*You must pay for the ink and paper.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
This is a very cheap way of making warhammer 40k drop pods, you can make tons of them very quickly and inexpensively. It takes me about 10 minutes to construct one.
Leave a comment if you want it a different colour to match your army’s colour scheme and I will email you a copy with freshly coloured paintwork.
Save one of these images to your computer. (choose whatever colour you like)
Print it on thin card or thick paper, cut in out keeping the tabs intact.
fold everything inwards. For each tab: apply a thin layer of PVA glue to the tab then stick it onto the main model.
Enjoy! Any comments, feedback, ideas for improvement or constructive criticism are greatly appreciated!
Example of finished model:
How I made the model
I first made some prototypes in blender to get the main shape.
I then used the unfold python script to get a paper model template from these 3d models.
Using these templates, I painted in the detail with the Gimp from scratch.
base .blend files can be downloaded from here (4 mb):
Louis Taylor 
Hi there! I really like these models!
I have placed a link on a couple of 40k forums
Thanks alot! I can now afford to have every unit in a drop pod… 🙂
Glad you like it! 🙂 Is that why there is a sudden spike in views?
Edit: Looking at the forums you posted this page to, I found a number of people who did not like this because it does not “look anything like a space marine drop pod.” I would like to point out that this is not supposed to look like the games workshop drop pod, it is my own design, made for ease of building. I was thus restricted to a simple shape.
Damn you.
Now I’m inspired to get creative and I’m gonna have to go re-download blender.
So much effort…
XP
Nice Stuff. : )
These are pretty great, you should make some simple terrain pieces based on the same idea!
Nice, how about one that incorporates ice blue and accepts of blazing orange?
I have sort of made one… But it looks a bit strange https://louistaylor.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/droppodiceblueandblazingorange.jpg
i was wondering if you have them in straight black or black with little crosses so i can use them for my black templars army?
and by any chance do you know how they compare size wise to the GW brand drop pod?
@ jonah:
try: https://louistaylor.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/droppodblack2.jpg
They can be any size you want (within reason) because when you print them out you can choose what size to print them.
If I print it on a standard printer sheet (a4 I suppose) will it keep, more or less, the size of GW drop pod?
roughly, yes. Although it might seem a little smaller.
it works for me. thank you for this. interesting, easy to assemble – exactly what I was looking for 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
Great work Louis 🙂 I added a link to this blog post from LO here
http://www.librarium-online.com/featured/40k-drop-pods-from-scratch-2084.html
Thanks! Already 200+ views from that page! 🙂
hey man, nice work, i was wondering if you could make one woth orange and greeen stripes, i would appreciate it
Sorry for the delay, what background colour do you want?
i was wondering how to open it and print full page if you dony have blend
I don’t quite understand the question, do you mean print directly from blender, or extract the image from the .blend file?
if you havent downloaded blender, how do you get the jpg images?
You don’t need to! The .jpg files are hosted on this website.
The .blend file is to change the structure and shape of the pod, but not the texture itself.
These are awesome and I plan on telling everyone I know that plays 40k about them.
If you get the time mind making one similar to the black one but using the dark grey at the top for the main body and fading into white. Thanks in advance.
what size do you print with?
I printed onto A4 paper, and got a pod about 10cm high. You could probably make one bigger than this though, because I did not place it on the paper to give the maximum size.
Hey, these things are great! I was just wondering if you could maybe do one with Blood Angels iconography on it, or is that too much to ask?
could i have 1 with space wolf grey and ultramarine blue on it
I’d love some silver skulls ones!!! Email me @ Nocturnes21(at)live.com
It would be much appreciated!!!!
You want praise… Im a Dark Eldar player, dont really like space marines as i think GW use them as too much of a cash cow… But have bought a small SM force just to use these drop pods coz they are cool..
Its effort, but if you make these out of a kind of Plasti-card, then coat inside and outside with either resin or a thin layer of fibre glass, they are better than the real thing with a bit of tweaking.. Thanks a lot
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Those are awesome, dumb question, how do I print them large enough to proxy?
Thanks
Gundam John
IIRC I just printed them on a4 paper. They’re a little small, but they seem to do the job
You could also make these into obelisks for a nice artifact. Either much larger or much smaller than the drop pod version and kind of Cthulu-ish.
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I can’t afford to buy a lot of authentic drop pod minis, but these work great as proxies for a casual game. Thank you!