This project was part a modeling course I took as a first year student of industrial design. The result was so impressive it was eventually bought by Neofarm to display at their offices. This kind of project requires access to a full workshop like the one we have at school. Hope you find this useful to you in your own scaled modeling project.

Step 1: It All Started With a Bottle of Advil

The first step was analyzing the objects, I had three: the bottle, the top & the pill. Each were measured precisely and transferred to a blueprint made on Solidworks. Since my objects were symmetrical 360 I only needed a side and top view.

Print versions with both the original and enlarged scales.

Step 2: Now for the Fun Part...

To save a lot of hard work carving a giant bottle out of wood I used a cylinder from a cheap thrash can I cut the bottom off, this also ended up saving a lot off weight.

So for the the wooden part I glued layers of MDF and mounted them on the lathe. after a few days of sawdust I had four part: Bottom & top for the cylinder (just a thick piece of MDF rounded with a fillet finish), the neck & the top.

Next I made the grooves around the top using various bits on a vertical milling machine.

I glued the top of the cylinder with the neck and the bottom with the cylinder. I kept them separate to make it easier to paint inside later.

Step 3: Adding the Details

All the MDF parts were covered in a few layers of sanding sealer so they can be painted.

I made all the details using different methods like laser cutting for the top and bottom. Yes, even the depth of the grooves were scaled! the twist for the neck was made from styrofoam glued and then covered with, wood glue. Using putty for fixing cars I made all the small corrections and hand crafted details like the parting line and the ends of the grooves on the top.

When the shape was perfect I started painting. I applied 2-3 layers of base coat and about 4-5 layers of white paint. I recommend going to a professional spray paint shop, they had high quality spray paint made for cars and even custom made the correct shade of white for me on the spot. If you don't have any practice spray painting you should get some first, the smallest mistakes at this point could really damage the results.

top for laser.pdf
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Step 4: Pill Time

For the pill I had to do a couple of things:

I made a model of the pill on a lathe and split it down the middle. Then, I attached a handle of sorts to one of the halves and cut a negative of its shape (+2mm) to push it through.

Using an industrial fan I heated pieces of transparent green acrylic boards and when they were soft pressed them through the hole with the pill halve. It took more than a few times to get it right but eventually I got a couple of pieces to glue together.

To add the writing on the pill I printed the logo and cut a stencil from it. Then I painted through the stencil using acrylic paint.

Step 5: Labeling

Using a combination of photos, downloaded logos & handmade addons I composed a copy of the label as close to the real one as I could. Many hours were spent fiddling with clusters of pixels on Adobe to make the label convincing.

I waited to the very end of the project to add the label. Using UHU glue I glued only the ends of the label, one at a time, so I could minimize the damage if I had to peel it off.