A question for the ship-designers out there!

[Tokeli]

... How do you do it? Literally. What inspiration and resources do you use to design new kinds of ships? And have any tips for a struggling designer himself? I've seen so many amazing sets of diagrams and they always boggle my mind.

I'm more of an amateur 3D modeller than a ship-designer, but the limitations of the medium I build for requires small ships that meet odd requirements. Which so far has been difficult!

 

[Ziz]

Well the basis of any design for any item is "form follows function" - figure out what you need to make it do the job it's designed to do. Once you've got that nailed down you can go back to make it look pretty.

For Trek ships, there's also a visual design logic of the saucer-hull-nacelle-pylons that helps it look like a Trek ship.

Start by just listing out what equipment the ship would need to "meet odd requirements". Transplant those onto (or off of) your favorite existing ship design and then start playing with the proportions. See where that gets you.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I'd reccomend looking at the ships seen onscreen, and also looking at some of the concept art by various Trek artists (Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, Jim Martin, John Eaves, etc), and also reading blog posts, interviews, message board posts, etc. by some of the designer folks (Probert, Eaves, Sternbach, Doug Drexler).

Don't be afraid to draw inspiration from fan artists that impress you, as well. I take after Galen & Kaden, DJ Curtis, Clawhammer (AKA Pwnhammer), Borgman, and many many many others.

Also, objects and vehicles in every day life (and un-everday life) can have some interesting elements, too.

Regarding what Ziz said about function... you can convince someone viewing your design of its function by using certain shapes. The Defiant is compact and stocky, the classic Enterprise is a tall ship with a clean, modular design, the Romulan warbird is a behemoth, DS9 is the butt end of space. A bulk freighter probably wouldn't look like a drag racer. Also, when designing a ship with warp drive (particularly a Fed ship), try to design nacelles first, that way you can establish the "look" for your ship early on, and not have to worry about nacelles later on.

Also handy:

LINK

LINK

 

[Tokeli]

Ooh, thank you both very much! Looking over both those links happily. And the "make a list and use it on existing designs" works amazingly well in my head.

 

[sojourner]

In addition to that, I ask alot of questions like "what would I do different?", "where else could I use those lines?" when looking at other people's work. Then I start doodling and see where it leads me. I also like to look at designs of real vehicles, aircraft, ships, cars, to get ideas. Sometimes I will try and make ships evoke parts of those real designs.

Edit: rules #2 and #3 on the ex-astra site regarding nacelle placement aren't too strictly adhered to these days.

 

[Solarbaby]

TBH the traditional saucer secondary hull 2 nacelles and pylons has been done so much that its hard to get a really fresh design anymore.

Personally I try to look at how to make it different. What's different about the ship to make it necessary to build that class? Does it have better or new technology? Is it an extended mission vessel? Also what could set it apart from other designs.

Kit bashes rarely good. I think the Nebula class is an exception.

Great links Herkimer

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I dunno, I think the Miranda, Cheyenne and Centaur were pretty good too.

Mind you, the Cheyenne and Centaur could use a little bit of work, but I always held a secret heretical love for those two ships.

 

[The Axeman]

Kitbashes are very difficult to do well, and are best avoided. People want to see your own novel twist anyway, not another rehash. It got kicked to death years ago with all those early TOS designs for games and books, the saucer/nacelle/dish parts slightly rearranged and renamed a hundred different ways. It's no better now.

For my designs I look at as many similar designs as I can, and try to make the design make as much sense as possible. Form does follow function, so dont go making sleek frieghters with no cargo capacity and more phaser banks than half the starfleet. Think on the current day vehicles that do similar jobs, and think on why they look like they do.

One thing to avoid with Trek models is the 'gold plating' problem. Some people seem to think that a Trek ship should be an amazing thing of beauty which is fast, powerful, sleek, efficient, has massive cargo capacity, masses of weapons, shuttlebays all over the place, shielding that will stop a planet and every bell and whistle you can think of. Cant be done. No ship can be all things to all men, so design it to be the best you can at what its meant to do for the size you want, and no more.

 

[sojourner]

^"gold plating"? huh, never heard it called that. I always used "USS FanBoi class". Yours is a kinder statement.

 

[The Axeman]

I reserve that kind of thing for people who send me hand scrawled stuff on the back of napkins depicting 3 mile long Uberships with 1000's of weapons and entire armies of shuttles in hundereds of massive bays around the huge saucer.

One of the best was when i was at Spacebattle.com, and the guy made the most Uber of Uberships. He decided that the ship was 15 lightyears long (yes, lightyears) and several LY wide and tall, making it so large it wouldn't actually fit between a lot of stars. He was not put off by our arguments or calculations of how many galaxies worth of metal and crewmen would be needed for it, and he decided that since we wouldn't make a model of it, he would. Funnily enough it turned out to be a long rectangle with a couple of smaller ones at one end.

