[thewriteguy]

I'm not aware of any cardboard modeling forums.

My suggestion would be to take a look at the Milano papercraft model, study that. I know there's one on the Internet available for download, although it appears to be low poly. But take the plans for that, calculate and scale up some of its parts to 1:18, turn them into templates, and cut them out on cardboard, and experiment. Note that you will likely have to make a lot of changes as you experiment -- things change structurally when you build a large model based upon plans for a smaller sized version for paper.

In my case, I built a scratch U-Wing prototype, testing things out for several weeks, before I came to the final design (of which I was able to release the plans to the public).

Zero in on an identifiable section of the Milano and focus on building that in 1:18 correctly. Then expand from there. With my U-Wing plans, I focused on getting the cockpit canopy, cannon housing, and top half looking right and in scale, since these are very familiar sections of the ship. They are the parts that if they look correct, then someone seeing this toy ship will immediately recognize "Oh, yeah, that's a U-Wing".

Glancing over images of the Milano I see on Google, the first thought that comes to me would be to design around the cockpit exterior, sizing it so that the 3.75" figures could sit inside it together. Maybe using large plastic soda bottles as the windows. Check out this link -- it shows the parts of a 1:114 scale Milano model.

Scale Model News: 'MILANO' SPACECRAFT FROM THE SCI-FI MOVIE 'GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY'

I suggest focusing on building the outside of the Milano first, and leaving enough room inside to fill it out later. I'll have a post later this week which explains why -- basically, the interior of a fictitious ship usually doesn't correspond with its outside design, which is usually designed first.

Another thought comes to me: The Milano at true 1:18 scale would be HUGE. So maybe you should look into scaling it like the way Hasbro did for their second version of the Millennium Falcon (the larger model).

As I've emphasized: One doesn't need to spend a lot of money on the materials (this U-Wing is made from mostly recyclables) or fancy tools. It's mostly about the time spent, research, and experimentation.

If you haven't already, I'd also suggest downloading the plans for my U-Wing and even if you don't want to build it, you can study the photo build plans and notes I wrote which may assist you in how you could approach designing your 1:18 scale Milano. If you have any questions and need advice, feel free to ask, contact me directly.

Good luck! I do look forward to seeing others creating their own 1:18 ships for the 3.75" figures -- and sharing their work/plans.