Heavy Viper

[Shadowman99]

Most of you will recognize this as Larsen's design for the Heavy Viper. He's allowing me to build a mesh based on his design. This is a project that I originally intended to crank out a low poly mesh for gaming (with the intention of offering it to the 'Beyond the Red Line' crew).

I like the design enough I started pushing myself to make a nice, clean mesh and improve my non-organic modeling skills.

I wish I were a faster modeler, but I've mainly focused on building human meshes. This project has progressed slower than I would like. I'm posting it here to light a fire under my own @ss.

Update:

[Dimitriy]

An interesting project. Could you post a wireframe?

[Dannage]

I have kindling and a box of matches.. GET WORKING...

[Shadowman99]

Dimitriy: Here's a wire, although I haven't done the hull plates. This is all due to change quite a bit before I'm done.

Dannage: Thank you!

[BAKMS]

Excellent!!

[Dannage]

Now here's a tricky question; are we critting for the design or your interpretation of and faith to, the original by Larsen?

[Tovette]

hahaha aww yah. I remember this badboy. Looking forward to seeing your's completed.

[Shadowman99]

BAKMS, Tovette: Thank you. It's a cool design. I'm just looking to have some fun with it.

Dannage: I dunno. I suppose you should treat it like I'm building an x-wing or the enterprise. How would you critique someone working on those ships? The only diff here is I'm working on a design by one of this site's own instead of Hollywood.

Larsen encouraged me to push things forward, since he hadn't worked out stuff like the bomb door configurations or the underbelly. I asked about the size of this vs. a mark II. This is a larger fighter, not really a bomber by design but a long range 'air' suppremecy fighter. The big guns are meant to give it a longer reach than any raider it goes against. He suggested to think of it like an f-14. It can carry a few bombs. It would be poor in a close quarters dogfight, but it has raw speed on it's side. And a jump drive

I'll take a few liberties, but I like the source material and plan to stay true to the spirit of the original.

[B.J.]

If I remember right, Larsen had told me that his Viper was about 13m long. This comparison I did seems to confirm that:

[Shadowman99]

B.J. - I asked him about that very pic. It hadn't even occurred to me there was a major size diff until I saw that. But I'm now building with that scale in mind. A battlestar would need larger jump tubes to support combat launches with this craft. And the launch tubes would need some serious blast doors. Look at those huge engines.

FYI - before anyone asks, Larsen was building this as a 're-imagined' Galactica project, and as his own universe. But I think it's a solid design that would fit in with the current series, so in my mind I treat it as an unseen part of the 2003 universe.