Visual Design: Scifi Ship!

And for the final task this year, we were asked to combine what we had learnt in visual design and what we had learnt in 3D design and use those skills to create a Sci Fi ship set at the most, 100 years in the future.

I aimed to create something utilitarian and realistic. Quaint even! I combined a moodboard of my favourite images for inspiration and began sketching out ideas.

I kept leaning towards this flying ship. a Literal ship. Maybe a flying medical barge that travels the dangerous skies about the seas, looking to rescue stranded travellers in a post apocalyptic landscape. The Star Destroyer had a strong silhouette but it felt just too futuristic for the brief.

With that in mind, I headed into Maya and began using primitive shapes to create a structure similar to this flying barge that I wanted to go forward with. It was important to me that it had railings and looked like a cobbled together piece of tech. Like a retrofitted boat. 

After finalizing the model I rigged up some lighting and tried to get some great shots of my model to paint up in Photoshop. I could probably have gone far more in depth with the tech on this model, but I wanted it to be very geometric and basic in appearance. 

I then studied plenty of decals and logo's that are found on current jet fighters and general heavy machinery. It is things like that that add an extra layer of realism to concepts. Below are some of the more useful ones I found:

And finally, it was time to take it into Photoshop and paint this up. Yeesh, technology still isn't my jam. I really need to push forward and get to the point where I enjoy and feel confident working on vehicles. They are a key part of the industry and no generalist concept artist can get by without a portfolio containing them. I used multiple textures and tried to hand paint on as much detail as physically possible. Overall I'm not particularly happy with the ship, which is something I haven't said much this year. It may just be the composition, or the colour palette but it just doesn't quite look right. It ended up looking like something out of WoW.

If I was to do this again, I'd probably spend more time trying out different colour swatches to create something more coherent and fit for purpose and try to fit in more logos and decals to make it seem more believable.



The main textures I used:

Final Piece: