[Assignment Models] A-Wing: Part 2 - Back of Ship and Engines

Having created the basic shape with some detail for the front of the ship next I turned my attention to the back of the ship. To begin I made some cuts into the back of the ship to match the shape found in the schematics. After making these cuts I then extruded the newly created face to create the back half of the ship, making a cut down the center of this face to help with lining up details later.

Selecting both halves of this face I then proceeded to use the bevel tool to create a border around this newly created face and then extruded the face inwards to create the depth needed.

Next I needed to make some new cuts so I had the vertices required to make a smooth curve for the engine detail in the back. To achieve this I made multiple cuts on the same line using the multi-cut tool at different steps (25, 50, 75%). Next I moved the vertices around on these new cuts in order to create the curve required. I then deleted any unnecessary edges so I was just left with the 2 faces.

With the curves created I then proceeded to extrude these faces to start shaping the protective shell around the engines. Once extruded I then proceeded to bevel and inset these faces, much like I did earlier on with the back ship detail.

After this I created a polygon pipe shape, changed the thickness to be very thin and then scaled the front and back of the pipe to create an angled "jet engine" style object. I then aligned this to the newly inset face in the engine shell and duplicated it 3 more times to create all 4 engines found on the back of the A-Wing.

The next part of the back engine detail I began on was the larger engines found on the sides of the back end of the ship. I started off by creating a normal polygon cylinder shape and then deleting the edges on face shown below. After selecting this face I then bevelled it to create this edge. After creating this new face I extruded it to inset it into the object and then bevelled the now inset face to create a second border. Next, I extruded this face again to inset it further into the engine cylinder. Finally I made sure the outer edge of the engine was flat to match the schematic as shown below.

With the back detailing finished on these side engines I now started to extrude faces at the front of the engine so I could connect it to the back of the ship. I made this extrusion in multiple steps so I could scale down the face as I went and create a small curve to match the reference images and schematics I have been working from.

With the side engines connected to the back of the ship, I now focused my attention on creating the small fins found on the top and bottom of the engines. To begin, I made a simple cube shape and scaled/stretched it so it matched the shape in the schematic. I also added a few extra cuts to the front face of this fin so I could add a curve to the front.

Next, through a series of extrusions on the X-axis, I expanded the wing along the Y-axis, keeping the shape as close to the schematic as possible, deleting unnecessary edges after making this curve.

I also repeated this process at the back end of the fin.

With the curvature of the fin matching the schematic, I now rotated the fin slightly to match the angle found in the front schematic.

I then duplicated this fin and adjusted it slightly to use as the bottom fin on this engine. Below is the finished product of these 2 fins added to the engine.

With the fins now in place I could add the small "ring" detail found at the end of the engine. This shape is detached from the main engine object so I began by extruding the back faces of the engine out twice, deleting the faces created in the middle. I then bridged the edges on the floating ring that were missing faces and scaled the inside edges up to make the ring thinner, matching the reference images.

Once this was completed, I duplicated all of the objects used in making the side engines and scaled it by a negative number on the X-axis (in order to flip it horizontally). I then moved this entire group of objects to the other side of the ship to create the second side engine. Below is a screenshot of the finished back side of the model.

[Assignment Models] A-Wing: Part 1 - Creating the Main Body

The second assignment model that I decided to work on is the A-Wing. I originally considered this model to be the second hardest, after the Tie Interceptor, due to the curvature of the body and engine detailing. To begin I imported the schematics I will be working from. For this particular model I managed to find schematics for the top, front and side of the ship.

Once I had setup the scene by lining up the schematics I then moved on to creating the main body of the ship. First I created a simple cube object and scaled it to fit the length and width of the front half of the ship.

Next I made some cuts along the body using the multi-cut tool and began moving/scaling vertices to match the curvature of the ship from the top, front and side.

I decided to redo the very front of the ship using a freshly extruded face from the middle of this object as it had so many edges/vertices at the front it was started to become warped when scaled down to the size required by the schematic.

Next I started deleting some of the faces from the front of the ship in order to make the cutaway detail seen at the front of the A-Wing. Once these faces had been deleted I then started bridging edges together to fill the holes created by deleting these faces.

Next I had to align the vertices from this new cutaway detail to match the schematic in preparation for extruding a face.

