400 ton Lab Ship WIP

Since we're still finishing up the move of our business into the house, I haven't had a huge amount of time to tinker.  I hate getting in the groove of something and having to quit to do other stuff, so in my downtime I mess with side projects that sometimes get kept and expanded on.  Since I was curious what the inside of the lab ship would look like in 3d, I started doing some rough layouts and modeling just for kicks.  Interesting so far, but still needs a ton of work.

50 ton Modular Cutter

I originally started back into 3d after about a 6 month hiatus due to life being a bit hectic.  When I started up again, I decided against dropping into a full size Traveller ship, and started looking at small craft.  I hadn't seen many renders of the old standbys (launch, cutter, etc) and decided to dive into the modular cutter.  This has taken a fair while to get done, mostly because I'm relearning a lot of crap as I go.  So far, though, I think it looks pretty good.

X-boat Service Hull

  This project originated from a discussion on COTI - Refitted X-boats - VW Beetles in Traveller.  The basic specification was for a 100 ton hull that could dock with an X-boat and add capabilities the it was never designed for - maneuver drives, fuel skimming, planetary landing, etc.  For the idea to work, IMO, it needed to require the absolute minimum amount of modification to the X-boat as well.  Several ideas were bounced around, including an annular wing like Travellers Lab Ship, and I started knocking ideas around.  My first attempt looked something like this...

Not bad, and it was pretty well recieved.  This model is actually well into texturing.  I posted a WIP pic to COTI, and somebody asked if it needed more than 1 pod, so I tweaked the base setup a bit to get this...

A little different, but kind of awkward looking to me.  Somebody asked about only two pods, which led to this...

Again, not bad, but still not really as good as the first arrangement IMHO.  I looked up annular wings, and discovered that it can also mean a flat circular wing.  After ruminating about it for a bit, I came up with my latest concept.

Ahhh, now this holds some interesting concepts.  Currently, the 3 pod arrangement is just about finished with texture.  The one and two pod setups would need partial retexturing because they are simply re-scaled pods from the 3-pod set.  The final flat winged version is a rough at this point, still needed a fair bit of modelling and thought before it's ready for texture.  For that matter, I need to finish the texture on the X-boat itself.

Out of the ideas presented, I'll most likely keep the 3-pod arrangement and the flat wing - the other two simply don't appeal to me, and I've got other projects I'd like to be working on as well.  I'll touch on one of these next post.

Oh crap, not another blog...

  Yeah, it's another blog.  This one is dedicated to role playing games, specifically Traveller.  It seems to be the only one I still have a serious interest in...I think I've slain enough dragons for the time being.  I think mostly why I'm still hooked on it 23 years after buying the Traveller Book is the fact it ties in quite handily to my other interests, astronomy and 3d modeling.

A recent set of threads over on Citizens of the Imperium about a service hull for retired X-boats drug me back into 3d (and for that matter, kitbashing real models).  It seemed I was cluttering COTI up with a lot of pics of this beast, so I decided to move most of my further work to this blog and Photobucket .  I'll be discussing my various 3d projects (and possibly games) here, so pull up a chair and grab a beer.