Shamreyev Details

 Okay, playtime is over. It's time to start adding bolts and buttons. 

Shamreyev's Big:Medium:Small modelling approach has finally arrived at small. Did I already do some small things? Yes, I nearly always step outside the build order for the odd thing. In real life, there are small things because some things need to be small. In modelling, there are small things to break up areas and add interest. A super tanker is defined by its big ship shape, but it needs those tiny railings and surface equipment to sell its scale.

I've decided to go with the streamlined command module and play on the idea that it can operate as a separate vehicle. I'm not in love with the design, but if I can get the surface details right, it will work fine.

Rescale

I'd decided that some critical ship elements are too small, it would be too cramped in the hab modules, and there's not enough room in the hangar for anything bigger than a family car. So I need to rescale everything. It can be a pain to use the scale tool on object collections, as you will need to reset the scale, and Blender may send notifications/complaints about every individual object that is instanced or related at Blender's data level. 

I believe the best approach is:

1. Unhide everything so that you don't miss the rescale operation. In this case, I made sure that my scale reference figure is not included, given the point of the exercise is to make the ship a bit bigger relative to the figure.

2. Create an empty cube. Place it where you can select it. I placed it in the centre of the ship and scaled it up to encompass everything. Resetting the scale, of course.

3. Parent all the ship's objects to the cube.

4. Rescale the cube, using its object panel to ensure the rescale is precisely right.

5. Reset the scale. Everything should have a scale of 1:1:1

6. Delete the empty. All the elements were rescaled, and the scale was reset without complaint.

Rescaled to +40% New total length: 304m

Even rescaled, those spin habitats are really too small for comfort. You'd get away with fractional simulated gravity, but to make them generate 1g, they would spin like the wheels of a car, and you would get very uncomfortable.

Details start to arrive. Some windows! Wooo!

I'll return to the modelling tonight.