In order to make the newly extruded face match the sloped detail found at the front of the A-Wing I made some cuts so I could use the geometry to target weld some vertices together.

After target welding these vertices together to make this sloped edge I started to make some minor adjustments to the vertices found at the front of the ship so it more closely matched the lines found in the schematic.

In order to keep shaping the front of the ship to match my reference images and schematics I started making cuts straight across the body to prepare faces to be inset into the model.

Preparing these faces for extrusion required me to delete many of the unnecessary edges that had been created from the lots of different cuts made when shaping the body. Below are pictures of the surface after these deleted, creating smooth faces.

The final part of preparing these faces for extrusion was to make sure the vertices line up from the front view so that the faces weren't angled weirdly when the extrusion is made.

After all the preparation this is the finished product with the newly created faces extruded inwards to inset them into the model.

[Assignment Models] Tie Interceptor: Part 4 - Finishing Up

The final update for this model involves me finishing off the detail for the cockpit, adding finishing touches for the wings and then mirroring the whole thing to create the final product. To being, I started by deleting some of the edges on the front of the cockpit sphere in order to create a single face that can be used to represent the glass in the cockpit. I also selected the remaining edge and re-positioned it to create a thing border around the newly created face. This will be used later to create the border detail on the glass of the cockpit.

I then repeated this process further out on the cockpit, creating a second border. This time I didn't delete all of the edges inside of the border as I wanted to use these to measure out the different sections of glass in the cockpit detail.

After this I proceeded to make cuts across these faces in order to match the glass border details present on both the schematic and the reference images. I then selected all of these border faces and extruded them out slightly to create a visible border around the faces that represent the cockpit glass.

With this detail finished, I started to work on the small gun mounts found on the cockpit. I created a small cube object and inset it into the cockpit sphere at the bottom. I then re-positioned the vertices at the edges of this cube to create the slant shown below.

Next I created a small cylinder object, similar to the one found on the inside wing guns. I then extruded the forward facing face of this shape and scaled it up to create a "lip" where the gun barrel gets slightly thicker. I then proceeded to extrude the face again to finish off the effect of the gun barrel. I chose to not inset this face as the guns are so small that I think I will be able to just texture over them to create a believable gun effect.

Next I started adding some detailing to the top of the cockpit sphere by grabbing a few of the faces, extruding them and then re-positioning the vertices in order to create a wedge shape that more resembles the schematic.

Finally for the cockpit, I moved around to the back side. Using the same technique I used for the front of the cockpit I created a blank face with no edges to then extrude and create detail from.

After extruding this face I then scaled it up slightly, to give a cone type effect that is found in the engine on the back of the Tie Interceptor. I then extruded again, but this time inset it back into the object and scaled it down slightly, completing the cone effect.

With the detail on the cockpit finished I then turned my attention to finishing some of the last details on the wings. I used to the multi-cut tool to cut a small rectangle shape on the side of the middle wing panel at the top and bottom. I then cut smaller rectangles within this shape, deleting unnecessary edges.

I then extruded these rectangle faces twice, once to create some depth and a second time so I could bevel the face and create a small border. I then extruded the new face once again but inset it back into the model, creating a sort of vent panelling on the side of the ship.

I then did a very similar process on the inside of the wing panel, but this time I made rectangular shapes, extruded them out and beveled them without insetting them back into the shape, matching the reference images and schematics.

The final details I needed to add were small guns to the edges of the larger wings. These guns are made from 2 small cylinder shapes, with the smaller one having a hollowed out barrel using the techniques I referred to in my earlier blog posts. These guns are fairly low detail as they are very small and not a major focal point of the model.

With one half of the model finished completely, I deleted half of the faces on the cockpit so I could perfectly mirror these objects to create the left side of the ship. After selecting all of the objects and duplicating them, I then changed the X scale of these objects to a negative value, flipping them perfectly. This also perfectly aligned the 2 halves of the ship without me needing to use the align tool. After that I finished up renaming these new duplicated objects to match their right hand side counterparts and grouping them together into new groups. Below is a picture of the finished model.

After finishing this model I feel I have learnt some valuable lessons that I can apply to my future assignment models, such as the importance of symmetry, working from proper references (not just schematics) and also different tools, such as the multi-cut and bevel tools. The next model I will begin working on is the A-Wing.