The original blueprints were prepared by the Disney Art Department to construct the exterior hull of the Nautilus for when she appears on the surface of the sea, and were also used by the Special Effects Department to build the miniatures used to capture the action of the Nautilus above and below the waves.

The were two primary Nautilus models, each 11 and 22 feet long.  They differed in minor ways from one another and both had different detailing from the full-sized sets.  Scott decided to make this model of the Nautilus representative of them all.  Using knowledge gleaned from working on the restoration of the movie miniature, plus reference pictures of the full size set, Scott's build tried to take all of these inconsistencies into account.  The below the waterline details match closely to the 11 foot miniature, while the above surface deck details adhere closely to the set.

Once the shape of the hull was completed, the painstaking task of hand applying the approximately 19,256 (not 20,000) rivet heads began.