The Nostromo, in space.

Three-dimensional space, that is.

Envisioning the Nostromo in all its decrepit glory is not an easy thing to do given the tight, atmospheric shots seen in the movie, ALIEN.

Circa 1990: It wasn’t until the late Nineties that I began to figure it out, when an internet friend emailed me a bitmap scan of the Halcyon Nostromo model kit instructions, that included line drawings of ship.

*Bow view – Halcyon kit; scanned long ago but still on the hard drive.*

*Stern view – Halcyon kit; scanned long ago but still on the hard drive.*

(Those were the heady days of dial-up, so it took a thirty-minute download and a further five minutes for Microsoft Paint to open it.)

At last, I finally had some idea of the intricate geometries at work with this fantastic spaceship able to land on a planet and take off again, without obviously magical technologies at work.

Jump-cut to 2017: Today, there are many artists out there who have tried their hand at interpreting things seen in ALIEN. Today, I wanted to showcase these folks over at SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse:

Screen Shot 2017-03-12 at 3.21.33 PM — Starrigger’s **Nostromo**

Screen Shot 2017-03-12 at 3.28.17 PM — Starrigger’s A-Deck model

Screen Shot 2017-03-12 at 3.29.23 PM — Starrigger’s Command Chair model

Screen Shot 2017-03-12 at 3.24.35 PM — Starigger’s 3D representation of some set elements from the movie, “Alien”

Screen Shot 2017-03-12 at 3.25.45 PM — Vger1981’s Derelict

Screen Shot 2017-03-12 at 3.27.23 PM — Kuno H.’s model of the refinery

Screen Shot 2017-03-12 at 3.30.14 PM — Katase’s Narcissus model

And even some things not seen in the film, but cool nonetheless:

Screen Shot 2017-03-12 at 3.31.32 PM — Starrigger’s “Promostromo” model, a blend of the Prometheus and Nostromo elements.

The software used to draw these models is called, SketchUp. It is free and fairly easy to grasp in a short period of time.

SketchUp was released in 2000 and my, how it’s grown. If you think you’d like to join the ranks of science fiction fans making 3D models of their dream ships, maybe it is for you.

In the meantime, enjoy what these folks have done.

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