The roots of Martian Models go 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 learned much of this lore from Kelly Turner, a sci-fi fan eight years older than me who happened to live across the street. Kelly would go on to become a legendary game designer and programmer at Atari, and I’ll always remember him as being 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 or 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.
In the early 1990s, a good friend of mine (and fantastic novelist), Jason Hough, introduced me to 3D graphics with Lightwave, which completely blew my mind. I spent countless hours 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 others.
The advent of affordable, high resolution 3D printing on the desktop has provided a way to bring my 3D designs into the physical world as models and miniatures.
Today, Martian Models is bringing original starship miniature designs to the tabletop as 3D printable files for purchase in partnership with Hardware Studios and MyMiniFactory in addition to physical prints from Only-Games.