Continue reading »]]> This is a short update because it involves just one big change: the escape pods.

As I mentioned before, the escape pods were starting to bug me and the reason is that the entry doors are just too big to be swung open into the inside of the ship. Because the doors took up so much space when opened, I had to compromise the design of the escape pod launch rooms to accommodate them.

I wanted the escape pods to match those on the Tantive IV and at the same time match the general design of the escape pod access ports inside the ship. That was just not possible to do with the design of the escape pods seen in the movie. To get the launch rooms designed to my liking I decided to compromise on the design of the escape pods themselves.

My modification of the escape pod was relatively simple. Instead of an entry door that swings outward, there are now two sliding bulkhead doors in its place. The only trade off is that there is no padding on the back of the doors for escapees to lean on. So, if you are the last ones in with a full pod, your only comfort is that you won’t be blown up along with the ship when the Empire attacks.

The change to the escape pod design allowed me to create a design for the launching room that much better matched what is seen in Star Wars. There are no more huge red doors but instead there are round bulkhead doors that open horizontally. On either side of these new access ports are divider panels that are reminiscent of the ones on the Tantive IV. They serve no purpose other than aesthetic detail. I pushed back the wall across from the escape pod access ports to allow for more room. Moving the walls made the rooms accessed from the main corridor smaller.

What is next? The Bridge… It’s time to work on the interior for a while.

Continue reading »]]> This time I managed to do exactly what I planned on doing. I changed the main weapon a bit; I added more details to the hull, changed the engine layout and created more weapons

I decided to make a few changes to the primary heavy turbolaser cannon on the ship. The first thing I did was create a more significant base for the turret to sit on. Before, it just sat on top of the ship and I decided it didn’t look integral to the ship. Now there is a large ring at the base of the turret and the top of the part of the ship it rests on was added onto to support the base of the turret. I created the contours of the extension with Fredo6′s Curviloft plug-in which is something I am just starting to learn how to use. The second thing I changed was the size of the barrels for the weapon. I doubled their size to better fit the scale of the vessel. Before I increased to barrel size, the gun just looked tiny.

I decided to extend the slope leading up to the observation tower forward to help tie it in with the top of the Landing Bay. The middle part of the slope is half as steep as the outer parts and it now appeared a bit awkward after extending the slopes. To fix that I thought a dorsal ridge would look good so I pulled the top edges of the middle slope inwards to the center of the ship and this gave the ridge sloped sides which I think look good.

The next thing I decided to do to the ship was change the way the main engines are attached to the ship. The decision to do this was attempt to make the ship look more like it belonged in the Star Wars Universe. The way the “wings” that held the engines were swept up was more In line with what you might see on a Star Trek ship; that, s okay, but it’s not what I am going for. Because I changed it relatively fast I neglected to save pictures of the progress so I will just summarize. I wanted to make the engines level with each other and mount them high enough so they don’t touch the ground when the ship is landed on a planet (and that’s if you can find a spot to park the hulking spacecraft. I created pylons on the back of the ship that mount low on ship yet would hold the engines higher. The pylons connect to the middle of the engines instead of hanging the huge engines on the back with no real support. This change to the ship cut down on the overall length of the vessel very significantly.

I still wanted the appearance of wings in the back so I created them flat this time and level with the front of the engines. I made them thick enough to align with the top part of the hull at the back of the ship. Again the wings connect to the front of the engines.

The wings needed some edge detail so I mimicked what I did on the edges of the escape pod section. The edges of the wings are pretty long so I broke them up by making the middle of them pushed in.

The back of the observation tower needed some detail and I thought I would make it the back of what would be the hyperdrive for the ship. The hyperdrive on the Venator-class Star Destroyer is in the back much the same way. (I keep referring to the Venator a lot but that’s because I think it is a pretty well designed ship. I keep adding Star Destroyer ship details even though I am not sure if the ship will be a Republic, Empire or Rebel ship yet.) What I came up with looks a little plain but it will get some more details eventually.

