I thought that Chuck need a spaceship in one of the previous cast, so I built FRAK FORWARD in his honor. I just would like some opinions on what I need to improve and what can be added to this model. I am building it in Blender so the model is as legal and not a copy as far as I am aware.
included is the hero shot
What kind of help are you looking for? Design critique? Blender helpdesk?
mostly design critique, if someone knows for to animate lasers to look proper that would be nice. I also need help with textures. I am hoping to make a decent short in the near future and if I can get GWCers to help w/ voice work and all those areas to make a great short.
Color! It needs to be spiffed up with racing strips or flags or something. The 3-D shape though is awesomeness.
Yeah, I like it. I can think of alts, but not really improvements. Except maybe something to balance off the cockpit (it’s a spaceship and needs to deal with physics.)
It does need something like go-faster stripes (Brit for racing stripes. I just love the cheekiness of the term.)
A start of Texas Colors for the crew to travel the stars and kick some butt. I just need to UV a Texas flag on the front.
A ‘Lone Star’ might be less flashy than a Texas flag, and instead of an R2 unit behind the cockpit put a watercooler instead,… in honor of GWC.
Looks good, Cat.
BY YOUR COMMAND.
Very nice, Cat!
Looking to see if I should continue on this path or go back to MkI model?
My grand scheme is to create a GWC Animation with the help of some of my Fellow Forum Members.
It is sleeker, but without a cockpit it looks like a drone…
I expect the image will be added later.
I am wondering if I should go with a firefly-esqe design or take off the gut as it were? Maybe I can get the GWC crew to give some input into Frak-Forward.
Fun thing about physics in space, if the craft never tastes atmosphere, the Borg Cube is every bit as efficient as a stealth fighter in maneuvering and combat. Since all propulsion is going to work in terms of angled rockets, retro rockets, or various other forms of pushing things away from you, you could fly a giant alligator in space and expect it to work well. Still, I am totally in favor of fly-able designs, especially so that the crue doesn’t have to invest in a teleporter or costly shuttle service.
And if we’re looking for voice work, I would be excited to help however I can, even though I’m not enough of a presence on the forums yet to be all that memorable… Yet.
Depends on the purpose of the ship. It’s clearly armed, so not just a cargo ship.
If it’s a fighter, I’d say the original less streamlined design is best. If it’s an armed shuttle/scout (i.e. Delta Flyer), the new “pregnant” design is probably best.
I love the pregnant comment, was not thinking that but I think it does describe the old girl well.
This Scout type craft is my other model for the animation.
I am wondering if our heroes are piloting the smaller crafts or being attack by the samller ships. Looking for some ideas for the story as well.
Well speaking as just me here (and it is only my opinion) I would say I love my space ships to look visually interesting and strange. I.E. check out the heavy cruisers about to do a bombing run on the planet there at the top of the page. Heavy on textures and a shape that is not sleek but might suggest it evolved from something that was… long ago.
So really there are two schools of thought on ship design, the Naboo type where it’s liquid metal and uber sleek. A solid choice and often much easier to make look right. Then there’s the Millenium Falcon camp where it sports bumby “skin” and is most likely not symetrical. Either works and one is definitely eaiser than the other.
Now to actually answer one of your questions as an artist to another artist on the design of your ships… the best advise I can give you is to know why your ships look like they do. Why did their designers build them that way, do they run in atmo, how big is the ship, how many beings aboard, what do those beings require and what do they look like, how long do they stay in space before resupply, what kind of weapons do they use and how would that work when fitting it to a ship, is there a smaller ship bay that opens up somewhere on the ship, what was it’s designed purpose - That sort of thing.
Sounds silly but it can help figure out what you are building and why.
For me, the stranger it looks the more I like it. I am but one of three though and I wouldn’t tell another aritst what to do with his/her vision either.
I dig the ships you’ve built, the first rig looks better all the time. The silver one, is it a frigate/fighter class? (I’m assuming from the cockpit in the first version) The second looks speedy and stealthy, how big is it?