1:2000 3D Printed Skyscrapers

[Doctor Octoroc]

Here are two more - again, one new model and another that I did awhile back but hadn't taken screen grabs of until now.

First up, 432 Park Ave. in New York, NY, United States.



A relatively simple one, but with limited source material, I had to do a lot of Google Maps satellite and street view 'walking' to get the right details near the bottom, like the exact location of the 'through' windows versus the closed ones. That's the one tricky thing about a lot of the buildings in NYC, everything is so condensed that it's hard to get a street view of any part of the building over 20 stories and difficult to get a satellite or 3d model view from below that height - and I'm learning more and more that Google Earth models aren't always accurate, especially for a lot of the buildings in China (Zifeng Tower, the IFC, and the Shanghai Tower model is still in its 'under construction' form!

I think this is also one reason why on a lot of these models, I put in as much detail as I can ion the roof. For one, it adds a lot of character, but also because I have a plethora of historical timeline images to choose from in Google Earth to get a good view of the roof and all of the details.



And here's the newest one, Two International Finance Centre in Hong Kong, China!



This one was good fun. The sides are curved, tiered, and throughout the top 3 or 4 tiers, taper as they progress to the top portion of 'teeth'. I paid extra close attention to the entrances where the side actually curves out ever so slightly and the framing is more prominent.

[JDRCRASH]

Wow this is awesome! Maybe you can do a few LA buildings as well?

[Doctor Octoroc]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

Wow this is awesome! Maybe you can do a few LA buildings as well?

Thanks! I'm quickly getting to the US Bank Tower in LA, just sort of working my way down to the ~300m range. Of course I jumped down in the list considerably to do the Chrysler Building and Key Tower (by request), and I started by doing exclusively a bunch of buildings in Philadelphia, PA, so I'll probably hit that one soon!

Other structures on the to-do-sooner list include Tuntex 85 Sky Tower in Taiwan, Berliner Fernsehturm in Berlin, Bank of America Tower in NYC, Almas Tower in Dubai, Mercury City Tower in Moscow, and the London Shard.

And here's the newest model, Al Hamra Tower in Kuwait City, Kuwait!




I love this building and modeling it was a ton of fun, between the unique shape and the continuation of those forms on the base section.

[Doctor Octoroc]

And another new one, Berliner Fernsehturm in Berlin, Germany!



Relatively simple, compared to other towers, with the exception of the base which has multiple tiers and angled panels. I also made sure to represent the shallow pyramid texture on the spherical observation section.

[spidey7312]

Looks great as usual

[Doctor Octoroc]

I ordered prints of the Oriental Pearl Tower, Tokyo Sky Tree and the CN Tower - just got the shipping notification and should have them by the end of the week! Will post pictures when I receive them.

[spidey7312]

Any updates?

[Doctor Octoroc]

Originally Posted by spidey7312

Any updates?

Unfortunately, nothing since the Berlin Tower. Work picked up and I've been going into the office almost every day with only a little time even for commissions between. I have reference images set up for the Mercury City Tower in Moscow but haven't gotten any modeling done yet.

I'm hoping to get back to it ASAP but as long as work keeps coming in at this pace, I'm unable to work on 'side projects'. I did receive the prints for Tokyo Sky Tree, CN Tower and the Oriental Pearl Tower and took photos but have been lazy about getting on here since I haven't been modeling much.

[Doctor Octoroc]

So my girlfriend was watching Grey's Anatomy and I saw the Seattle Space Needle in one of the aerial shots of the city and it inspired me to get back into modeling some more!

So here's the Seattle Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, United States!




To scale with the rest, it stands at a little over 90mm in height. It wasn't a difficult model but at this scale, some of the finer features were a challenge to get just right. In addition, models this small in Google Earth aren't very finely detailed so I had to find multiple angles of the base section to get it as accurate as possible.



I also finally had a chance to start painting some of the previous models I had 3d printed. Tokyo Sky Tree and Oriental Pearl Tower are about done, working on the CN Tower now but I'm waiting on a replacement for part of it since the top portion of the antenna broke during the first print. I also had some others printed out along with it so I'll have a lot more to show in the coming weeks!

[spidey7312]

Glad to see you're back!

[Doctor Octoroc]

Originally Posted by spidey7312

Glad to see you're back!

Thanks! Good to be back - and some good new skyscrapers finished for me to get to, starting with Ping An International Finance Centre in Shenzhen, China!




