I’ve recently launched Martian Models, a digital storefront for my original miniatures designs. This is an idea that’s been rattling around in the back of my head for a number of years.

Martian Models goes way back to the late 1970s when I began kitbashing models as a kid after learning about how the studio models and special effects of Star Wars were created by the model makers at Industrial Lights & Magic. I actually learned much of this lore from Kelly Turner, a legendary Atari programmer (and massive sci-fi geek) who happened to live across the street from me. Kelly was very kind and patient enough to humor the little nerdy kid across the street who would always bug him about taking another look at his scratch built sci-fi models and borrowing his Starlog magazines.

I was also a fan of miniatures used for games such as D&D, Traveller, Warhammer and WH40K and I became an avid miniature painter and dreamed of someday being able to create my own miniatures.

A good friend of mine (and fantastic novelist), Jason Hough, introduced me to 3D graphics with Lightwave in the 1990s, which completely blew my mind. I spent countless hours and money on learning Lightwave, Alias Sketch, and 3D Studio, eventually incorporating my 3D renders alongside traditional techniques in the creation of illustrations for game universes such as Traveller, 2300AD, GURPS and Exodus War.

The advent of affordable, high resolution SLA 3D printing with the FormLabs Form2 3D printer provided a mechanism to bring my 3D designs into the physical world as models and miniatures.

I will be using Martian Models to bring original starship miniature designs to the tabletop as 3D printable files for purchase in partnership with Hardware Studios for STLs and Only-Games.co for physical prints.

So check out https://martianmodels.com if you want to learn more about my original designs.