I did, however, find that back of the observation tower would be a good spot for a rear facing weapon. The Millennium Falcon’s main gun inspired the design of the rear facing turbolaser cannon. I am not willing to say it is the same model of turbolaser because I didn’t bother to match the scale of the original. After it was nearly done, I again had to scale it up because I made it too small. For the ends of the barrels I copied what I did on the main heavy turbolaser cannon I made earlier.

The ship needed some more weapons and specifically weapons to take on any enemy star fighters it may face. The larger guns aren’t suitable for that kind of thing because their lack of speed but also there would be no need to expend as much energy on such a small target. I decided to place these smaller laser cannons on the edge of the escape pods section and on the leading edges of the wings in the back. They  fit between the indents in the trim of the escape pod section and the wings. I thought about designing them similar to the ones on a Star Destroyer but I don’t really like the bulging eye look they tend to have. Their design is more like a security camera. The outer housing rotates fore and aft and the part that that the barrels attach to rotate up and down. There was enough room for two turrets sitting side-by-side.

 Throughout the events in this update I added some miscellaneous details to the ship. I added a panel with some vertical bars on it about the main entrance of the ship. More detail will be added there later. Second, I added a detail to the top of the Landing Bay alongside the dorsal ridge which I am not sure what to call it. It kind of resembles a key and it was just put there to break up the monotony. And finally I added struts to the front of the Landing Bay that connect to the section with the Briefing Room in it to add extra strength to the hull in the event of abrupt turns. Hopefully in those circumstances the inertial dampeners are in good working order because Artoo says that ” the chances of survival are 725 to 1.” Actually Artoo has been known to make mistakes… from time to time… Oh dear…

What’s next? I dunno but the escape pods are bugging me again…

Continue reading »]]> After working on the Bridge section for a while I felt the need to work on other parts of the ship.

This project may seem scatterbrain, but that is because it is. To prevent boredom I have to move on to something else to keep my creativity going. Typically those who design stuff like this sketch it out on paper first and make several revisions before they even start creating a prototype model let alone the final 3D model or a physical model. That method probably makes the most sense but in my case I am completely digital and it’s out of necessity.

I started off creating a general layout of the ship’s interior in Photoshop but after that I went straight to modeling. I only had a general idea of what the exterior design would be. Pencil sketches of my ideas would really help but instead I let my ideas evolve as I model. Some ideas just don’t work and that is evident in the design of the main weapon as you will see.

In continuation of the last update it was now time to work on the landing gear for the rest of the ship. I learned a lot from the first ship I created and one thing I learned was the landing gear were way too inadequate for the size of the ship. I made them way too spindly and way too complex. This time I have made the landing gear simpler and much stronger in appearance. There are no visible hydraulic actuators and there are only 2 joints per landing strut. Once the landing struts are deployed, the hull of the ship rests against the side of the strut arms in addition to the pivot points in the 2 joints. The strut arms are 8 feet wide and 5 feet wide and would be solid in construction and completely unbendable (in theory). When folded they fit flush against the bottom of the hull. If they aren’t strong enough now, then go with the assumption that the repulsorlifts carry most of the weight when the ship is parked.

Another thing I learned from my first ship is that it has way too much firepower for its size. It is over 98 meters yet it has 12 quad laser cannons, 2 dual laser cannons and 2 single laser cannons. The Tantive IV Corellian Corvette at 150 meters has just 12 weapons total yet only two are really a threat to anything larger than a starfighter. At this point this ship was 292 meters long. At the time of this writing it is now 265 meters long. Due to its size and the fact that it is designed to carry a small fleet of starfighters, it should need just one or two heavy turbolaser cannons and supplemented by about a have dozen small turbolaser cannons.

I decided the main weapon would be a dual heavy turbolaser much like the ones of the Venator-class Star Destroyer. At first I thought I would mount it over the top of the turbolift midline in the ship that way it could be easily accessed by the gunner. The turbolift would go up inside the base of the turret and the gunner would sit a ways in front of the turbolift doors. The gunner would move with the turret and the seat would move up and down match the azimuth angle of the gun’s barrels. I proceeded to create the shaft for the turbolift and then the base of the cannon’s turret. Right when I was making pretty good progress it occurred to me that the gunner should be situated right over the pivot point of the turret like Luke Skywalker did inside the Millennium Falcon’s upper turret in Star Wars: A New Hope. The reason is for the gunner to maintain equilibrium and not feel the G forces of a centrifuge as the turret spins on its axis. So, when I decided the design wouldn’t work I deleted what I started and did something else.

