I spent way too much time on the damn fins today. In fact, that’s all I did for several hours. But, that kind of time is worth it to get that look you want. My first fins were too small, so I started over. I sketched out the shape with the pen tool, then beveled it out to get the width. However, to get it to run along the nacelle took some hand work. Then came the sub patching, which revealed some errors that had to be fixed. So, I fixed those and here’s what we have. Though, I have to say that I never would have been able to do these in TrueSpace. To my knowledge, it has nothing like sub patching. So, I’m definitely glad I made the switch to Lightwave, it has so many more great tools to help me get the job done.
Since that took most of my modeling energy, I decided to start on the textures and at least make a color map for the nacelles. I want people to have an idea of exactly the type of look I’m going for. So, I opened up Inkscape and started drawing. I wanted to do a blend of 60s Starfleet and retro and I think I got that accomplished. The rest of the hull will be similarly patterned, so you see what the final colors will be (dark red and eggshell white.) Also, I found a cool free handwriting font for the name, because a lot of old planes and rockets had hand painted names on them. The chrome will of course be staying chrome because retro stuff should have chrome. Really, lots of things that don’t have chrome should have chrome, but that may just be my opinion.
I’m currently torn between grid lines and no grid lines. However, I’ll probably do them if for no other reason that real space ships aren’t poured into molds. They do have hull section separation lines, so I’ll likely be doing those as well.
Anywho, more tomorrow (or when I get it done.
)
