Hey, I just found this thread!
I like where you're going with your comic on a visual level. Nice layout.
If I may make a suggestion though... Regarding the panel with the image of the ship. I would darken the background and maybe knock it a tiny bit out of focus to create Depth of Field and make the ship 'pop' in the scene. For me, the ship gets a bit washed out looking in that image. But I do like what you're doing and I would like to see more when you decide to share it.
When I render my ships, I tend to use a '3 point light rig'.
Each of the lights is a 'spotlight' style light and I use a 'target object helper' (or what Lightwave calls a 'null') as my target point for each of the lights to point at. This 'Target Object Helper' is then parented to the ship.
Light 1: Key light - white 50% illumination
Light 2: Fill Light - orange 40% illumination
Light 3: Back Light - blue 66% illumination
I set the lights up like a triangle, each pointing at the ship.
The key light is a little bit above the ship and the back light is a little below it.
These are my basic settings but depending on the shot, I tweak the colours and the % of illumination used.
Give it a go and let me know if it works for you.
Here is a quick example I did using Chris 'Evil Genius 180' Martin's 'Stargazer' model. (converted from TrueSpace to Carrara by me).
For this, I have no ship lighting (i.e. running lights etc.) just the scene lighting. Rendered in Carrara 8 Pro. No post work.
Image 1 is a standard scene light.
Image 2 is a 3 Point Light rig.
