Models over the years

[p.s. Cargile]

HEY, back up here! The words are important too.

I may not have been active in public forums for most of this decade, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I've been going over the models I've done over the last several years and made new renders of those I felt were worthy enough to share. As some of these are in various stages of completion, I figured I should assign them a status of my intentions.

Abandoned: No matter the level of completion, I do not plan to pick up where I left off.
Limbo: I might or I might not continue work on the model.
On-Hold: I do plan to continue work when the inspiration strikes.
In-Progress: Current projects in work.
Finished: Served its purpose (rough concept), or completed to satisfaction.

I'll open the thread with nine models and get through the rest later. These are in alphabetical order. The dates on the images are the model creation dates, or the span of working on the model.

Sorry about the large pictures. The thumbnails are too small, I have have no idea if the linked images can be resized in the post.

FIRST TIME POST

LIMBO
I built the engine section first, then had difficulty coming up with a fuselage that matched the engine style but wasn't traditional. I wanted to complete the model before posting it, but I haven't touched it in years.


ABANDONED
A concept for the SWDA creator Frank Bonura.


FINISHED
Conceptualizing one of the many ships from Brian Daley's incomparable Han Solo trilogy. I was going for something like the Sandcrawler.


ABANDONED
Bonura was so impressed with some of my earlier Z-95 sketches, he wanted me to reconceptualize the rather silly looking WEG art for the C-73. If we were to go back to this craft, I would do a restart.


FINISHED
Onto some Trek. Friedman's "Starfleet: Year One" predated ST:ENT. I've become a better modeler since 2005, and have considered redoing this to better match the ENT era look.


ABANDONED
I believe this was the last model I posted before the untimely birth of my son. Needs engine details. And maybe a few other odds and ends. One of my favorites, inspired by a submarine game (that refuses to be playable with Vista)


FINISHED
Rough concept for battlecraft in a hard sci-fi story I was pondering. I guess as hard as inertial drives go . . . A dense gravitation core running the length of the craft pulls everything to the center, hence all the strange gondolas. I had more airship ideas in that the inside was more like a moduled space-station and the outer hull was layers of shielding. The main offensive energy cannon would also be in the nose cone bow, a detail not seen here.


FINISHED
Another concept I threw at Bonura.

FIRST TIME POST

ABANDONED
Yes, this detail crazy monstrosity is abandoned. The problem with using a Super Weapon in a movie (and hence in its universe) is that the weapon should be able to be scaled down. The Dagger utilizes the technology behind the Death Star main weapon for its twin pulverizing cannons to leave those pesky MC-80s and rebel bases clouds of hot vapor. Note the hanger bay for the handful of TIES. I had begun working on another version of this with two rectors: one to power the weapons, the other for the rest of the ship.


She comes armed with turbolaser batteries, ion cannons, as well as bridge and shield/long range sensor globe phalanx turrets . . .


. . . as seen here. After-all, we don't want stupid A-wing pilots making suicide runs at our command decks.


All around you will notice the butts of escape pods--pods to the scale of the one in "Star Wars"--jutting out of the hull.


The ion cannon systems details. This would have been merged with the master model.
After showing this to Bonura, he suggesting retooling it to the Bayonet.

That's all for now. If there is a way to resize the images in the post without rescaling the originals, please direct me how.

[evil_genius_180]

You've got some really nice models there. I especially like the Star Wars models. It's a shame that a few of them are abandoned, but I've been there, so I have no room to talk.

[gmd3d]

Great modelling . I like the details been a bit of a detail nut myself and I think we are all in the unfinished model group

Flicker does give you an option for thumbnail size....

Here is an example

[Reiko]

I like the Ceres corvette model. It looks like something that would be in USCM space fleet in Aliens

[p.s. Cargile]

If I stop working on something for a period of time, that's the death knell for the project.


ABANDONED
The plan was for an unorthodox planform for a spacecraft. If not for Rhino's "How to make a soccer ball" tutorial, I wouldn't been able to figure out how to make the disjunction drive spheres. The four bars hold Newtonian drives than incorporate gravity to compress and eject reactant mass. This craft was used in a story I wrote called "Falling Star" that needs serious rework.


