The Nostromo Coffee Cup
The small white coffee cup that is seen in the original Alien movie is a real cup that was made by Tupperware. The prop designers simply stuck a winged Weyland-Yutani logo on the side.
The Goal
The image posted here was taken from the PropSummit.com forums. Here's a link to the original post: http://propsummit.com/viewtopic.php?p=58839&sid=8afb638bbcaf07b8c626b8a5dab10615
The Original
Here's a few images of the original Tupperware cup.
Three mugs in those gorgeous 70s colors.
Two mugs showing off their ability to stack as well as the lids that they can be paired with.
Two mugs using their lids as coasters.
My Work
The ideal solution, of course, would be to find an original white Tupperware cup and get the Weyland-Yutani logo printed on it. Short of that, there are a few other approaches.
Using an Original
Options if I could access an original Tupperware cup:
- Use a cup, regardless of the color, and paint it to match. One major downside to this is that it wouldn't really be usable to drink from anymore.
- Send the cup to someone with a 3d scanner and get a high quality 3d model. From there, I could 3d print it or even have it injection molded.
- Try to make a mold from the cup in order to make my own copy from something like polyester resin, epoxy, etc.
Using a Copy
There's at least one resource that I know of where I could get a digital copy of the cup: the game Alien:Isolation. With a 3d model exported from a game, I can either attempt to produce the model as-is, or clean it up to match the original as closely as possible before then attempting to print it or have it sent off somewhere for production.
Starting from Scratch
Of course, yet another option would be to attempt to sculpt, carve, or model my own version of the cup based on reference images, etc. This method will likely be the least similar to the original, but could allow for some customization.