Whats nagging me a long time is to bring over some modeling techniques from one program to another. For this reason I choosed a subject of a very known franchise and tried to do a personal take on it.
First I start with a simple sketch in krita. For this design I avoided to look at reference images and just sketched out how what I renembered as the defining shapes---and add my takes on it. The triangular shape/split at the base of the top wing was an element I thought I've seen in the franchise, but it might be also some fan art (or a different franchise).....or my subconsciousness made it up..it just felt right to add it.
Usually, when I "design" such stuff I do a loose perspective freehand sketch where I layout things. This hasn't to be pretty, and is compareable to concept art in a way a archtiectural drawing is to the small scribbles a housebuilder takes during construction. Basically its for me providing a guide in wich direction I should head...and experiment with shapes wich would be more difficult to do as quickly in a 3d program. After this I run the smart coloring plugin over it, and loosely sketch some shaddows.
When I think I do have a shape I can work with, I sketch out a side and front view...you can do work with the perspective view itself, but I think the few minutes invested getting them helps you to speed up modeling in the long run.
Some design choices:
I wanted to have bunny ears ! Don't ask me why, but I thought it would give the silhouette an additional nice touch. I like silhouettes, its one of the things I allways check after the basic shapes are modeled. Its qubacish... I realised it during the modeling, problem is the concept itself is also quite qubacish. So I kept it. I killed the extruded engines at the back...didn't worked out. My Machine/Human space ratio is a bit more towards the machine side....especially the shuttle from this franchise has either tardis technology or very small engines / machinery. I blame the toyline for this.
BTW I'm in no way affilited to this franchise...this is a non commercial exercise.
Basic sketch in krita for getting a gist of what I'm actually doing
Day 1-3
This is what I came up with in that time, Day one was a 2 hours of sketching and some basic modeling, Day 2 was the modeling of the base structure and day 3 was for greebleing. One reason I was so slow doing it, is also avoiding real existing photos/material of existing kitbash...just creating what I renember / feels right. Still don't have the speed of my old modeling package, but its start to get better. As you can see I start the paneling / greeble work from backside to front. I want to modify / balance out the front greebles once the rest of the model is finished. As for the paneling I actually looked for reference on the original shuttle.
I fed the topwing into substance painter, the rest is a stand in material
Day "4" Going back to the model after a longer time period (other stuff to do, also the trooper I making for the final result of this project) ..spaceship stuff has always a lower priority when doing personal stuff.
Added some greebles to the front, the big inset at the side and the upper side. Got some ideas how to fit the "ears" better to the model. Also testing how a resin surface would look like. I think I will now start with the downside first, before continuing the top side. to balance out detailed and non detailed areas.
Day "5" Again a long time since I dabbled for multiple days for a few hours. It's frustarting process, knowing that you could get much further if you could continiously model on it (And make more progress speed wise). Aproximately a third of the downside is done. Once I'm through this, I propably will do a second detailing pass across the whole ship
to be continued.
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