ABANDONED
Because a belt sander does look like a Star Wars ship. With just some surface details, this thing would be fini.


ABANDONED
Who doesn't love the Gemini? This is one of the very first models I set out to do, and I believe it was posted here. I quit it because I couldn't figure out how to do the elongated concavities around hull. Worth tackling again in the future.

[gmd3d]

very nice selection of models.

The exploration craft design looks very interesting..

I love to see original work...

[p.s. Cargile]

ABANDONED
I believe I was making this geostat near future station to add to my Celestia files. At the time someone burned a copy of 3dmax for me to play with and I did make a few renders in Max, but a new computer with Vista ruined that, the copy wouldn't reload. On this model I learned that I really don't have to create thin solid parts, I can get away with simple surfaces, such as all that solar panel and radiator framework. hehe One day I'll learn how to apply transparent gifs. I pretty much got bored with this.


ABANDONED/FINISHED
The idea was that spacecraft missions returning from Mars or the outer solar system would transfer crew to a gravity station so that they could be re-acclimated to one g. I used to know all the good stats on this, such as revolutions per minute. This was an idea I was toying around for a story, so the visual of it pretty much accomplished what I needed, which is why it could be considered finished.


IN-PROGRESS, slowly but surely.
This model is being constructed exclusively for Frank Bonura for his SW:RPG campaigns. He wanted to explore an interpretation straight from the book and other Daley interviews, an interpretation that meant incorporating: an arrowhead look, a cockpit boarding area free of fuselage impediments, a swing-wing, P-38 forked tails, and some hint of lineage--essentially a F-14/P-38/T-65. This model caused an explosion of controversy when first showcased at SFM. For more information on the design process, see Star Wars Deckplan Alliance @ facebook photos.

[gmd3d]

wow the head hunter looks amazing

[evil_genius_180]

Ger said exactly what I was going to say.

[gmd3d]

This model is being constructed exclusively for Frank Bonura for his SW:RPG campaigns. He wanted to explore an interpretation straight from the book and other Daley interviews, an interpretation that meant incorporating: an arrowhead look, a cockpit boarding area free of fuselage impediments, a swing-wing, P-38 forked tails, and some hint of lineage--essentially a F-14/P-38/T-65. This model caused an explosion of controversy when first showcased at SFM. ,

Yeah I read those book and enjoyed them,
Its not how I saw in in my mind back when I first read the books... I saw a hybrid of a Xwing type if I remember correctly ....

This looked to me at first glance like Robotech, a bit smaller but along those lines,,,

It does not have that Star Wars look we have come to know.
But the galaxy is a big place and lots of styles ,,,,,

so it works for me...

Great work on it

[p.s. Cargile]

The Headhunter is the longest running project I'm doing--this year will span a decade--from sketches to the final model, this one being the third. My earliest sketches were very X-wing like, and I thing the problem was the interpretation of "forked tails" that Daley used to describe the fighter. Had he used "twin booms" instead, it would have avoided the mistakes in the depictions of the Headhunter in WEG source material. The P-38 influences come from an interview conducted by Alex Newborn (pg 6):

AN: If Dark Horse Comics eventually reprints Alfredo Alcala's comic strip version of Stars' End, are there any changes you would like to see them make while they reformat and colorize it?

BD: Frankly, I'd like to see the thing redrawn if they do that at all. As it was explained to me, Stars' End was a rush job, created to fill a gap that had arisen in the daily-&-Sunday strip's available material.

I admire a lot of Alfredo's work, and even mentioned it to him one time at a screening in L.A., but the job he did on HSE just wasn't up to his usual standards. I was especially disappointed in the way Bollux and Blue Max were depicted. Too-- this may sound petty-- the portrayal of the Headhunter snub fighters was off. I saw them as a Lucasfilm version of the P-38 Lightning, America's renowned "Fork-Tailed Devil" of WWII, but the strip didn't come close.

