JES

scifieric wrote: »

JES wrote: »

Practice at attempting to make multi-object components, using the Array tool I learned about while watching one of Scifieric's videos.

Excellent work!

And scifieric? That bum didn't do anything this nice or complex!

Thank you, but at the risk of sounding cloyingly humble, without "that bum", I don't think I'd be able to do anything this nice or complex! Your videos have a wealth of knowledge and techniques that I'm still learning. I'm merely extrapolating and expanding off of them! You have my confidence that you could do something this nice and complex, and probably in less time! Maybe if you had, I would have been able to get as far as I had with less trial and error!

I've had the past three days off, so I redid the engineering hull. The shape still isn't what I could call perfect, but it's kind of starting to get there.












I have been putting off installing subdivisions on the corners for a while, and for good reason! Because every time that I do so, it interrupts the curves of the objects, and I end up having to fix something! It's been a constant thorn in my side, like playing whack-a-mole, but with vertices! Anyone else have this problem? How do you guys fix it?

At this point, I've started making backup objects, and unless there is a quick way to clean up the subdivisions, or another way to fix this now complex mess, I'll likely go back to the less subdivided backup, and delete the progress you see here.

Quick post before going to work out. Concepts for a redesign of the "Nautilus", the designer of whom has been lost to history. Note that I added a lot of Vesta elements in order to update the design, and make her more distinct. She still retains that distinctive nose though.

SOTD: I was originally going to combine aspects of something called a Higaaran something with the dropship from Aliens, but didn't look at either, so it came out as some other kind of drop or attack ship. Pew pew pew!!!

Thanks Ael's, but please don't go around underestimating your skills in 3D Modeling (Sketch-up if I had to guess by the look of the models).

Sketch Saturday: USS Starrunner Week 2...

https://deviantart.com/jeszasz/art/USS-Starrunner-Concept-Week-2-918257178

Plus a shuttlecraft concept resulting from watching Tomorrowland over and over again yesterday, and asking the question "what if, as a designer, I tried to get a rocket developed that took cues from Star Trek?"

Lack of recent posts doesn't mean lack of progress, just busy trying to prepare for going back to college.




Most work has consisted of redoing and refining the engineering hull. The neck and bridge section of the engineering hull still requires more refinement, while I have decided to make the mid-section for the lateral sensors and engineering bridge separate objects, rather than layering on an ungodly amount of subdivisions to get the shape I need. But this has resulted in complications, such as making the engineering mid-section and the rest of the engineering hull appear as one object.

Finally, I worked on the basic shapes for the Nav Deflector. Fitting everything together has been the most challenging parts, whether it is blending different objects together, or attempting to make them appear as separate objects. I find that the magnet tool works sometimes, but other times, slowly nudging vertices gets the best results.

Mustang13Camaro68 wrote: »

I like that TNG Salcombe.
Looks like something they might have made if they weren't so limited to time and weekly budgets for miniatures.

That's exactly the idea I had in mind. I think that the TNG era is rather neglected

evil_genius_180 wrote: »

I like the USS Ptolemaios, it would be cool to see that developed into a 3D model.

I know, and I would like to see her developed into a 3D model too. As of now, I'm focused on building an art portfolio, so Blender has been left kind of neglected. I see it as a necessary evil. Oh, and I just took a quick glance at the USS Rycon, which looks like a nice little stablemate (haven't been on here, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten half the work done that I have)!



I got most of the rough linework done, before deciding to take a break from her. Even came up with a rough of what the shuttlebay might look like (which would be similar to the Galaxy class shuttlebay, e.i., making up the core of the "saucer" part of the hull).


Haven't decided which of these I'm going to refine further. Perhaps you guys have a favorite?

