This is my 4th update for my 3ds Max work in progress, a Balwin steam locamotive. If you missed the other posts, click on the following links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

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This is my 3rd work in progress posts. I have got most of the boiler area finished. I still have to add some hoses that run along rhe side of the boiler, and a kind of cylinder thing near the cabin. The final thing will be the front strut things that go from the front of the boiler to the flat bit in front of the boiler. I don’t know the names of these parts, I hardly know anything about steam trains. I model what I see.

After I finish those details, I’ll finish the front of the train and the inside of the cab. I don’t have any reference photos of the inside of the cab of this kind of train. There is a little detail in the drawings, but not much. I’ll have to go my own way and invent a lot of it myself, or go by some references of photos from other trains so that it isn’t total fantasy.

The wheels will come last. I’ll need to spend some time studying how they work, because I want to be able to animate them. I can make the shapes of the wheels and other parts from the drawings with little trouble, but if I want to animate the movement of the parts, I have to study how to rig it so that if I move one part, such as the main piston, everything else moves as it should without me having to touch it. It will be a big job, but I’ll learn a lot from it.

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Here are the latest pictures of my steam train. Most of the shape is done, but there’s still a very long way to go.

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This is my current long term work in progress (wip). I wanted to model a steam train, it’ll probably take about 2 months to finish this in my spare time. I’ll make other smaller things from time to time, but this is a long term background project.

I found these blueprints below, which is of a steam train with a very interesting shape. It is a steam train made by the now defunct Baldwin locomotive company.

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After completing a fire hydrant in 3ds Max yesterday (following a tutorial), I decided it’s about time to stop having my hand held and see what I can make on my own, just looking at reference images.

I’m interested in making models that eventually could go together to make a grunge street scene. I thought I could start with a garbage bin. I looked in Google images to see if there was something interesting to model. I found this bin photo below:

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I came across this very interesting website with photos of decaying things from yesteryear, such as old steam trains, machines and buildings. I highly recommend that you take the time to check it out: [Link]