Sci-Fi Spaceship

vavavoom

Hi~

This is something I've been working on alongside my anatomy studies.

It was something to try help me take a break away from sculpting in Zbrush so I could go back to anatomy later with fresh eyes.

I modeled it in the style of 'grey box', I think that's the term? Whereby it's all blocked out to give the forms and shapes, but not add smaller details at this stage until I'm completely happy with the design and function. 

- Aim was to keep it simple yet recognizable, so if it were viewed from a long distance it could still be easily identifiable.
- Engines, weapons intended as modular, whereby different parts could be changed/upgraded.
- Moving parts as simplistic as possible. I.e. Landing gears/door would fold/ raise up without needing complicated geometry or complex animations.
- Hope to model interior at a later date.


It was modeled around the cockpit size and character view, where I hoped in the future character models could be added to the scene.   
In the scene White guy is 1.75m tall, Orange 2m, Blue 3m (would be some kind of large alien).
The idea was that up to 2m tall characters (perhaps a little taller even) could sit and move inside the ship without needing to stoop. A bigger character up to 3m could enter, but need to stoop.

First design influence was OT Star Wars, Elements of B-wing, Lambda, and others. But also WW2 bombers and planes, and anything other Sci-Fi in general.

Would love to develop this further one day, but for now I'm happy with it as is and would love any feedback, crits, or any general comments~

Thanks for looking

Everything in Max.










An attempt at giving it a scene, a la Falcon on Bespin landing platform.

Olingova

Pretty nice design so far!
I think the cockpit itself might need a bit more work, especially the antennas or gun on the front, it feels still a lill bit blocky and too compact. Of course it's still a early blockout, but might wanna try slightly different shape for the cockpit maybe? Split it in different parts to make more interesting? Nice start!

vavavoom

Thanks @Olingova ~

The cockpit was one of the things I spent most time playing around with different designs, so I really appreciate the feedback on this 

The things on the front are supposed to be antennas, I had experimented with guns somewhere on the cockpit, but I couldn't get them to fit in a way I thought looked good with the overall design. 

I had initially tried/wanted to give the cockpit a more aggressive look, more down sloped, angular screen, but that had issues with character seating position needed to be too far back from screen to fit them in without their head poking out the top of the screen. Also I experimented with a more round/flat design, but I felt it made the overall appearance of the ship look a little 'stubby' or even 'cute'...?

As for splitting the cockpit, I agree would it certainly make it more interesting, but I wanted to avoid making the design overly complex in terms of character movement inside the ship and overall appearance.
I really wanted just 1 rectangular grid space for the cockpit area, and 1 (bigger) for the cargo/passenger area behind.  The thing I tried hard not stray from was simplicity in design whilst still making it a stylish as possible.

Here's how I rough blocked out the cockpit using character dummies of various heights:

Blue guy is 2.5m tall, Orange 2m, Black & Yellow & White 1.75m.
I also considered seat height adjustment functionality, just simple up/down to adjust character view through front screen.



Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!   I might try experimenting more later on as per your suggestions and see what fits

I guess it might be good to also I should define what the function of such a ship would be?  I had initially set out as a kind of heavy fighter/small personnel transport/ light bomber... do those roles read in this design?

Finally, I need to consider the front landing gear housing bay. At the moment it doesn't accommodate enough space for a simple up/down storage.   I plan on lowering the whole ship a touch more, which will shorten the length of the landing gears, but also keep entrance ramp door tall enough so characters around 2m tall don't have to stoop to enter the ship. And then redesign the front landing gear so it can fold into the bay without being complex.

I hadn't considered this would be as much work when I set out to design a ship initially, but as I got more and more invested in trying to make a cool ship, I started to consider how characters would fit into the design...

I may be wrong, but I think some sci-fi ships use the Dr. Who 'Tardis' approach, whereby the interior is magically bigger than the dimensions of the outside hull, but I kinda wanted to avoid this.

Olingova

Haha i totally understand that struggle; designing a vehicle is way harder than people think whenever you come up to proportions and size.. But it might be a good starting point to let these "inner space requirement" dictate the silhouette, for example in your blocking i still think there should have more room in front for the screens/antennas devices, the all nose should probably go forward to let some room for some engine/screens whatever, and maybe put the antennas on the side?

It's of course just a suggestion but something a little bit more bulky and cute could actually be a nice fit, the first think i thought was something like a helicopter cockpit:


I know it's a kinda boring advice but going for real life reference can be a great inspiration since they already solved these space/proportions issues!
And since it's antennas and no gun something not too aggressive might be a good fit.

I hope it helps, keep it up!

vavavoom

Thanks @Olingova~

The helicopter cockpit is a great reference. I plan to experiment and try to build up the interior blockout more soon.

If i can get the cockpit and interior blocked out to something I'm happy with, I hope to keep this side project going and make it into high poly model with more details and all that cool 'greeble' stuff that really brings these things to life.