So what are these? Mechs, obviously, but the cliff notes is that sometime in the distant future, battle suits called Angel Suits are used in lieu of modern day attack aircraft. Why? The backstory is that when the public defense programs finally have access to the technologies supposedly locked up in black projects, mobile suits replace them, because A) they are easier to customize for specific missions, , they are (arguably) more maneuverable, and C) the cool factor/any sufficiently advanced technology means you can build whatever the fuck you want. You don't think engineers wouldn't build mechs if the technology existed?! I even designed a baseline example for the Draconians/Reptilians/"Lizzad People", the main antagonists of the setting, and the final designs of which would be designed more for brutal close combat and telepathic warfare, and weapons based off of medieval weapons/from Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans. Or basically in a way that would make a Reptilian proud, according to their supposed aggressive tendencies. Once again, I've allowed the content of the videos I that listen to on YouTube while sketching to influence my design work. Ironically, many of the later numbered designs are the earliest incarnations, and less refined.

The notable examples include:
#1) The Navajo "AKA, Skywalker". Flight is powered by nuclear-powered jet turbines instead of anti-gravity. It's a link between aircraft that use the two. Guess that the PTB lose/destroy the alien technology, rather than let it fall into the hands of public contractors. Or maybe alien sabotage that caused a disaster, and hence the political red tape saying "you can't use captured alien technology until you know EXACTLY how it works!". Attack helicopters in the American military commonly use the names of Native American tribes up to this point, while the Skywalker is a play off of the fact that this thing has legs, and is the first thing that can at least appear to walk on air, and the Skinwalker, a rather nasty beast of Navajo mythology that you don't want to meet, ever. Even evoking their name can allegedly attract them, and there are lots of stories of encounters online. Leave it to the military to not observe a taboo, but I guess that if you're facing against a technologically superior foe, who will likely kill you, then potentially attracting werewolves with a light-hearted joke seems like the least of your problems.

#2) "Tall Diamond": There are a lot of neat-looking mechs of Japanese design that have this tall body, and long, stretchy limbs, or bodies with a lot of facets and hard edges. Lots of design potential there.

#3) "Femme Fataile": I do like my puns, in case you haven't noticed. A custom model designed for female pilots, with provisions for different modules plugged into the tail, from a rail cannon, to a missile pod. Has vespine characteristics, because hornets are always cool. There would presumably be a "Super Hornet" mass production model with more androgynous characteristics.

#4) "Pandora/"Prometheus": The first of the modern battle suits. Still fucking big, which you would have seen if I had remembered to do a size comparison. Named after ancient mythological figures, who, for better or worse, changed everything, because there suits were the first to use modern anti-gravity technology, and perhaps other alien (or man-made) techs such as neural interfaces and zero-point energy, rather than fusion and MA/AM. The design is meant to still evoke many of todays aircraft. The "Prometheus" would presumably be a heavy weapons variant. The "Pandora" and "Navajo" are meant to act as a design lineage to the 25th Century, when the story would take place.

#5) "ARC Angel" One of the first modern battlesuits that I'm actually happy with. These are Iron Man-sized suits that fit around the pilot, with the idea that as technology advances, it also becomes more compact. Each suit might be customized to the wearer's preferences, and there would presumably be a typical male and androgynous version, and well as a heavy ARCH version. I really got into this design, including the design of different potential weapons integrated into the frame.

#6) "Dragonaga" One of the more unusual of my designs, a mix between an Eastern Dragon and a Cobra! What a wonderful counterpart to the Saurian-like Draconian suits! It's also long, and would likely be easier to target, but is supported by multiple anti-grav generators, and a coat of nanites programmed to protect the wearer (s?)! I see this as not being the standard suit, but the thing you send in when you want to nuke everything within a few dozen-hundred miles, but without likely alerting your enemy with a big warship.

#7) "Four-Arms": A Heavy brute of a design that also tries to evoke mediaeval armor. Also, my first attempt to rough design quicker, which means less detail, and more focus on distinguishing characteristics. The details should wait until later in the design progress.

More work on the nacelles. I've been using this as an opportunity to practice modeling details, without the risk of ruining the more complex secondary hull. Due to corrupted faces, I've decided to just redo the neck from the bottom up.

