Vektor, you are truly a master, both in the technical aspects of building models and in design. Polaris is a truly original take on the starship. Hats off to you.
I am really loving this ship. It has my own imagination wheeling in about a hundred different directions. And I can not wait to see the finished episode too.
Spent most of the weekend working on the Polaris' engine cowlings. These are some surprisingly complex parts with lots of weird angles and tricky relationships between surfaces. I've sketched these things out in quite a bit of detail but actually modeling them was a real pain. Before I go any further, let me caution you all to ignore the shiny blue color on the exhaust fairings. I had been playing around with some different material properties and found the highly reflective finish useful for spotting little imperfections in the Sub-D mesh, and I simply didn't bother to change it before I rendered out the WIP images. It is rather stylish, I must say, but probably not what the end result will look like. The only other significant addition in these renderings is the maneuvering thrusters. I also made some tweaks to the profile of the main engines but they are still mainly just placeholders at this stage. I actually removed them entirely from a couple of these latest WIPs to better show the interior of the cowlings. Most of the complex Sub-D objects are now pretty finalized so I hope to make quicker progress from here on.
She is gorgeous. I can't wait to see this baby in action. Even in these simple static renders she looks fast and mean. I can't help but imagine her zigzagging her way through an asteroid belt or cutting through a cloud of interstellar gas and whipping past the camera at breakneck speed. She offers so many angles and possibilities. Oh and I love the blue.
Vector, First of all welcome back,and second Have you thought of marketing your designs(Non-Trek) of course through a resin or plastic model maker for us model builders to build? I've always loved your work and we could collaborate on some of my original designs, and try to market them as well. PM me for the Photobucket link to my page OK. Signed Buck Rogers
I actually kind of like the look of that material. Make it a little darker perhaps, or even bronze, but it would be a great accent and set the ship apart a bit from the drab grays so prevalent in sci-fi ships right now.
And it always seems, at least to me, to be the right balance between form and function. Amazingly great job, Vektor!
I've been struggling with the details of the main engines. Then, weird as it may sound, I had a sort of vision just as I was drifting off to sleep a couple of nights ago. When I got home from work the following day, I drew this: This evening, I started blocking out the rough shapes in 3D: If I get the time this weekend, I'll try to detail those out and optimize them. I just discovered in the course of this evening's events that I seem to have lost a bunch of the concept sketches I've done for the Polaris. I've got project files scattered all over four different computers right now so maybe they're just stashed away somewhere and I haven't relocated them yet, but I'm starting to worry they got inadvertantly deleted somewhere along the line. That includes the most recent 3/4 views of the Polaris with the sails in their open and closed positions, etc. I have the copies that are on my blog server, but those are low-res JPGs, not the original Painter and Photoshop files. I'm going to be seriously annoyed if they're gone for good.
Very different, almost bizarrely so! (But in a good way!) Gives the impression that this definitely isn't current-day Earth tech. ....and you have *way* too much talent for one person!
Those engines are fantastic. The remind me of a pod racer for some reason, even though none of the pod racer engines looked like this. Good luck, with the files... I thought I lost our entire family photo collection (32GB of stuff)... but, like your case, I was able to find all of it on the laptop.
I've been away for three days in Georgia, helping the Starship Farragut people a little with building their sets, or I would have commented sooner. I love this more and more, and can't wait to see it as part of the movie. With every detail you add to it, it becomes more it's own thing - unique. Thanks again, Vektor.