Hello and thanks again everyone for your time. This is a slightly undressed version of the "Centauri Mark 1 Rocket Engine". this way you can see the basic modeling within Carrara. Complex "spline" and "vertex" parts are blended with simpler primitive and boolean construction to make up the various main sections of the engine. At this point the textures or colours are applied to components as a starting point to the visual process. These components are saved as separate models and assembled as you see here ready for final placement and rendering. At this stage, colours and texture are often changed to make the model a uniformed single entity. (It is easy when working on individual parts for forget the look of the overall model). With all this technical stuff, I guess I've lost the female vote.. so appologies for boring anyone. Thanks again Joe :o)