ship of the stars

[bojangles]

hey people, hope you all had a lovely christmas and best wishes for 2008. To be honest i have always been a little disappointed by the new mellenium. When i was a child we were promised flying cars and holidays on the moon so the fact that very little has fundamentally changed is a bit of a downer.

Damn Tommorows World.....DAMN THEM ALL

Anyhoooo, i have had a nice holiday from work over christmas, one of the bonuses working for a university (extra holidays wooohoooo) so i have had a chance to sit down and forge some new polygon-ness. The renders have been done these past weeks as i went along so you can see some of the progress. As usual to much of this has been layout tests and blocking in for my liking. When i sit down i have a plan in my head with what i want to get done for that session but then end up twiddling something here and extruding something there so it seems like progress is painfully slow. But as time goes it will get more and more detailed.

Main areas of progress have been:

Filling out the basic shape and cutting in some of the windows.
Greebling in the main cannons (you can see some of the gimbal motors now inset)
Capping off the front and starting to connect it to the main body.
Roughing in the Comms array at the front
Creating and inserting maneuvering engines
Initial cutting in of the rear landing gear doors
Roughing in secondary cannons and some placement
Greebling all over the place

As usual the renders are big cos, well, not worth it otherwise, is it? The ship is starting to take shape and looking like a ship as opposed to constituent parts tacked together. Even without the rediculous time constraints and responsibilities i have the real world I'm really not sure if i can see and ending point to this as you can always zoom in more and make things more detailed but it is almost at the point where i could make some pretty pictures with it.

C and C much appreciated. Back to work on Monday but i hope to be stealing some decent time in and around life to keep this going. So, pour yourself a stiff drinkie, raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen and toast us all.

Bo

[Hundred]

Wow, this is..... nice..... very nice..... I've gotta start my models over..... from scratch..... Great job.....

[Ozylot]

Thats amazing!! This is a great build!

[Falin]

very nice, man i wish i was that good

[Ice-Dragon]

Very impressive

[bojangles]

fanks Oz, Hundred, Falin and Ice. Depening on the supplies of vodka i might carry on tonight but ive had building of another sort to contend with (curtain rails, shelves, general DIY) and im knackered. If i can knock anything more out then i'll render out tomorrow. Might be likke a little diary entry for work completed over xmas. Who knows.

Falin, you dont have to wish about being good. Just keep at it. The "goodness" will come. Its all vision and application. See in your head what you want to make and then find the tools to do it.

And Hundred, I thought you were good. Havnt you done a fantabulous super star destroyer recently?



Chars peeps

Bo

ps. is there anything glaringly obvious ive missed, or anything that looks a wrong, anyone? Just wondering, you lose perspective when you've been staring at something for so long.

[JetMech]

Originally Posted by bojangles

ps. is there anything glaringly obvious ive missed, or anything that looks a wrong, anyone? Just wondering, you lose perspective when you've been staring at something for so long.

Hi and thanks for sharing this great model project!

Now, the detailing is fantasic, however I'm seeing a lack of structural integrity, and overall form I.E. your house is being built shingles first, then siding, then bath fixtures, then kitchen and finally the framing and foundation. I tend to model from a basic form then add detail as required to support my vision of the ships engineering, and then only when needed for a shot or scene, however, thats just my pipeline and may not necessarily be the best nor only way.

The little bump outs and cuts of the panel edges are great for achieving scale and shadow definition, but what purpose do they serve? They seem to stand out, and when something on a model stands out we ask what is it for? Greebling is good, but can be overdone. If gone too far, the model starts to loose its 'suspension of disbelief', IMO.

I absolutely love your engine build up. You have inspired me to model the engineering of my current and future designs. Its just so cool looking.

Once again, thanks for sharing this build!

Brian.

[bojangles]

JetMech,
thank you for the comments. I'll just assume that the rest of the magical ship builders are still in an xmas slumber after the seasons excesses. Despite your scarey pic staring out of the screen at me the "shingles" comment made me laugh properly

and when anyone uses the word "pipeline" in a post i immediately sit up cos thats a "pro" word, matey. What do u do? (not being rude, i hope)

When i started this "project" i didnt have any kind of vision. It has built up organically from that mad weekend of vodka and engine building and ...er.....other illegalness, lets call it. But there was an initial feeling of inside out design, Which i prefer. The original layout didn't float my boat, as it were, which is why ive ended up where i have with this. The designing didnt fit in with the choices i was having to make with respects to the quasi-future technology and stuff my head was coming out with. And i didnt have the constraints of designing to a specific shot or scene. It was more, creating the whole thing. Actually building a ship that might be convincing in a "real" world situation.

But.....well i think i just got taken over with the whole thing. Actually wanting to build it. And, with the mechanicals i have in mind, there would be loads of shots and scenes that this would be good for. Maybe I just got wrapped up with the joy of creation. As opposed to working to a brief which would be very different.

With the structure, I'm hoping that once the holes are filled in it would be realistic, and I will be stubbornly working towards that. I hope that the greebling doesnt look too misclaneous. I try to start with major eqipment and structures and work from there. I cant stand it if i see things that i cant work out how they work. So that is where im going with that. With the panel edges i had the original panel that surrounds the "bridge" and used that to rough in the rest of the shape. So i will be customising that to fit in with the areas they surround. ahhh...sometimes its hard to put in words what i can see in my head. Im sure the rest of you know what i mean.

Indulge me, and if it gets too much then im not scared to scrap it.

I'm.....er......honoured, thats the right word (honored for the yanks here :P) that this has been insprirational for you. I'm sure you can learn me a few things.

3am and the voddy is running out and nothing is on tv

arrrgghhh


bo

[bojangles]

and i know the rest of you think that i whitter on.....you just happen to catch me drunk

and

being an insecure little boy wanting to know what u think of my doodlings

damn u all

:P

[bojangles]

and im not a nugget as my title suggests

nuggets are bad

Long live the Goujon