That threw a monkey-wrench in the concept thumbnails. "A P-38 swing-wing? You've got to be kidding me!" I drew hundreds of thumbnails starting with an arrow-head shape and filling in the prerequisite details. Doesn't leave a lot of room for interpretation, there is only so much space you can put things. The droid-like swing wing was Bonura's input, that what he wanted. I would have done something more simpler and conventional. I was thumbnailing some sweet looking F-117/F-22 hybrids to give it more an advanced look that had nothing to do with the X-wing appearance. And while Daley grouses that others in the SW writing community at that time should do some "basic research in military and science" he drops the ball on his own Headhunter. If I was to design a hypothetical suborbital interceptor, I'd take cues from the X-15 and the concepts for hypersonic craft, not a P-38/F-14 mash-up.

I certainly know it's more Jet-fighter than X-wing, in some regards, that's just the way it turned out. It is the product of a balancing act of using all the novel descriptions, the interview description, and the subtle hints at the X-wing lineage--basically the engine placement and the MacQuarrie butt of the fuselage.


FINISHED
Though carrying the Slave I look, this design was inspired by a curling oak leaf. The colors are the official Chevy yellow of the Camaro, eyedroppered from a screen cap from their website. I could go back and add more details, but it has enough for me to write it off and done.


FINISHED
Though I state it is incomplete, another one that could use a few more details, but I don't foresee myself working on this any time soon. I think I was fooling around in the cockpit with I put it aside. Began as a sketch from 1998, I do believe. I noticed that ST:ENT had a ship in one of their episodes that wasn't far from this.


FINISHED
What Headhunter is complete without the IRD? Though Daley does not write specifically about solar panels in his description of the fighter, it seems to be the one element missing from an otherwise TIE-like craft. In our SWDA discussion about the written description and design, we've almost come to the conclusion that the IRD may have in fact been meant to be Vader's prototype. Two parts don't jive well: it larger than the Headhunter, and no solar panels. I personally think that there was some misdirection and omission of detail so that Daley could slip past the editors his use of the TIE Advanced X-1. Thus my interpretations of the IRD (which I believe does not stand for its mission profiles--as Defense is redundant of Interception or Interdiction--but either for the propulsion --like TIE-- or Imperial Research and Development) lean heavily toward a TIE-like variant. Frank Bonura rejected this particular concept due to the prequel V-wing elements.


FINISHED
The more I look at this, the more I want to redo it.

[evil_genius_180]

Those are cool. I especially like the first two.

[gmd3d]

these are great ..... can we see some wire frames ?

[Auditor]

Wow. Love the new posts. The other ships were awesome. Then new ones are awesome. All great work. Great designs.

[p.s. Cargile]

Thanks guys.

Wire frames . . . which ones?

From here on out, I think I will drop the alphabetical order. As I have other folders with models in them, I think I need better organization. I'll group models based on genre: Star Trek, Star Wars, Non-associated originals, story concept originals, and what have you.

[gmd3d]

I would like to see the Hellstar wire-frame

[p.s. Cargile]

Rhino wire frames are not all that great.

[p.s. Cargile]

In 2008 I became more interested and serious about writing. I had an idea to explore nascent orbital combat in a much more hard science fiction way than what is depicted in almost all other sci-fi media. The idea was that the small crew of a interplanetary transport mutinies for unknown reasons, and the owner/operators of the craft want it back. The website Atomic Rockets was the inspiration for the speculative realism that stealth is near impossible and combat will be utterly transparent to the belligerents. Hence the name of this story (since abandoned) "En Passant" a chess move, and the strategy to get an operative aboard the ship without seeming to be an attack.



My direction for design was to forget aircraft and naval motifs and really consider the environment of space and microgravity. There is no shuttle bay, the lander is docked to the nose. The engine is a plasma drive. There is also a navigation telescope (not modeled) that undocks from its berth and is manipulated as a separate spacecraft. This "satelliting" of sensors and weapons is a concept I have since employed in other ideas as you shall see in forthcoming posts. The idea came to me upon watching the building of the ISS. Sensors or guns that can unberth eliminate the need for turrets or spacecraft maneuvering.