This one had some cool geometry to it which made it a challenge to get the details just right. Also, it was only finished recently so the source material was limited (and conflicting as a lot of what I found were artists renderings of the original design, not the completed structure).

There was a lot of detail in the framing and up at the top. I actually really like this one as it has a sort of 80's futuristic character to it.

[Doctor Octoroc]

Another newer one finished - Lotte World Tower in Seoul, South Korea!



This one slowed down my computer a LOT near the end! So much detail in the faces of what would otherwise just be curved surfaces without all the framing. I love diving into the sections and floor plans for these structures and seeing all the cool geometry. Almost makes me wish I was an engineer so I could conceive of the stress loads and such...almost.



I'm not sure what I'll tackle next. I'd like to get back to the Mercury City Tower in Moscow as that's what I was working on before I took a break, but I might do some shorter ones first since the large ones tend to cost upwards of $60 to print.

[Doctor Octoroc]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

Wow this is awesome! Maybe you can do a few LA buildings as well?

It's been awhile, but I finally got around to your request!

Here's the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, CA, United States, including the courtyard area.



This was one of those that I didn't think would take very long but with all the windows and roof details, plus the courtyard (which is very tricky to discern from satellite photos and Google Earth street views alone), it ended up taking a few days. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to add the courtyard but it adds so little to the cost of printing and so much to the model! The primary reason for doing so is that given the hilly nature of LA, many of the buildings have features on the front on a different elevation than the back. This would mean an inaccurate location of certain features without either a blank face below the areas at higher elevations or without providing some terrain for context. I generally decide that the latter is preferable, as I did with the Bank of China building. This meant including the courtyard and other structures attached to the base of the main tower was optimal.

It's funny, people rarely think about the details on the ground since most photos show the structures behind other buildings and you can't see them. I also couldn't find many other models with these features included so I like being able to do so and making mine unique in that way!

[spidey7312]

https://www.shapeways.com/product/HE...ionId=62769667

I don't think this one is 1:800 lol

[Doctor Octoroc]

Originally Posted by spidey7312

https://www.shapeways.com/product/HE...ionId=62769667

I don't think this one is 1:800 lol

Haha, yeah, I forgot the '1' in front. Someone requested 1:1800 versions of some of the models to match the scale of his collection. Better fix that!

[Doctor Octoroc]

New model finished, the Bank of America Tower in New York City, NY, United States!



I often struggle with which ground details to include, primarily when it comes to parts of the structure that aren't the main tower, so with this one I wasn't entirely sure if I should include the boxier sections with the angled portions but as it's part of the overall look of the building, I did.

[Doctor Octoroc]

Another finished! Torre Cepsa in Madrid, Spain!



I've been wanting to do this one for awhile but being so far down the list of tallest in the world has delayed it. Had a lot of fun with the form and details!

[spidey7312]

Do you have any plans to continue making 1:2000 scale Philly blocks?

[Doctor Octoroc]

Originally Posted by spidey7312

Do you have any plans to continue making 1:2000 scale Philly blocks?

Full blocks? Not sure yet, but there are definitely a few stand-alone buildings on my list. I'll probably do the new Comcast Technology Center next since they just topped it off and it'll be finished soon, so I have the proper appearance and final height to work from now. I also want to get to some for which I made full color versions but didn't recreate for the WSF plastics yet like Center Square, Commerce Square, IBX, the rest of the Penn buildings, etc.

Although, for a lot of the Philly buildings in the WSF, I made the full block first, then cut off the ground plane for the stand-alone versions, so I might as well do the full block of each of those then create the stand-alone version from them, so incidentally, we may see some more full blocks available as a result.

[Doctor Octoroc]

I didn't get to the full block yet - I'm waiting until they're done all the ground details around the building - but here's the stand-alone model for the Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia, PA, United States!



I used renders and concept drawings mostly for the proportions but referred to actual progress photos of the structure for the finer details. I went with a grid pattern on the clear glass portions of the building and a vertical pattern on the 'blue' glass portions. I used plan views to determine the placement of the various tiers in relationship to each other as well since they're least likely to change during construction whereas other details tend to.

It certainly isn't the most graceful structure but reading up about all the specifics of the building was exciting! Like silver lined windows that absorb heat to supply extra power, vertical cooling towers instead of spacing out the units on the roof like most buildings, indoor gardens throughout the whole building. It's a really cool achievement, even if it doesn't look very pretty. I still think it's a cool design.