Hayland Terrain Space Shuttle

I've mentioned Hayland Terrain before on my Vampifan's World of the Undead blog. They are noted for their Kickstarters for producing STL files that allow you to printout their models on a 3D printer. Now I don't have a 3D printer yet, but my brother Mikie does, and he has kindly printed out quite a few 3D scenery and furniture items for me. He has recently been printing a load of sci-fi items for me. The last time I saw him, which was a few months ago, he brought a box full of items he'd printed out and the largest and most impressive of them was this space shuttle that I'm going to showcase here.

Mikie printed this 28mm scale space shuttle in three sections - front and back body halves and the roof. The two halves of the body went together very easily. I glued them with superglue. For extra strength, I added a piece of mounting card to the underside, cut to the correct size and shape.This ensured that the two halves would stay together.

I was not happy with the roof. It just sat on top of the body and the triangular corner pieces that were angled downwards looked like they'd snap off with the least bit pressure and were very flimsy. So I cut them off and threw them in the bin. I glued four pieces of thin card to the body of the shuttle in each of the upper corners instead of the roof. This made more sense to me. Then I glued the roof to two pieces of mounting card, the lower one being slightly smaller than the upper one so that the roof could slot into the body and stay in place rather than just sit on top of it. This was a much more elegant solution and if I hold the shuttle upside down the roof will not fall off as it is such a tight fit. The last thing I painted on the shuttle was the S02 sign on the roof as I felt it looked too bare and I wanted some way to identify it. I carefully drew the sign on with pencil and then painted it black.

The front of the space shuttle does look like a face, doesn't it? The two windows are like a pair of eyes and the grille, its mouth.

The shuttle measures 4" (10cm) long by 2.5" (6.5cm) wide and 1.75" (4.5cm) tall. My 28mm scale figure of Vampifan also helps to give a good indication to its size.

 Entry to the interior of the shuttle is via the pair of doors located at the back.

I opted for a simple light grey and medium blue colour scheme. The four contra-gravity engines located on either side at the front and back provide the shuttle with its flight capability.

As I said earlier, the roof is removable and you can fit figures inside. Ordinarily, I'd say it could fit six figures inside but that depends on the size of their bases. I have not added any detailing to the interior as I doubt if I'll be using the interior very often. I like this model and I can certainly find uses for it in many of my sci-fi based games, like my The Ace of Spades Campaign, or Judge Dredd or Strontium Dog. It's a simple design but effective and it fills a niche that I was missing. My thanks and gratitude to Mikie for printing it out for me!