The landing craft used primarily to land on airless moons.



This cargo container is not carried aboard a spacecraft. I realized that if space probes do not need motherships to explore the planets, self contained cargo containers, or "buckets" in the story, can be launched to their destination without the need of the trillions of dollars or euros (or yens) of a dedicated cargo transport. I took an idea from "A Vision of Future Space Transportation" by Tim McElyea of the Momentum Exchange Tether as the main means of launching buckets to the outer planets. The system spins until it is the right speed and releases the bucket onto its trajectory. This allows the launch system to remain in orbit, as opposed to a booster rocket that would itself be left in a orbit around the sun and be costly to recover.

The bucket would be an irresistible catch for "pirates". With a cover story of a launch malfunction, the bucket is headed "off course" to the ship with the operative secretly aboard.



The gravity station is an above posts was also part of this universe.

Another craft was the more advanced class 4:



To prevent having to spin the craft for retro burns, the engines are perpendicular to the dual nozzles that port exhaust either aft or forward.











That concludes the craft of the abandoned story concept "En Passant" (who knows, as my writing chops improve, I might revisit it."

Thoughts? Questions?

[gmd3d]

This is an area that has interested me in recent times...... I like what you have done here

[evil_genius_180]

I like the real world look to that latest set.

Originally Posted by p.s. Cargile

Rhino wire frames are not all that great.

I see what you mean. That looks nothing like a rhino.

(yes, I know that was very bad )

[p.s. Cargile]

Another hard sf for the far future in which the mind is recordable and nanotechnology allows for the building of biological bodies. Deconstructing the body and recording the mind is one way around the thorny issue of getting people to survive the crushing high g acceleration forces of advanced sublight spacecraft.

The Persephone class was created for a short story ("Seffany") I started in which a man finds himself alone on a spacecraft, nearly insane from boredom and solitude, he discovers what he longs for: another mysterious passenger that eludes him at every turn. But once he encounters her, strange things begin to happen. The ship seems to be shrinking, and the deceleration forces should be fatal to both. Once they gain entrance to the locked command center, they discovery two Godel number calculations being ran by the main computer. He learns that all he has experiences aboard the ship has been an virtual experience after a glitch has "awoken" his stored mind. The young woman happens to be the ship itself. The conundrum once they reach the destination? They are in love. . . .



The center ring is the engine that traps virtual particles, imbues them with mass by altering the local higgs field and ejects them fore and aft, the aft stream with positive push momentum and the forward stream with negative pull momentum. The habitat pods took some time to design as they rotate (see below) for ship rotation artificial gravity, and acceleration gravity.

[evil_genius_180]

That's really cool. I like how you put a lot of thought into your builds, instead of just going for what "looks cool."

[gmd3d]

awesome work..... love the attention to detail

[quniverse]

first post - some awesome work there!

[p.s. Cargile]

I like how you put a lot of thought into your builds, instead of just going for what "looks cool.

Thanks. There was a lot of trial and error getting those ring modules to work without unwanted surface intersections.

Nanotech and other advanced technology are both a blessing and a curse. There is not a lot of surface detail and when a section of wall can be a window, there's no need to model real windows. I was going to put things like sensor booms and high gain antennas, but then again, the elements in the hull can configure for those needs.

[pla879]

Some really nice designs here...I especially like the C73......

[pla879]

What program are you using for your model design....I am a newbee to modeling and am trying to have models work with Celestia which is an awesome space simulator.

[p.s. Cargile]

Rhino 1.1, which someone gave to me. I'm going to retire it for the much more capable and difficult Blender. Rhino as rather simple texture ability. Blender is the only one that I know that is free.

[gmd3d]

http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

Blender is free and has a lot of cool features..... (so I have been told)

[evil_genius_180]

Originally Posted by p.s. Cargile

Blender is the only one that I know that is free.

There are others, but it's the best of freeware, IMO. It's got everything; modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering. Some of the freeware programs only do one of those, Blender does it all. Plus, it's open source and cross platform and it has relatively low system requirements, so it will work on practically any system.