StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Let's say you design, CGI-render, or model starships, and hear about that hot new or rare cool ship in a recent movie or TV show. So you try to find reference pics for it. You image-Google the name of a ship you want, and all you get is a buncha blurry tiny blobs that only approximate the shape of the ship you want, or you get the same cheesy useless-for-references stock pic over and Over and OVER!!

Example: Let's say a ship from the Wing Commander series catches your eye. Like a Dragon



or a Bearcat



or a Banshee



So you Google the ships' names for some good pics and all you get are nearly unusable stock photos only good for guesstimation or formless blobs that are completely useless for even rough estimates? Wouldn't it be nice to get something like this?

Constitution-class Refit (Enterprise NCC-1701-A) Schematic
*note: image not inlined to avoid excessive modem throttling. Plus it royally phucks up the formatting

Or this?

Imperial Star Destroyer Schematic (taken from the somewhat inaccurate SW:EGV&V)
*note: image not inlined to avoid excessive modem throttling. Plus it royally phucks up the formatting

Sites like www.StarshipModeler.com and The Starship Schematics Database somewhat clears this problem up a bit. It's still trouble for those really rare ships like Cowboy Bebop's Swordfish II


*note: image poached from Starship Modeler

or a Narn G'Quan cruiser


*image poached from http://hyperspace.isnnews.net/

Anyways, that's my rant. I hope I didn't kill too many modems in the process..

I just bought the Cowboy Bebop Swordfish model, I'll post pics of it when I'm finished building it..

Thanks for the Starship Schematics Database link, I haven't seen that old FASA stuff in years. I miss those miniatures, damnit!

I don't think the creators had in their minds the actual physics of the damn things worked out otherwise I'd imagine they'd all be working for either NASA or Skunkworks or somesuch. It's up to the fans to usually work everything out into newtonians and the metric system.

That Cowboy Bebop thing has to score pretty near the top of the Crapometer, I dont think I've seen an uglier ship for some considerable time. Where the hell did that thing come from????

As a modeler I like to have a rant now and again myself at people who request you make some obscure ship, then provide you with a one inch square blur as reference. NO! NO! We're not asking for a genuine flying design, just one with a front, back and sides would be nice. Scale drawings and plans are superb, they allow models to be made that exactly replicate the plans, line for line. Lots of photos or pictures help with texturing and decals, it lets us see how the ship 'actually' looks. A fuckin icon doesn't.

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:That Cowboy Bebop thing has to score pretty near the top of the Crapometer, I dont think I've seen an uglier ship for some considerable time. Where the hell did that thing come from????

As a modeler I like to have a rant now and again myself at people who request you make some obscure ship, then provide you with a one inch square blur as reference. NO! NO! We're not asking for a genuine flying design, just one with a front, back and sides would be nice. Scale drawings and plans are superb, they allow models to be made that exactly replicate the plans, line for line. Lots of photos or pictures help with texturing and decals, it lets us see how the ship 'actually' looks. A fuckin icon doesn't.

Quote from The "O-Wing and C-Wing" Thread

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Hey Kenny, tell Alan I like his Wing Commander ships. I'd like to see more of them.

Of all the stuff he's made the Wing Commander ones seem to draw the fans out of the woodwork more than anything else. I think he's made one more, but there's a lack of decent blueprints available for the ships, and the last time someone requested he make one they sent him to a site filled with tiny blurry thumbnails as reference. Hopeless.

Oh ok. Tell him that he has one more fan... He'll be really cool now. Awful Pun Intended!

Agghh I hate that. You image-Google the name of a ship you want, and all you get is a buncha blurry tiny blobs that only approximate the shape of the ship you want, or you get the same cheesy stock pic over and Over and OVER!!

*gets an idea for a new thread topic*

I'll BRB!

As you can see I got the idea of this thread directly from your comments in the other thread. I design starships, and sometimes I like to make homages to existing ship designs with my new ships. I'd at least want my ships to look somewhat accurate while still keeping my rather unique "flavor" in my design work. Things that are smaller than about 400 pixels aren't gonna work unless it's game sprites... Not to mention most "beauty shots" are at that perfect angle where it's absolutely impossible to ascertain some aspects of a ship's design. Anyways I'm gonna put the soap box away... Lata and Happy Fragging!

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:That Cowboy Bebop thing has to score pretty near the top of the Crapometer, I dont think I've seen an uglier ship for some considerable time. Where the hell did that thing come from???

Bah, you just have no snese of style.

Yeah, well the guy who designed that had about six running concurrently. I'm not averse to designs that look a little different, but Jesus that's one messed up looking ship. I take it that it's supposed to be made from salvaged parts of other ugly ships, yeah?

Ever see Cowboy Bebop?

The Swordfish II is a single seat (as in a ubiquitous monopod cockpit) racer spaceship, with a large turret-mounted plasma cannon.

Again, you have no sense of retro style.

Retro? Even Flash Gordons rocketships were more aesthetically pleasing that that eyesore. At least they showed a unified stylistic theme, not 'car crash' design like that thing. As for the humungous weapon, complete the following sentence;

He needs a weapon larger than the rest of the bloody spaceship because...

Is it that he has to race around planets and he finds it easier to simple blow them up? Is he racing against people equipped with Star Destroyers? Is it butt-ugly?

That's not really the best pic of it...



I actually like the looks of it.