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Post cool spaceships here

The Saint said:
What I'd like to see is a ship that has the general feel of Serenity in the detailing but the overall shape much closer to one of the aerial Hunter-Killer drones from the Terminator films, and -- along that theme -- heavy armament on the "wings" and an AH-1 Super Cobra style cannon under the nose.
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I have just the thing. It's only in pencils, and I'll have to dig it up again, but I think you'll like it. Before the weekend, hopefully.

Possible modifications necessary: I'd need to adapt the front end (mine had these sort of speedboat-pontoon things on it that housed generators to create an egg-shaped EM shield, which the whole craft is shaped to fit (yes it sounds stupid but will make sense when you see it...the wings-ends are packed to the gills with weapons and are designed to fold beneath the EMS when not in use). Also, my version is a two-seater.
 
Mmm, I like that. Good detailing and an interesting shape. Like you say, it is a little reminiscent of Slave 1, but that's not a problem.
 
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Okay, this was based another idea I had for a VTOL craft, only larger; a kind of futuristic version of a Blackhawk helicopter. Originally the disc that the forward section rests on contained a levitation mechanism that provided most of the stationary lift. With the Saint's request that it be similar in size to a Firefly, I grafted that ship's rotating thruster onto this one, and kept the disc for housing all kinds of horrible weaponry, from vulcans cannons to missiles to lasers...etc etc ad stragerum. The detailing on the nose shows the windows where the pilots would sit, with two spherical gun mounts on either side (I always wanted them glowing, like eyes, and firing lasers).

The whole thing seemed a little tight, volume-wise, especially if you're housing and feeding a Serenity-sized ensemble of characters. I also wasn't too thrilled with the way I'd mounted the engines (having them pivot off-center like that would create problems, even if made the front profile look cool), and I thought the disc could be improved upon, especially since it was no longer designed to create lift. Here's how far I got:

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The first drawing of this second design makes the whole thing slightly bigger (each graph-paper square = 1 meter), makes the rotating engines more feasible, and changes the disk to wings, which originally hung at a downward angle from the fuselage (and that I left in the side profile). The wings looked cool, but created a logistical brainfart when I realized that downward-hanging wings would inhibit one of the ship's main functions: To carry & discharge anything up to an Abrams-tank-sized object out of its forward doors. With such wings in the way you'd need some extending-ramp system which struck me as convoluted. Right before the scan, I changed the wings in the front profile to upwards-swinging, which is much more functional but now gives the ship the appearance of having a kind of doofus grin. Kind of the opposite of my intention, but I dunno...maybe it could be Joker-like: Dealing death with a smile. :mrgeen:

As always, thoughts are welcome. I may or may not have time to tool it a little more, but either way Whisky & the Saint can take it from here, if so inclined.
 
Aaaaand...the first of several treats I promised:

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Presenting: The USS Declaration, NDC-4401.

As I mentioned, this was conceived in between Generations & First Contact, when it wasn't known what the Enterprise-E would look like. The idea I had was for a slightly smaller ship than the Galaxy class but with a lot of the same elegance: Hull lines fashioned around simple curves, lots of windows, etc.

After FC came out I tinkered with it for a bit before moving onto other things. Other than renaming it, I rethought it as a kind of consular ship; something for dignitaries, VIP's, diplomats etc to travel in style, and when such travels called for the presence & firepower of a Federation ship-of-the-line.

I'm still a little undecided on the final design of the nacelles (or those ribbony mounts) and the secondary hull --while looking fine from the side or top/bottom-- gives the ship a kind of squat profile from the front, and widens the plane where the main deflector is mounted into a giant, sclera-like space that begs to be utilized somehow. I had the idea of extra shuttle bays on either side of the deflector dish but discarded that; perhaps torpedo tubes or phaser emitters...I'm open to suggestions.

Lastly: As with the Galaxy class, the ship can separate, but with one extra feature: I had imagined that two smaller warp nacelles could descend out of the vast flat area on the ventral side of the saucer section, giving that section warp capability.

Other stuff later tonight.
 
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This was an idea for a Federation man-of-war inspired by both the Defiant and the Gem Hadar fighters. It's larger than the Defiant and its nacelles are designed to house similar pulse-phasers at their front ends. The 'tower' rearing up from the back half of the ship houses the torpedo decks and a 'superphaser', which would be emitted from the orb at the top, and which would need fins to deploy in order to radiate the excess heat given off by this weapon...Fuck it, I dunno...it looked cool & seemed dramatic. Sue me.

Orientation is the same as the Declaration sketch, in case you can't tell between fore & aft (even I had to pause & think about it after digging it up).
 
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This is "just the thing" I was talking about when TS first mentioned a hunter-killer. It was designed with a Huey Cobra in mind, with a thin forward profile (the fuselage is supposed to be only about 4 feet wide; each square equals a foot). The idea was that all the lift energy would be created in a vertically-mounted torus in the aft, and emitted through vents running all along the underside and back. The two forward "pontoons" would house generators for an egg-shaped deflector screen (stabilized by smaller generators atop the aft) that would protect the entire ship and still allow the vents to provide lift. Two folding wings could be raised (again, with the deployed heat-radiating fins), emerging from the field to spew all kinds of destruction, while the main craft remained untouchable.

What's this amazing deflector-transparent torus-generated "lift energy" I'm talking about? Dude...fucked if I know. I could sooner explain how a deflector screen works.

Never came up with a name for this one.
 
I especially like the futuristic black hawk. I can really imagine how that'd look in 3D.

Pretty much the best 3D design programs are 3ds MAX, Lightwave and Maya. They're all obscenely expensive, so they're also very easy to find on peer to peer networks. I myself felt like legitimately owning a program, so I invested in Cinema 4D, which retails at about £100/$200. They all have quite a steep learning curve, but once you figure out how it works, it's actually pretty straightforward and all the programs work in a fairly similar way, so if you understand one, you understand them all.
 
Thanks again.

These are the last two for a bit. That 'original fighter' I mentioned needs a facelift, and I'm going to see if I can do a final, inked & colored version of the Saint's ship (which I've actually been calling the "saintship") sometime in the next few weeks.

This one's just a supersonic version of the Z5 hoverjet:

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When I was 15 or so I bought a couple scifi-related models and, for whatever reason, discarded about half the pieces and glued the remainders together into something totally unlike its original form. I thought it looked pretty fucking righteous as a spaceship and decided it would be a kind of armored asteroid miner; something designed to attach to, cut apart & tow ore-rich asteroids and also be able to take a lot of punishent from collisions with smaller ones.

Like all my models, it didn't survive my subsequent hobby --fireworks-- but that ship stayed in my head and I've redesigned it on paper multiple times over the years, mostly making it flatter but keeping the same basic trident shape, with the two moveable "cutting arms" and a third "sensor arm" sprouting from a base with a drum-like body for the main crew compartment and a flowerpot-shaped engine housing. I've thought about redesigning the arms many times --the part of it that mostly still retains the look of the original model pieces-- but I've never managed to come up with something better.

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A big fat gray karma-with-a-smiley to the one who soonest identifies what the model kit was.
 
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