New Sensei Challenge! #5 - Greebles

[Comco]

The SFM Sensei are proud to announce the latest Sensei Challenge (Challenge No. 5): Greebles!

As most (if not all) SFM members know, a "greeble" is a detail piece added to a larger model. Specifically, greebles are cool looking details with no apparent function, things that look good but don't actually do anything. Greebles can add a suggestion of apparent depth to a model, and they can enhance the sense of scale, but mostly they just look good. Greebles are there because they are interesting to the eye. Think of the Millennium Falcon: it's covered in cables, pipes and equipment, and nobody knows what any of it does. In a word: greebles.

The object of this competition is to see who can produce the most impressive greeble. The greeble can be composed of virtually any shape, be it boxes, tubes, pipes, or spheres. Because greebles are a wide-open category, the judging for this competition will necessarily be somewhat subjective. The Sensei will be considering the following criteria, among others:

1) Level of detail achieved (how far beyond a chamfered box have you taken your greeble?)

2) Originality

3) The "cool" factor. By that we mean the degree to which the greeble makes you immediately want to say "man, that looks really cool!" In other words, is the design something that is immediately striking?

For inspiration, you might consider downloading one of the greeble sets available in SFM's mesh section (keeping in mind that any submission that is simply taken from an existing set is disqualified). You may find inspiration in images of various well-greebled models such as the various Star Wars models, the "Roger Young" from Starship Troopers, et cetera. The following sites have excellent reference images:

CultTVman's SF Modeling Page -lots of images of studio models, or close replicas of them
Starship Modeler - Your Complete Information Source for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Real Space Scale Modeling - ditto
Forbidden Plastic - for hardcore scale model folks. Good for reference
Cloudster.com - excellent shots of the TMP Enterprise model, the TMP K'Tinga Class Klingon cruiser, and the 8' Star Destroyer model used in the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Studioscale.com - images of Tamiya, Airfix, and other model kits - useful when modeling greebles
Meshweaver. This is Fabio Passaro's site. He modelled the engine section of the new Galactica, and has put together a greeble (or "nurnie") set for commercial sale. You can view an HTML catalogue of his nurnies, several of which should provide inspiration.

Here are a few rules for this challenge:

1) The greeble must be entirely your own work. In other words, you cannot simply modify a piece from an existing greeble set, nor can you combine multiple pieces from an existing set.

2) No greeble plugins or scripts are allowed, neither is any premade geometry (basic primitives are fine to start with, of course).

3) Your final image should be an un-textured "clay render." We want to be able to judge the modelling on its own merits, not affected by textures or lighting effects. (EDIT: the requirement of only one light source has been removed, at the request of our members. Hopefully, the rules are more workable now).

4) Final render must be 800 x 600.

This challenge will commence on Monday, February 12. Deadline for submissions is midnite on Monday, February 19. By midnite, we are referring to midnite in your local time zone, Monday night (not Sunday night).

Entries are to be posted in the 'Challenge WIPs' forum.

Good luck to all! We're greatly looking forward to seeing what our talented membership can come up with.