 

[largo]

the secret to starship design is to start out with a really huge saucer. you'll need it to fit the hundreds of massive bays for your armies of shuttlecraft. next, an engineering hull. the bigger the better, since it'll need to support the megahyperphaser cannon and black hole torpedo launchers. 3 miles usually sounds about right, unless you need something bigger for a star wars crossover. then add warp nacelles. twenty per cubic kilometer of starship is a good rule of thumb.

finally, send it to someone who's good at rendering to model it for you. someone like the axeman. if they get all whingy about it, try insulting their mom.

 

[The Axeman]

Keep in mind that I charge by the cubic kilometer.

 

[erifah]

I tend to work backwards. Function follows form.

I like to think that, when I'm drawing, I'm accessing and using the part of the brain that is good at shapes and space and line and color and texture and value and movement, but God-awful at saying "this is a shuttle" or "this is a warp nacelle." In MY case, the part of the brain that is good at knowing what a specific piece of equipment should look like can't draw worth a damn. (See the old book, "Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain.")

I can do this backwards because I'm not designing for anyone or for any specific purpose.

When I have something down on paper (or more recently, on Sketch Pad) that pleases my eyes, I THEN look at it with an eye towards function - I ask, "what the hell is THAT that I just drew?" If it looks to my left brain that it's a small freighter, my right brain obediently refines it and reworks the details to make it a freighter. If it's a gigantic carrier, then I go with that. Whatever it takes to keep the left brain happy (the ball-busting bitch!)

Half the fun for me is taking a product of a rightbrainstorm (brainfart?) and branching out into two or more directions at the same time.

I don't know where I'm going, but somehow I always know when I get there!

But, enough about MY psychological issues...

 

[publiusr]

I don't have a problem with larger ships--but I prefer them to be greeble free as much as possible. There was a nice early CGI ship from the Bryce showcase movie "Planetary Traveler" that just screamed starship. All curves.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Greebles are nice, but only if they serve a function

Hatches, lights, windows, equipment ports, etc. = good

Random stuff copy/pasted from battleships/tanks/etc. = bad

 

[The Axeman]

Even justified greebles and nurnies can go too far. The later ship designs in Trek are practically wallpapered with windows, lifeboats, phaser strips and so forth. It rather irks me that a ship with military pretensions has more windows than your average cruise liner. Check out this version of the Enterprise-E by my Flickr pal Colourbrand. It's done more in the fashion of the Ent-A, with fewer windows and nice, clean lines.

 

[ST-One]

Even justified greebles and nurnies can go too far. The later ship designs in Trek are practically wallpapered with windows, lifeboats, phaser strips and so forth. It rather irks me that a ship with military pretensions has more windows than your average cruise liner. Check out this version of the Enterprise-E by my Flickr pal Colourbrand. It's done more in the fashion of the Ent-A, with fewer windows and nice, clean lines.

Except for the nacelles, this looks surprisingly good.
And I see he fixed Eaves' 'I'll just point the impulse drive at the warp nacelles'-issue

 

[The Axeman]

I pointed out the nacelles to him as well, I thought they were rather overboard with the black vents. None the less, the body style is fantastic is it not? Not covered in all sorts of nonsense, but none the less very purposeful.

 

[erifah]

...Check out this version of the Enterprise-E by my Flickr pal Colourbrand. It's done more in the fashion of the Ent-A, with fewer windows and nice, clean lines.

Simple, yet elegant.

 

[Probert]

... How do you do it? What inspiration and resources do you use to design new kinds of ships?

A lot of these responses are very good.

My first rule is that you first have to put yourself in the universe that interests you (or that you're hired to portray): Star Wars, Star Trek, Space: 1999, Alien(s), My Favorite Martian, or maybe a story in a book. The established (Hollywood) worlds have already set up a look for themselves so you try to flesh out your creations with their common details. If you choose a book, your choices are much broader.

Whatever universe you choose, consistency is another unbreakable rule. You can't have flat-edged wings on one part of a ship and smooth airfoils on another. Of course, there is consistency of a different nature,... that of total illogical (but potentially interesting) crap. If you have an atmosphere flier, you (realistically) can't have exposed engines. The 'Space:1999' Eagles or Star Wars 'Y'-Wings, for instance, would NEVER be able to fly through an atmosphere without burning up, much less maneuver.

I could go on & on and haven't even gotten to the part about where the fuel is stored for powering the jet engines on those dumb Star Wars racing Pods.