After taking time to rethink the design and location of the main weapon I decided it would have an access tube like the Millennium Falcon instead of a turbolift. Before I completely deleted the failed version of the weapon I copied the profiles of the of the turret parts and used them for the smaller base of the new turret. Using the heavy turbolaser from the Venator-class as I guide I created the basic shape of its turret housing. I hollowed it out then added the part of the housing that surrounds to base of the barrels. Then I made the inner walls of turret house for the gunner. Then I added to end caps to the outside of the barrel housings. A grill was added to the front of the turret for detail.

For the design of the gun barrels I pretty much copied the profile of the barrels of that same Venator-class gun. That gun has a smaller barrel next to each main barrel. Because my gun will be smaller I left that out. The base of the gun barrel has something that looks like a basket which was inspired by a turret from another starship modeler. After the barrels were done I started adding some basic details to the outside of the turret. I added the stripe down the middle, beveled the edges of the back of the gun then an end plate, and added detail to the end caps. To finish the turbolaser I added sensors to be used as the sights for the gunner to use. The interior will be done later.

The last few additions I made to the model are just some minor details that add to the overall aesthetics of the ship. I added some detail to the edges of the escape pod section that is similar to the detail on the leading edges of, The Devastator, the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer from Star Wars: A New Hope. This same detail will be used again later on. I went around the ship and made the inset parts of ship a darker grey to add some contrast. Those areas will have “greeble” details added later. If you are unfamiliar with the term, greebles are those seemingly random details that are added to the surface of a model to add some visual interest but otherwise serve no real purpose. The final detail I added were some panels for the front of the ship next to the main viewport. My plan was for the photon torpedo launchers to go hers but now I am not so sure. But in any case this part of the ship needed something there.

What’s next? Further changes to the main weapon, more exterior details, a major change to the engine layout effecting the length of the ship, and maybe some secondary weapons.

See the gallery below or here to see what was added this update:

Continue reading »]]> Once again I did a lot of work on the ship without writing one of these updates so there will be 2 updates. In this update I am focusing on the designing of the front entrance of the ship, the front landing gear and the main docking rings. In the next update I will be covering the rear landing gear, the buildup of the primary weapon and a few exterior details.

In order to accommodate a front entrance for the ship I added on to bottom of the bridge section giving the ship a “big chin”. The additional depth of the bridge section allowed me to extend the turbolift shaft to the new entrance. In addition to being the front entrance to the ship, the new bottom of the bridge serves as the front landing gear.

Since the turbolift can only be opened on one side, I created a new instance of the turbolift with the front door closed. I also created a version the turbolift shaft without windows or doors so it can be walled off. I then created the walls inside the entry room using the same panels from the escape pod junctions.

This entrance is designed much like the main entry in the stern as in the hatch is also the loading ramp. The final angle for the ramp when deployed was determined after the front feet of the landing gear were finished.

The front landing gear are basically just leveler feet. They are designed to conform to the surface the ship is landed on. I started out with a rectangle to represent the outermost dimensions of the leveler feet. I then made the front and back of the rectangle pointed. 120 degree point in the front, 150 degrees in the back  I then rounded each corner in the new 6-sided shapes using arcs that are tangent to the vertex of each corner. I then used the offset tool to repeat that shape several times, progressively smaller inside the first. I then used the push/pull tool to create the profile of the ring that will surround the future leveler foot. I then beveled the edges of the ring that extend down the most. I didn’t want the surrounding ring to look like it was just a ring on the surface of the hull so I gave it an inner surface.

The actual feet for the leveler feet are the same shape as the outer rings. They are just enough smaller in size to move freely inside the rings. I made the feet thick enough to make them look substantial enough for size of the ship. I beveled the outside of the feet and added treads that fit the shape of the feet.