Madkoifish seems to have given the front of the nacelles some sort of interlocking plates, and this is my attempt to reproduce them.


They're pretty cool looking. I've labeled them radiator plates, if I had to guess their function, but they might also hold forward sensors, similar to the sensors in the nose of an aircraft, for all I know.

How do you all integrate the parts so smoothly? Any advice/techniques?

So far, I've had to use a combination of scaling and moving the vertices, sometimes vertex by vertex, so that they align/sit on top/the bottom of the component as a whole, and it's really slowing things down!

evil_genius_180 wrote: »

I made new nacelle pylons to better suit my vision for this ship. The design is based on a ship I designed and built about 18 years ago, though I lacked the skill to do it justice at the time. Also, I was working in Truespace 2 at the time.









So, I watched the first episode of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 last night. I really enjoyed it, another strong start for the season. Though, for me at least, Season 2 started strong, kind of went "meh" in the middle, but pulled it together for a decent ending.

However, one thing bugs me about newer Star Trek, and it's the ships. It's not the designs or weird crap like square nacelles in Discovery, it's the way they're built. Nothing really flows together in complex curves with most of the newer ships, like you used to get with Star Trek. Even the JJ Abrams reboot trilogy did this, particularly with the Enterprise, but with all of the other ships as well. Star Trek has always been known for its flowing, almost organic shapes to its ships. Even the early CGI designs seen in First Contact had this, particularly the Akira class, which was a favorite of designer Alex Jaeger, as well as the producers. So, it got more love. But, even the others had flowing, complex curves. You don't get that with most the newer Starfleet designs. There are a couple exceptions to this, but mostly it looks like they just tacked on bits together to make them look complex, but realistically they're more simple to build. I think that may be the idea, as it's likely a money and time saving thing.

I really like it when you make your own designs. And I'm really liking how this one is shaping up. I'll be paying attention to how you build this. I'm going to need it as I continue working in Blender myself!

Also, I've had the same problem with the newer Star Trek designs. It seems that they do improve slightly for each season, but more often than not appear to lack much thought into their design, especially the non-Federation designs, and this is especially endemic in SNW (what the f#$k are those Gorn ships supposed to be?!)

I've had this idea in mind of doing a redesign of the Inquiry class, but based off of HunterG's redesign, and perhaps QSD components for good measure (after a lot more practice with getting used to Blender of course).

publiusr wrote: »

Great shape. Still looking forward to your Planet of the Titans type ship.

I know you still are. We'll see when/if I get back to that. So much to draw, so little time. Plus I want to start trying some architecture sketches, and need to move away from spaceships, at least for a little bit.

Anyways, week 4 is here!


This week, I began taking the design in yet another direction, centered around an ovular nacelle pylon assembly mounted via interconnecting dorsal and ventral-I hesitate to call them necks, but that is essentially what they are, with the nacelles mounted on a 45 degree angle on the corners at every 90 degree angle.

Originally, I wanted to play with the command hull having a stretched lenticular hull with a pointy tip, but I can't quite seem to get it to look right.

Then I started playing around with the general design of the CSS Archer from Renegades, since I've always thought that was a logical direction for Federation starship design anyways. And her impulse drives were too interesting not to play around with, this time in a quad arrangement.

I've probably been also taking too much time practicing with shading and lighting contrast, but I've figured out that I'm going to need it in order to make everything look right, especially the nacelles.

C&C is welcome of course! Failing that, my plan is to take the design elements from the CSS Archer, the shuttlebay placements from the concept in the far left or middle left hand corner, the wedge-shaped design motif from the design in the middle right, and combine them, while the nacelles will likely be a lot like the CSS Archer, but more narrow, and I'm going to play around with combining elements from those with the USS Stargazer's.

Okay, it's been a while since I last posed something, therefore it's time to post my latest work on my attempt to redesign King Liger, which has been challenging because, well, look at it! It was clearly not designed to be an action figure that could move like an actual lion! But it's also been fun, because there is so little in the way of detail, that there is a ton of room for interpretation and changing of the proportions.