[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.