posted
Very nice indeed, and kudos to the Adaptable Mission Platform idea. I assume the torp pods are the long boxes on the shoulders of the shuttle in your pic?
You could make the pods slightly larger and longer and still retain an aesthetic side/front silhouette, IMO. They look small. I made a test-pic with 13 pixels higher and 15 pixels longer sideview pod. This may be a bit much, but it's just for indication. This would also make the front view look more "meaning business"-y.
Mission Package Idea #1: Pulse phaser gun pods. Many different gun pods are available to attack choppers and lean fighter planes like Harrier and such today. Use the same boxes as in your prototype but with two knobs in the middle of those black square covers and you have a light gunship for strafing missions. Not as powerful as the 360 ones of the Excelsior, but with the same concept.
You could do something nice with the nosetip. A grille (Y-wing style), or just some dark, nonreflecting "whaleskin" texture covering 2/5ths' of the distance from tip to beginning of canopy. Like it was dipped in chocolate.
There's something about the nacelles. I like them generally, though the blue zebra-pattern emerging in dorsal/ventral views should be fixed. But it feels like the ship would scrape the nacelles into the ground when it lifts off. I know it wouldn't do it in real life, it would levitate a few meters before tilting, but it feels like it. If the front end of the nacelle protruded slightly longer through the pylon hole, and the rear nacelle part was slightly shorter? Just a thought. Also, the emerging red hubs of the nacelles look like two clitorii.
Maybe a grey centerline dividing the hub in two halves, like on the Sovereign? Same as the nose, you've got room to play.
posted
The nacelles suck, no doubt about it. I make no bones about being crap at designing nacelles and this bares it out. I have a new set in mind, oness which will protrude through the forward section and replace the huge glowing clitoris with a somewhat more normal bassard endcap.
I tried making the shoulder launch boxes larger, but in order to do it I also have to make them narrower in section as they dont fit width-wise if I make theem as large as I'd like. Maybe some jiggery-pokery can make them fit better at a greater volume, we'll see.
As for it looking like a Y-Wing front end, that was the point. I have tried giving it a dark nose which would simulate some sort of radome or sensor protective cover, but I need to work on how I'm going to detail this thing overall so that it doesn't look out of place, too like a Y Wing or too like the front of an aircraft from the mid 20th century.
-------------------- www.kennyscrap.com - where I download crap I make.
Registered: Jun 2003
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Yes, the the landing craft used in WWII were called Higgins boats because he designed them but his company also manufactured a number of PT boats as well. ELCO was by far the largest manufacturer though, and Huckins made a very limited amount.
-------------------- I can resist everything except temptation. -Oscar Wilde
Registered: Mar 2003
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