I decided to make the docking rings on the bridge section of the ship similar to the ones on the Tantive IV Corellian Corvette but with a different hatch design. Why a different hatch design? Well, it’s impossible for me to tell how the ones on that ship even work. Yes, I did eventually figure out the ones on the Millennium Falcon for my first ship design but there was more to work with on that one. The ones on the Tantive IV just look like a bulge with a tiny out-of-scale hatch on it. So, the actual docking rings are similar but that’s where it ends. The images in the gallery below will show the buildup of the outer ring.

The hatch I designed is comprised of 8 doors arranged in an octagon that open inwards. The doors are surrounded by the inner rings of the docking ring which are designed to interface with small freighters and transports. More specifically, the inner rings are for my smaller 210CR Blockade Runner to dock with. The center hub that locks the hatch is attached to the bottom door. The upper 7 doors open first followed by the bottom door. The bottom door recesses into the floor of the airlock when open. The airlock will be finished at a later time.

What’s next? The rear landing gear, the buildup of the primary weapon and a few exterior details.

See the gallery below or here to see what was added this update:

Continue reading »]]> The docking ports on my 210CR starship have bothered me since the day I modeled them because it was hard to make heads or tails out of the images of the Millennium Falcon’s docking ports that I could find at the time. The main problem is that nobody seems to know how they work and without a better photo it’s impossible to tell. But since I modeled the docking ports I was able to get a great close up when I went to the Star Wars Exhibit last May.

Still, even with the close up I wasn’t sure how they worked but I  was able to make out all of the details on the model. As I about to model the docking ports on my new starship project and it made me do some more research on the web to finally figure out how they work on the Falcon. Somebody came up with the theory that there are 6 small doors that open inwards with the center section attached to the top one. Finally it seemed to make sense. The inner doors are supposed to open inwards as well but the detail on the model simply doesn’t allow them to.

So, now that I had an idea about how they worked, I decided to completely redo the docking ports on the 210CR. To make them function I had to use a little artistic license and decided what certain parts would do. I made the parts that surround the doors a locking system that would hold the doors shut magnetically. Magnetism should be enough because the air pressure behind the doors would pretty much keep them shut in the vacuum of space.

The inner doors were the only parts that opened before but now, in contrast, they no longer open. Someday this will bug me and you will see another update like this one.

The new docking ports are now part of version 1.1 of the model and can be downloaded on the starship’s page.

Continue reading »]]> Now that I finished working on the basic shape of the hull and the sub-light engines it was time to design the Bridge Hull Section and the Observation Deck.

The original idea for the front of the ship was to be rounded and to somewhat resemble the Tantive IV Corellian Corvette but after quite a bit of thought I have decided to change the layout of the bridge and make the front of the ship pointed. And how it turned out in the end is much different than what I had envisioned.

Earlier in the project I laid out the bridge section to be a series of rooms connected together with a wide main bridge. But, now I have decided to make the bridge interior similar to a Star Destroyer bridge which is longer than it is wide. On the previous ship I did something similar but this time it is going to be much closer to what is seen in Star Wars. Maybe I am overdoing it again for a small capital ship but the bridge is the most important part of the vessel.

First I took the existing rooms in the bridge and moved them down by one deck. I then copied the Mid-Hull Section plating and placed it in front of the Escape Pod Hull Section. I then widened it and gave the sides the profile of the narrow parts of the Escape Pod Section. I needed the hull to be even wider to accommodate the airlocks and docking rings so I made it wider with the profile of the wide part of the Escape Pod Section. At the same time I duplicated the cowling on the other side of the Dorsal Corridor, turned it around and put it on top of the Bridge Section. I then cleaned up the new hull parts and made them flush with each other.

Next I removed most of the rooms for the Bridge and replaced them with a single narrow room three decks high on the inside. The wall panels inside were mostly left the way they had been to be changed later.

Now I created the front fascia of the ship. This is another part of the design process that I neglected to take pictures of but to summarize…: I created a single face from the profile of the front of the ship and extruded it forward to give me enough to work with. I then created the front faces of the bridge hull making them swept back by 30 degrees both horizontally and vertically. On either side of the hull I pushed back a portion of angled front of the ship to define the weapon rooms that are on both sides of the Bridge. I then made the front of the Bridge swept back even farther at the corners. The front of the cowling above the bridge was made wider and sloped to match the front edge of the hull. Finally I cut out space for the main viewport.

I wanted to get an idea what the main viewport would look like so I quickly made a place holder until I got to it. The front of the upper bridge cowling was just three faces so I added the faces to the cowling and finished it by making it solid. The two ridges flanking the cowling needed to stop somewhere so I built a shape on to the front of the cowling for the ridges to terminate against. Next I finished off the shape of the interior of the bridge and hollowed out the front fascia. I then removed the placeholder for the main viewport.

The cowling on the top of the Bridge Section is the canopy for the Helm so it needed its own viewport. I designed the shape of the viewport by adding lines to the face of the canopy and once I was satisfied I cut out the shape of the viewport. The viewport was then modeled to be a foot thick. Next I modeled the main viewport making it also a foot thick. I decided the front of the ship looked a little too wide so I stepped in the sides a bit and I resized the rooms inside the hull appropriately. The side of the Bridge Section needed something so I added beveled hull panels that are similar to the ones on the Mid-Hull Section.

The Bridge Section was designed to have docking rings attached to airlocks like the last ship only bigger this time. To accommodate the docking rings I added a  housing to the side of the Bridge Section. The housing is hexagonal with a short tube at the end and is tapered up to the top of the hull plating. When I merged the housing with the hull section it was slightly too wide and the side of it stuck out into the back of the hull section. I thought the accident looked good so I kept it. The beveled panel blocked where the docking ring will go so I cut out the part in the way.

I then took some time to work on the interior or the Main Bridge. After looking at the design of a star destroyer bridge I decided that I wanted the bridge to be tri-level. Sure, I am not fond of tri-level houses being a wheelchair user but in the case of a fictional starship I’ll never have to navigate it so it works great. On the bridge of a star destroyer there is an upper level that surrounds two pits that the bridge crew operates from. In my ship I didn’t want the upper platform to be too high so I designed it to be half a deck higher than the pits instead of a whole deck higher. Because the platform is lower than the main viewport there is room for control consoles to line the bottom edge of the viewport leave the view unobstructed. The rest of the bridge’s upper level is a full deck higher and a ramp takes you down to the area around the pits.

Now on to the Observation Deck… I’m not quite sure what it would be used for yet so I will figure that out as time goes by. The design is pretty straight forward: it is slightly arrow shaped and resembles a star destroyer bridge tower only it is a single deck. Once I finished the outer shape I decided it was missing something so I added some “wings” on either side. The top of the Observation deck and wings will have communications equipment attached to it and perhaps the sensor dish. The inside has had the basic wall panels put in and a turbolift shaft. The view port is designed the same way as the Mid-Hull Section windows except there is a bend in the middle and there is no emergency bulkhead door. There will be an emergency bulkhead for all exterior windows and viewports eventually except for the Helm Deck which could pose an issue.

What’s next? I’m as undecided as a Republican presidential candidate but, it will be good, trust me.

See the gallery below or here to see what was added this update:

Continue reading »]]> In the last progress update I addressed the creation of the escape pods and the piece of the hull section corresponding to the pods. This time I am going over the modeling of hull behind the Escape Pod section and including the basic design of the sub-light engines. A lot of work on the model has been done beyond what will be covered in update so I am running behind on the updates. But, it’s not like there is a deadline on a hobbyist project like this… Now that the ship is really starting to take shape I am now posting pictures throughout the updates.

First up I worked on the Dorsal Corridor that goes from the Hangar Catwalk to the Bridge Section. I removed the top part of the Escape Pod Hull Section to make room for the Dorsal Corridor. Starting with a narrow corridor section I removed the door openings, cut the top half off and stretched it to the length of Dorsal Corridor. Then I designed the profile of the canopy to be similar to the shape of the Hangar Catwalk only upside down. I extruded the profile to the length I wanted for each canopy section. I then designed the “ribs” between each canopy section. After I was happy with the design I copied each section until I filled the entire length of the corridor. I then made the terminated ends of the corridor that connect to the other sections of the ship. The lower walls of this new corridor need wall panels and dividers so I fleshed them out with standard wall panels and created new wall panel dividers that were half the normal height.

Now to join the Dorsal Corridor to the rest of the future hull I created a cowling that would act as a junction and run to the edge of the Hangar Hull. I got inspiration from the Consular-class ship, the Radiant VII, that was used by Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and the Padawan  Obi-Won Kenobi to board the Trade Federation battleship at the beginning of The Phantom Menace, which was then destroyed. But before it was destroyed it had a dorsal corridor that connected to a cowling on either end and that was the basis for the cowling on my ship. To make this design work I had to make a narrower turbolift junction to fit inside the new cowling.

I then got inspired to finally add some color to the ship. I made the main hull color a dark grey. The Dorsal Corridor looked a bit boring so I added a strip of dark red as an accent color. These colors may eventually change but for now I think it looks good. To properly display the colors of the ship in the SketchUp Style that I use I have to make sure every piece of the model uses only one color so the lines on the edges of objects are the same color as the color of the faces of the objects. The only time individual faces have a unique color or material is if it is intended to be a light source or surface detail. If you are not careful when the edges are set to be the same color as the object’s material you can end up with flashing edges that show up when using the camera controls to move around the model. When I colored the Dorsal Corridor, I went back into the components and divided them into groups of pieces to isolate the colors I‘m using.

For the Mid-Hull Section between the Escape Pods and the Hangar I basically extended the profile of the end of the Escape Pod hull section to the Hangar. Because not all of rooms in this section would fit into this shape I widened the top and bottom out to the full width of the hull section to make everything fit. This left it with the sides appearing flat, so I made a raised panel for the outside of the walls and colored it in a contrasting lighter grey. I suppose this would act as additional protection for the Briefing Room contained inside the section.

At this point I decided to add windows on either side of the Briefing Room. On the inside, the cutout for the window is surrounded by a cowling similar to the internal windows overlooking the inside of the Hangar. On the outside of the hull I created a cutout for the shape of the window and beveled the inside edges to make the windows look more deliberate. For the transparasteel windows themselves, I made them the same shape as the inside of the inside window cowling and made them 6 inches thick. I also designed bulkhead doors that will slide across the outside of the windows in the event of the windows being broken from enemy fire. The bulkhead doors are not apparent to the casual observer because they are one big door with a hole in the shape of window opening and work like a guillotine.

To transition the Mid-Hull Section into the Hangar hull I created another cowling to go from the Dorsal Corridor cowling to the top of the Hangar. I then created the basic shape of the Hangar Hull Section. It is slightly pointed to avoid it from looking flat and thrown together. I beveled the edges parallel to the ship instead of rounding the edges like I might tend to do. I then inset the front faces of the Hangar so I can later add random details to the surface that are seen on vessels from the Star Wars Universe. These details would serve no real purpose but to add an industrial feel to the ship.

For the Hangar Bulkhead Door openings on the Hangar Hull, I made them the same shape as the inner perimeter of the bulkhead door cowling on the inside. I decided that I should also inset the space around the outside of the Hangar Hull Bulkhead Doors. Because there wasn’t enough space on the side of the hull to do this I just framed out larger side panels with beveled corners and merged them with the side of the hull. I was looking at hangar door openings on some ships from Star Wars and found that many had a luminescent border to highlight the entrance s I added a similar element around the doors. After contemplating what to do next I decided I didn’t like how the angle of the front of the Hangar Hull transitioned into the cowling so I made it flat where the pieces meet. Next I colored the Hangar Hull Section in dark grey. The Landing Bay doors needed an opening in the bottom of the hull so I took care of that.

After some thought I decided the ship needed an Observation Tower at the stern for tactical purposes. It is similar idea to the bridge towers on a Star Destroyer or even an aircraft carrier or battleship for that matter. Also, I needed something tall in the back of the ship to house the smaller backup sub-light engines that I created placeholders for. I started out making a tower that was similar to the one on a Venator-class Star Destroyer except for only one structure on top instead of two. I made it about 7 decks high from the top of Deck 5. It looked a bit strange being as narrow as I made the tower so, to compensate for that I added bulges to either side. The bulges could possibly be for fuel storage and/or the main reactor but that hasn’t been decided.

I needed to extend to tower to the back of the ship and I needed there to be a turbolift shaft right under the Observation Deck. This required the tower to extend farther forward than my initial intent. I had no need for more rooms to be in the back of the ship so I left it at 3 decks. I didn’t want a bunch of wasted space there so I contoured the rear of the hull into the lower height of the stern of the ship. The back of the tower was too narrow for the backup sub-light engines so I made the width of the tower widen in the back and taper towards the front. I tried to make it look good with the tower all the way to the back of the ship but it wasn’t working for me so I pushed the part above the bulges forward. This caused me to eliminate one of backup engines. I then made the face of the back of the tower slightly sloped and added a ridge to finish it off.

The next thing I did was work on the rear fascia of the ship. I made a panel to fit the shape of the back of the ship and created a surround for the loading ramp. The large part above the ramp would probably house the Hyperdrive Generator. This is approximately where the Hyperdrive Generator is located on a Venator-class Star Destroyer. On the panel I added a beveled edge and inset the face of the fascia. To add more detail a spacer was put between the hull and the rear fascia.

Now that I got to this point it was time to work on the sub-light engines. Unfortunately I failed to capture images of the buildup of the engines and the struts they are attached to so I will summarize the best I can. First I removed the place holders and then I went a different direction that I had originally intended again. I got inspired again by the Consular-class Radiant VII and I decided to make the engine layout similar to that. The Radiant VII has three main engines and they are evenly spaced and in line with each other. They are attached to wing shaped struts and then attached to each other. I made some wing shaped struts and made the front of the engines and attached them to the struts. I had to give the engines a proper scale and when I got them to a size that looked good I realized they were almost touching the ground if the ship were to land. To fix this I skewed the tips of the wings upward a bit. I was going to have just 2 main engines and have 2 backup engines but I decided the 2 main engines were very far apart. There was enough space for 2 more main engines so I decided to have 4 main engines and forego the idea of smaller backup engines. I then went back and extended the rear fascia along the back of the winged struts.

The back of the engines were based on the engines from a concept sketch of the Rebel Blockade Runner. They are big and bulky and just what I was looking for. Inside the engines is a turbine that I borrowed from my last ship only this time twice the diameter. I decided to make the outer two engines about 20 feet shorter than the inner ones and visually I think it looks better. The last thing I did was try a few different paint schemes and settled on one that looks balanced. The whole ship might end up with a different paint scheme but this will work for now.

In the next update you will see the Bridge Section and Observation Deck take shape. I’ve already done the work I just need to share it on the blog.

See the gallery below or here to see what was added this update:

Continue reading »]]> Yesterday, a wonderful member of our family, our Pomeranian Duke, passed away at the age of 17. He was a great dog who was such big part of our lives. He lived a long happy life and made our lives better having him. He was no ordinary dog and didn’t take a liking to many people but once he got to know you, you were a part of his pack.

Duke and I had a special relationship. After my black Labrador service dog, Quetzal, passed away 12 years ago Duke decided to take over the reins. Every day he took it upon himself to watch after me and would follow me throughout my daily routine. Every morning he was there when it was time for me to get up. And up until his final years he would ride in my lap when it came time to leave my bedroom. There were countless times when Duke would know I needed something before I would even ask. He even knew when I wasn’t feeling well.

As for the rest of us he felt the need to be the lookout. He was ready to bark at anything that would pass by the house. It didn’t matter if it was a car, a person, cat, deer, rabbit, another dog or even an aggressive blue jay. And even though he was only 12 pounds, in his mind he was a big dog and was willing to take on anything to protect us, even when it wasn’t necessary.

We consider him a pure gift from God and felt blessed to have him. He brought great joy to my family and he will be greatly missed. We love you buddy!

Continue reading »]]> It’s been a long time since I last written about my new starship project but I haven’t stopped working on it. I have taken 104 snapshots of my progress since the last update so I will be dividing it in half. I left off last time with the round turbolift and since then I have made quite a few interior layout changes, completed the escape pods (what a pain that was) and designed about 70 percent of the outer hull which I will address in the next update.

The first thing I did this time was putting up the basic wall panels in the infirmary. After that I took the Bacta tank from my 210BR and adapted it to fit in this infirmary.

At this point I looked at the ship from above and I realized it was just way too long. To shrink it down a bit I decided to remove the rooms between the engineering room and the turbolift junction and I relocated the rooms so they flank either side of the turbolift junction. To allow for this the cargo bays were shortened significantly. The new rooms are much larger and will accommodate a lot more equipment. I remade the infirmary and the bunkrooms to fit the new room shapes.

I decided that the engineering room should be 5 levels high so after changing that I changed around the adjoining turbolift junctions.

I then decided to mockup the approximate shape I wanted for the rear hull. I also created mockups for the sub-light engines. The final engine layout will be addressed in the next update.

Next I worked on the rear entrance of the ship. I had been watching the entire series of Firefly on the Science Channel and I decided to model the rear entrance like Serenity’s. It’s very simple which I like. The ramp acts as the bulkhead door and lengthens as it is lowered down. Because of the change I made to Engineering I was able to open up the space around the turbolift to make it nicer to look at.

Now for the fun part: the escape pods. I decided from the beginning that this ship would use the same standard escape pods that the Tantive IV Corellian Corvette uses. I wanted them to be as accurate as possible. When I started gathering imagery of the Class-6 Escape Pods and I quickly realized it wouldn’t be so easy… The way one enters the pods was a complete mystery at first and the actual scale of the pods is not really known. I had to base their size on how they appear on the Tantive IV model. It turns out that the pods on the Tantive IV model look almost nothing like the model of the pod seen blasted out of the Tantive IV that Artoo and Threepio escaped with. Furthermore when you watch Artoo and Threepio get in the pod it never actually show the pod interior so there is no way to know exactly how to enter the pods.

To accommodate the pods I needed to make the portion of the outer hull that the pods would be housed in. I designed the hull sections similarly to the Tantive IV’s hull section containing its escape pods and secondary gun turrets. The size of the hull section turned out large enough to accommodate 12 pods as opposed to the 8 on the Tantive IV. The 12 pods will allow for the ship to accommodate 72 crew members and passengers. To get to this shape I had to resize all of the empty rooms to make the diameter of the ship smaller.

After determining the proper size of the pods I created the basic shape of the pods and put them in the hull section. I then cut holes in the hull section to accommodate the pods. After this was done I then had to redesign the main corridor the ship to allow access to the pods. The corridor section is now basically a large plus sign with 4 small rooms off of it and then two more elongated rooms for accessing the escape pods.

The escape pod access rooms were given a new wall panel design meant to appear utilitarian. These panels will likely be used on the bridge and other utility areas. In the launch sequence of the pod seen in Star Wars, you can see that the pods are housed in a tube. I designed tubes for my escape pods similarly to the tubes on the Tantive IV. It was only from watching this scene that I realized the access panels on the sides of the pods are the way into them.

Because there is no real information available on how the pod access door works, I had to figure that they were hinged and would swing outward. The doors are huge so I know that would be an issue. I contemplated redesigning the pods to make them designed better but I decided to continue on with what I started. I could go over every detail I put into the pods but that would take too long so following along in the photo gallery for this update should suffice. They will not have the same level of detail as the pod model used in the movie because it was very highly detailed. My pods are greatly simplified but if all I was doing was recreating the pod instead designing an entire ship then of course the pod would be modeled in great detail.

Next I worked on the doors in the ship that allow entry in to the pods. They are giant and red and large enough for the huge pod doors to open. Is this the way it’s done in the Tantive IV? Probably not. Do I really care? No. Making them resemble anything like the doors Artoo and Threepio.

To be continued…

In the next update you will start to see the rest of the outer hull take shape. You will also see the finally engine layout for the ship which will give the ship its unique shape.

See the gallery below or here to see what was added this update: