white part is a single mesh. The red parts are 'poked' through - it would have been nice to make every joint properly but polygon count would have got too high, especially so as the model progresses.

The completed spine, made as accurate as possible. The joined pipes should make UV mapping and painting a little less time consuming later.

The 'cages' were the next components to be tackled. I used a very simple 3d model (not seen here) to help align more pipe joints.

Joining the joints! The new blue colour are joined sub components that are then 'poked' though the white single mesh. Not strictly one 'white' mesh though because the 'cages' are made in two halves which replicates the real Eagle model.

The 'cages' positioned on the spine. Note the incorrectly positioned VTOL thrusters that have since been repositioned

This is the start of the front walkway.

Here some detail starts to get added to the front walkway. Half of it is hidden from the render to depict the basic construction of the real model. Cinema hemispheres and cylinders were used for the shelf parts. There are still some valves and other fittings to be added but I'm still sorting out a supplier of the real plastic components before I make the 3d ones. This is one of the reasons for colour coding assemblies - I can see at a glance what sections have to be worked on without making endless notes!

Some purple coloured details start to get added to the walkways. I have models that have these parts so using a digital caliper, accuracy is fairly high. On the real model plastic parts there are grills and rivets but to keep poly' count down a bump map will be used to replicate such detail.

The walkways have been put to one side for the time being and the engines framework is being made. The blue framework is all one mesh with properly joined pipes.

A different view of the engines framework.

Some engine parts start to get fitted to the framework. Connected and welded Cinema4D cylinder and hemispere primitives made up the larger components.

A set of pipes that detail the engine assembly. Each pipe has joined connections.

The new engine assembly. Engine 'bells' are to be finalised when I can get to see more reference material of the grooves cut into them.