MyLittle Ship

[Plumdragon]

Hello again Friends Well, I'm not sure if this constitutes any progress....
I got so sidetracked with thinking about textures that I couldn't see the wood for the trees - namely, this model being such a tiny thing, that it's simply not worth adding textures because they won't be seen! Yes, I guess I could've made the model about a foot long, but it's actually less than 4" in length. I said it was a "Little Ship"
For inspiration, I looked at corals, insects, sea turtles and shells for textures. But after drawing on the paper templates, it was just too much texture! Apart from that, I knew exactly how I wanted it to basically look from the off, so everything will be done with subtle colouring and maybe a little 'highlighted' texture for effect. We shall see
Plumdragon

[Vermin_King]

I don't know why, but even from the beginning of this project I was imagining it in White, Blue and with Silver trim.

But I'm just an onlooker.

[rockpaperscissor]

My first time visiting this interesting thread. I've learned a lot from your well documented process. Can't wait to see your PS graphics work when you get that far.

[Plumdragon]

Rockpapercissor, thank you for your comment :-) I'm glad that it's been instructive, as that was partly my intent when starting the thread. If just one modeler goes "oh, so that's how I can do that!" then my day will have been made, as they say :-)
And Mr King, you will see some of my ideas regarding the colouring very shortly....
Plumdragon

[Plumdragon]

Hello Friends once again As it's time to get busy with the colourwork, I thought it prudent to post up these pics of how I go about the graphics.
These methods apply whether I am designing a plane, train or automobile, or anything else for that matter! The secret, if there is one, is having multiple layers for every part of a design. Many's the time in my early days when I 'stuck' the colour to the outlines (or 'flood filled' - never do that again!) or worse, painted that AIR FORCE logo onto the camo, to find it sat at a funny angle when the model was built.
That's one reason I use a lot of paper templates; they're disposable, easy to tack onto a built BETA model, and can be used to 'fine tune' position, fit, angle etc etc. But anyway, onto the designwork....
Plumdragon

[Plumdragon]

Specifically for Revellfan, who asked about the mythology behind this ship (or anyone else that might be interested!)

This ship represents what could be considered the 'first generation' of bio-mechanical starships. For centuries previous to this development, the sub-sentient AI's of space-faring vessels used genetically engineered biological matter, and it was a logical progression to think about how such materials could be used to, in effect, 'grow' a starship.
At this early stage, human reliance on such hardware as propulsion systems, weapons/defence arrays and even such basic needs as the provision of crew operating and habitation areas meant it would be impossible to bio-engineer a fully organic ship, but it did become a feasible proposition to in effect 'clothe' the fundamental human needs of spaceflight with a bio-engineered hull. Rapid developments soon saw the obsolescence of such things as hardwired electrical and fuel systems, fuel/oxygen storage tanks and the like, as these could be created by the ships AI during construction, and incorporated into the 'living' part of the vessel. This had the added advantage of a level of multiple redundancy in these systems unheard of before. As well as this, in time, extremely sophisticated food provisioning and waste/atmosphere recycling systems became incorporated into the vessels biological systems.
Certain basic mechanical devices such as fulcrums and levers and pulleys, although at this early stage attempted by bio-engineering, were not entirely successful, hence the thermodump panels still use tried and tested engineering technology. It was now only a matter of time before the advent of fully sentient biological starships, but that's a whole different story
It has been commented on that one unfortunate side-effect of being able to program the AI to create any shape of ship the imagination can devise has led to several inter-species diplomatic incidents....
Plumdragon
p.s, please don't ask too many technical questions now

[Rhaven Blaack]

I like the orange/black paint scheme. It looks GREAT!!!
I like the back story for the ship. It explains quite a bit and makes sense.
Do not worry too much about the nitpicking technical details. Those will come later. They always do.

[Plumdragon]

Hello Friends and I'm thinking that there is not a lot to be added to this thread now from Yrs Trly. You've watched the design progress from a quick sketch to the finished white model, and hopefully I've given sufficent information to allow a broad look at the working methods involved, which for me are the fundamentals to all my designs. This is not to say there are many design details which could be talked over; this was just the big brushstrokes....
The work isn't finished; the parts need final tweaking and colouring (still undecided!) and more importantly re-assembling nicely on finished 'sheets' to present something that looks attractive to a modeler. (And please, can we all make our paper model downloads 'Letter' size and not A4? Those who design on A4 should be aware that half the World doesn't use that size of paper!)
Another job is the instruction sheet, for which I use my own designs of pictograms (no words!) As the diagrams for my instructions are all hand drawn, they take a while, and there is also the need to number up all the parts, which I do in an order that follows the build sequence as much as possible.
All of this is time consuming, and not very exciting for you, either! I'm sure you really wouldn't be interested in the fact that I moved that tab on the nose about 3 pixels up just to make it fit better I'm also sure you'd all like to see a pic of a coloured, finished model up here, and that'll happen in due course, because I will be building another to check out the tweaks, and refresh my mind as to the build sequence so it can be explained on the instruction sheet.
Well, it's been fun, and thank you all for you words of appreciation and encouragement. I'll keep checking in on this thread to see if anyone's asked anything, and will update when the time comes.
Right - NEXT!
Plumdragon

[Plumdragon]

These were done today, I thought I might share them You'll recognise the pics, of course, as they look like the three views of the model posted earlier. The difference is that these are graphic renderings done in PS by 'tracing' over the photographs of the model to create sharp linework and then adding shading etc, They will be used on the instruction sheet/s.
Ordinarily, for such as an airplane or vehicle, I would draw up the standard profile, plan & front elevations, but thinking about this vessel, a drawing such as that would not really show the way the thing is shaped.
So instead I opted to utilise the photographs to create these more graphic renditions, which in my humble opinion give a sharper definition; at least, they're better than my photography! There's just a belly shot to do, and that just about covers it....
Plumdragon

[Rhaven Blaack]

This render looks GREAT!
If this is a sample of what the illustrations of your instructions are going to look like, the instructions will look AMAZING!