It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time to open the kimono a tiny bit more on the development of the Serenity Artisan Replica. This week we thought you might like to see the evolution of just one of the dozens of major components that will make up the Serenity model when it’s finished. A lot of time goes into each piece of a model like this in the effort to “get it right”, and Serenity’s reactor cone was certainly no exception. To create Serenity’s reactor cone – the big Firefly-like “butt” on the back of the ship – the sculptor started with a block of REN Shape (a material commonly used to quickly prototype molds that can be used to develop initial castings), which he then lathed by hand into the appropriate shape and dimensions on which to cast a basic, but to scale, cone shape. Getting the base mold done was the easy part; getting the details in was, well, you’ll see. With the REN shape mold completed, a flat, but hollow, casting of the reactor cone was created. It was critical to cast the cone hollow as that’s where the replica’s biggest and (hopefully) most impressive lighting effect will live. When you work with complex, custom lighting effects like what we have in mind for Serenity, the more space, the better. This initial casting had no detailing or openings carved in the surface – that comes next. From here, four slats were added along the axis of the cone, where the “flower petal” radiation shutters will be added later. When Serenity goes to hard burn, the flower petals open to release excess radiation to space. This creates the “Firefly Effect”, a trail of glowing particles expelled by the reactor when the ship goes to maximum acceleration. Next, the “ladder” windows that run all around the reactor (except at the very top and very bottom of the cone) are cast separately and will be added to the casting. With the flower petal slats cut and the ladder windows integrated, the first of several major pieces of Serenity’s reactor core was complete! One of the most exciting things about working on the Serenity replica is discovering new things about the ship design each time a new component is cast. As much as we’ve studied Serenity’s design over the last couple of years, it’s great to know she’s still got lots of surprises in store!