[Assignment Models] Delta-7 Aethersprite: Part 2 - Adding Details

After completing the basic ship and cockpit shape, I started working on the rest of the ship and wing details. To begin, I made a few cuts on the back half of the ship to match the inset wing details found on the schematic. Once these cuts were made, I then extruded the newly created faces and inset them into the model as shown below.

Next, I started working on the detail on the spine of the ship, by extruding the faces from the previous spine detail forward. I had to make sure this new extruded shape stayed flush to the rest of the body shape.

Next I made some cuts at the front of the ship in the shape of a diamond (or arrowhead). Once these cuts were made I then selected the newly created faces and extruded them out to create the depth required from this detail as shown on the reference/schematic images I have been working from.

With more of the ship body detail finished I decided to start finishing off the cockpit detail by adding a fin. To begin I made a simple cube shape and scaled it to be a thin shape at the back that intersects with the cockpit. I also made a few cuts so I could shape the fin to match the detail found on the schematics. I then selected deleted the faces at the bottom along the edges of the cut and bridged the empty edges together. At the top I extruded the front of the fin shape at the front in order to create the thickness needed to keep it in line with the reference images I have been working from.

With the cockpit fin created I moved on to creating the engines for the ship. To begin, I made a simple cylindrical shape and started a multi-tiered extrusion, scaling the extruded face down slightly each time, creating the tiered effect shown below. After creating this detail I finally extruded the last face back into the engine to create a hollow inside of it.

 After finishing the back of the engine detail I started to extrude the faces at the front of the engine. This shape almost goes to a point at the front of the shape, which I achieved by scaling the extruded face down to match the schematic, as shown below.

To finish off the detail at the rear of  the ship, I bevelled the face at the back of the ship in order to give it a thicker border. I then extruded this newly created set of faces towards the front of the ship to give it the depth found in the reference images.

My work on the earlier models helped tremendously in expediting the process of making the ship engine. Using a multi-tiered extrusion allowed me to create a much more complex set of shapes quicker than using a boolean operation to hollow out the cylindrical shape of the engine.