I've never started a thread here before so please bear with me on any faulty image links etc.
I have started on a personal project I'm doing at home, I'm making a ship along with it's crew consisting of 3 people; a female scientist and her two guards on a scientific exploration. I plan to model the scientist from scratch but I will reuse an old model for the guards/crewmen with slightly changed textures.



For the ship I'm using the design of another artist, Dusso. I have already e-mailed him for permission but I'm crediting him here anyway. Here is how far I've gotten with the ship;


Tips and critique are welcome!

Edit: A link to Dusso's image; http://dusso.com/images/pg01/PG09.JPG
Edit: I updated my first post with my latest update of the ship.

When I read Ship of Science I thought of the Starcraft air-vehicle. haha. I like the ship with all the rear details but it seems sort of unbalanced in the front with no details. Then again some stripes in the form of a texture could make up for that. Keep doing what you're doing, I like it.

Im always lost wondering what fantastic keywords you guys use to find references like this :P

Oh wow, I thought it was a flying motor cycle until I saw the two tiny seats

With a name "Ship of Science", I kind of expected a toon-ish steampunk piece. Something that would not look weird beside a Victorian adventurer using "For Science" as a war-cry

My expectations aside, it doesn't look bad from a style point of view but I can't help noticing the large "turbine" at the front is covered by the hood. In other words, airflow would need to "suck" from the below at the front which, combined with the angle of the thrusters at the back, implies it spinning back over front when activated. I'd cut some air-flow holes in the hood or alter the turbine to be something else.

Then again, I'm one of those nutty people that likes his art looking sort of plausible (even when flying cars obviously are not)... so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Thanks for all of your feedback. You're right, I actually regretted the choise of thread title after I posted this thread since it can be a bit confusing. Is there a starcraft vehicle with the same name btw? :S
You're right about the turbine, BTolputt. I thought the same thing but I'm still sticking to the original concept for now(see the link I posted at the bottom of my first post).
There will be more details on the front side of the engine part and under the front part of the body as well as in the cockpit but I haven't gotten to those parts yet.
Thanks for your comments and keep them coming.

Here is an update. I've started working on the scientist. I'm not entirely finnished so I'm open for any relevant critique. That goes for the ship too.


I decided to remove one of the engines of the ship. I also changed the "turbine's" look as BTolputt suggested and made it look like something else. I have put lots of different objects under the ship's body but I'm not entirely satisfied with the look of these objects. I think I'll take a look at some references of airplane parts and stuff to get a more natural look.

Here is another update. I remade the textures on one of my older models to have it fit in better.

Relevant and constructive critique is as always welcome ;)

Edit: I think I'll just skip the guards for now. Might throw in a different character though.

Another update;




I'm pretty much finnished with the ship's exterior so feel free to give me critique. I followed Dusso's concept to as much as possible but I don't want to make a complete copy of it so if you have any constructive design critique then feel free to give me some.
The scientist is pretty much finnished too. I will do the cloth and organic parts' details in zbrush.

The character reminds me of the alien race from the Phantom Menace, when Obi-wan is at the cloning facility... the eyes and tall body frame

Originally Posted by n88tr

The character reminds me of the alien race from the Phantom Menace, when Obi-wan is at the cloning facility... the eyes and tall body frame

I guess you mean a kaminoan. I was actually going for a mix between human and UFO alien but yes, it turned out to be pretty similar to a kaminoan. ;)