SWEU Darkhorse WIPs

[p.s. Cargile]

After a resprite, I'm gotten back into this story. The modeling I've been focusing on has to do with Chapter 2. Some are simple concept meshes, while others show the beginnings of detailing the Darkhorse.




The hatch detail was done some time ago, and I recently fixed a few features (and there still can be some improvement.) Luckily I have some very old Star Wars magazines that show the hatch with better perspective that what I found at the Starship Modelers website. Some material says the hatch is for docking, some for escape pods. To avoid incorrectness, I say that it can be either, depending on the equipment installed. In this case, I made it an airlock.



In the story I have the seven crew members line up in the docking bay, but I didn't know if they would all fit in the model. After measuring I found extra room, and decided to include an airlock. Previously I settled on just the hatch. I was also going to use an irrising pressure door at the main corridor, but I felt that was a bit foolish, especially since I had plenty of room for a door pockets. So now there are blast doors. I haven't any renders of the door closed. All doors presented are open, except the outer hatch which is modeled closed.







The above shows the mechanisms for the boarding ramp, in closed and open positions.




Lifeboat/gig. Uses the same technology as the TIE.




Customs Interdictor ship concept mesh, Alone and docked to the Darkhorse.

The following are the flight deck.

[seanr]

Cool!

[General Phoenix]

Looks like we're in for a detail-fest!

I can't wait.

[p.s. Cargile]

Eventually I'm going to have to remove the interiors and make them a seperate model. That's what I did for the flight deck. This computer bogs down a lot under memory load. A lot of the internal detail I never planned to go beyond the conception stage. But I said to myself: I can put an airlock in here. What would doors look like? I need doors at the other end too.
I have two wip models of the Darkhorse, one is the orginal concept, from which I detail out. Then I move the detailed sections to a build-up model. Eventually I'll import all that to Moray to utilize the better material and lighting of the POVRay renderer.

[p.s. Cargile]

The novel I'm writing is character driven. That means I need to write from the characters' point of view, and most times in the style of stream-of-thought. Since Lark Larakin is a pilot, I need to know what he is doing in the cockpit. So in designing the Darkhorse, I began to develop a checklist. So far I've only worked on the initial start-up procedures. They can be found here: Checklist

I've already built the Engine Control Panel for the flight deck, so I'll build the rest of the panels as well. Details Mr. Phoenix? Quite.

And like any story, an important part is location. I've also crafted a map of the place where most of the events in the novel take place.



For a larger pic, go here.

[fulcrum]

Ooh Star Wars!!!

[p.s. Cargile]

Oops. Looks like the exterior work I was doing is going too be redoes. I have all my SW project models saved to CD-ROM, and last week I tried to do to many things at once and lost the exterior stuff. The software froze and then the computer froze. But I still have the interior stuff and the basic hammerhead. The only thing I lost was the details and the docking jetty. And I had just got the ion cannons done. Bummer.

Starting working on the cargo bay. Here are two images (Moray/POV-Ray).


Inside with the left wall removed.


A look down towards the outer doors.

The doors aren't detailed yet so there is no seperation that can be seen in the renders. The thing in the middle of the aisle is a cargo container sitting on a pallet. I did create 400 rollers to sit amongst the rails in the floor, but they never rendered good at all. I replaced them with levpads instead, which are simpler shapes.
Think of the Darkhorse as a tractor-trailer and C-130. That should give you some impression of the amount of cargo this thing can haul. The cargo bay extends farther out thab the engines to allow it to back up to docking bays like rigs do. The doors, however, swing inward so that they can't be blown out by loss of pressure. Two cubby holes foreward house loading droids. That blue thing will be a control station. Still have plenty of conduits and wiring to add, plus the door mech and container/pallet locking arms.