By Bryce Polletti

My model of the E.C. A. (Earth Confederated Alliance) Attilla is 8' 8" long and 4' 9" at its widest (2.65m x 1.45m). The outer hulls are in the downward position, in "combat mode". I like to think the AI that runs a large portion of the ship is saying: "Bring it on, baby - time to war!"

The Model

This model is 100% scratchbuilt with no "kitbashing" whatsoever. It is made from cardboard, matt board, plastic styrene sheets and tubing, pen caps, bottle lids, plastic containers - basically anything I could cut into shapes. I tried to find things I needed rather than buy them. Money spent mostly went for things like paint, glue and exacto knife blades.

The first thing I did was a lot of research. I looked through Starship Modeler and other web sites extensively. I watched sci-fi TV series and movies. I noticed three things right away:

1. All the models of big space ships had lots of detail
2. Most of the models seemed to be comprised of basic geometric shapes, arranged in different ways
3. Most of the spaceship models had a "rigid" look, like the big sea-going "dreadnaughts" of WWI and WWII.

I knew that I would have to use geometric shapes to make my ship, but I wanted to make it look "articulated". So I built it using lots of angles, I "blew" the engines out (made them really big), and extended the "thrust vectoring and blast shields" out like wings. I loaded it with missile racks, defense laser cannons, really big gun turrets, missile hatches and added as much detail as time allowed.

I really can't say how much time or cardboard went into the model; however, I did go through 7 packs of exacto blades, more than 273 glue sticks (I stopped counting after that) and about 3 ½ cases of beer. I worked every night after work and weekends for five weeks.

This is my first scratchbuild, and I ran into all kinds of problems. The Starship Modeler website and other links helped a lot. When I started to see some of the other contest entries I became very discouraged, realizing the caliber and experience I was competing with. After one night of not working on the model I was more disappointed in myself for giving up than anything else, so I finished it.

There was a lot more I wanted to do but I ran out of time. Oh, well, I worked really hard on it and feel it's OK for a first attempt. Most of all, I LEARNED A LOT, and all the stuff I learned will make my next project that much more professional.

Image: Head on view

Image: Rear view

Image: Rumbling by ....

Image: Port side view. That's a trash can it's resting on.

Image: Port rear quarter

Image: Scale

Image: Detail of the forward armament