Steven Vasko’s Clavius Base – 4th Version

This is a new. improved, and greatly accurized scratch-built diorama of Clavius Base from “2001: A Space Odyssey”, which replaces my previous submission of this subject.  My photo-references came from two new sources- A 2001 screencap website containing literally thousands of stills taken from a Blu-ray disc of the film, and high-resolution photos of the actual Clavius Base miniature that I found in Adam K. Johnson’s second “2001:The Lost Science” book.   Since there were some differences in the detailing of the miniature as seen on the website and the book, I had to pick and choose which details to replicate for my model, but I think my version holds up pretty well.  The lunar groundwork is sculpted from “DAS” modeling compound, and the model is accessorized with tiny decals left over from previous projects, as well as tiny strips of Red pin-striping material.  After weathering the buildings in grey pastel, I finished off the kit by taking small strips of Scotch-Lite material (to depict windows) and tiny round discs of the same material punched out from it’s roll of tape (to depict survey markers) and glued them onto the model’s buildings and groundwork with a heavy duty craft glue, so these pieces of material can “glow” when the light hits it from various angles (see last photo.)

Steven Vasko

You can see previous versions of this model HERE,  HERE and HERE