Something big

[Marko Dash]

it looks like you could scale up that turret and use it on one of the ground vehicles.

[fractalsponge1]

Decided to actually make the sensor pods on the diagram ... well, sensor pods. Wing isn't done yet.

[Kanastrous]

It really is remarkable, seeing someone take an admittedly crummy line drawing and develop such a cool model from it. Great stuff.

[Rogue 9]

The Blastboat is hardly the crummiest drawing he's made excellent models from.

[Captain Seafort]

The Blastboat is hardly the crummiest drawing he's made excellent models from.

I'd say it is - randomly-shaped blobs don't even counts as drawings.

[Kanastrous]

There's much worse in the 'Rebel Sourcebook.' I just don't think fractal's made models from the worst of 'em, yet. I'd nominate the Carrack for the most embarrassing item in there...

[=Krieger=]

I concur with the carrack. That bridge looks like it was designed for Transformers.

[D.Turtle]

The Blastboat is hardly the crummiest drawing he's made excellent models from.

I'd say it is - randomly-shaped blobs don't even counts as drawings.

I'd say his Secutor-Class definitely wins so far.

I mean its based on only this one picture (top right).

[Captain Seafort]

Aye, that's the one I was referring to.

[evillejedi]

Craken's Threat Dossier is the worst offender... some of those things could be considered Lovecraftian Elder gods for their abuse of geometry

[fractalsponge1]

Craken's Threat Dossier is the worst offender... some of those things could be considered Lovecraftian Elder gods for their abuse of geometry

Yeah, tell me about it. Some of them have been retconned into something manageable (witness the new defender/nebula vs the old), but not others. What a pain to work with.

Lack of references can be a curse when modeling movie physical models, but I take cases of poor refs like the Dark Empire ships as an opportunity to add my own twist. I bet no two people modeling the "Secutor" would come up with the same layout. Plus, it allows you have fun coming up with backstory and explanations for the ships role/design, without fear of contradiction by the canon.

Skipray's coming along now:

[=Krieger=]

She's looking pretty good. I was never a huge Skipray fan, but the model's coming along nicely. How many polys she at about now?

[Thanas]

It really is remarkable, seeing someone take an admittedly crummy line drawing and develop such a cool model from it. Great stuff.

Seconded oh so many times.

[SCRawl]

It really is remarkable, seeing someone take an admittedly crummy line drawing and develop such a cool model from it. Great stuff.

Seconded oh so many times.

I'm pretty sure you can second something only once, but I'm going to agree with your sentiment.

[fractalsponge1]

Thanks all

This is almost done. Ventral shots and landing gear. Ventral hatches to service the magazines that I imagine are in the wing-root. Added a engine module landing gear fairing and assembly because I thought the sourcebook version without one there looks silly. Might do doors to cover the gear rather than the pad-as-hatch setup right now.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok looking at the nose, I have to ask..

Is that two rocket launchers and one laser?
Or two lasers and one rocket launcher?

Also, and I never thought I would say this, but I feel there are a bit TOO many greebles on the ship.
I mean its about the size of a modern fighter, and planes tend to be smooth. Now I grant that it is done for aerodynamic reasons, and this IS a spaceship of sorts.
But when I look at it's 'wings' and hull, it just seems a bit excessive on the panels and plates and such.

That said over all I LOVE IT! and a wonderful rendition on one of my favorite EU ships!

[Skywalker_T-65]

Wow that is impressive. And this is why I am looking forward to the Vic-Star, you will blow all the other views of it out of the water. As for the Skipray, I love every bit of it. You just don't find better models of these things.

[evillejedi]

Can't say I like the engine landing gear, just seems extra odd given the rotation of that assembly.I also don;t see why there is asymmetry of the greebles, I don't mind the density, but I would imagine a ship like this is pretty much stamped out in the billions for system patrol purposes.

[Crossroads Inc.]

That is a valid point about the back, given the power a ship like this would need, I don't know that there would be room for a landing gear in that core in the back.
Given that the ship would land with wings down, I wonder if there is any room to put landing pads in the wings,

[fractalsponge1]

First, some mods to the setup - centerline gear now retracts behind doors, and have smaller pads. Other minor modifications as well.




Some general thoughts about how the gear is likely to work:
The ship does need landing gear, let's get that out of the way. It's a very awkward shape for rack mounting, though you could argue it's reasonably well built for stacking. As a craft that wide-ranging light forces might be equipped with, temporary rough-field is going to be more important than a purely fleet ship. Plus, references, blah blah, precedent, blah blah. It does need an aft gear, because it looks horribly retarded balanced only on the front with a huge back-end hanging over the center gear. It's not on the refs, but Deal With It (TM).

The gear in the aft section doesn't take very much space retracted. Keep in mind the reactor is actually in the fuselage, not the central rotating tube at the back, which is engine. The engine itself is narrower than the big tube the wings mount into, which you can see from the size of the vectored thrust assembly on all the refs extends further aft. The rotating assembly thus has some space to either side to fit other equipment.



The wings might be a tempting place to put aft landing gear, at first blush. However, there are some problems. First, unlike the center assembly where there is space that doesn't compromise the interior arrangement for the other stuff that's going to be there, it is very difficult to put even the compact gear I've got now without blocking off the whole thickness of the wing, which is fairly slender. The wing is going to have structural bracing for the wingtip ion pods, heatpiping/power links for the same, and possibly radiator space, none of which does well with a retractable landing gear well cutting across the whole area and blocking off the link between the center assembly and the wingtip. You can put it as a pod on the outside of the wing, but that is ugly, and thus I will not have it. Small retractable stilts like a Harrier's wingtip gear is a possibility, but there are 2 problems:
1) I think in order to make it look not flimsy, you'll end up having a big pod anyway for it to retract into
2) Mass of any kind is best kept towards the center, unless it has to be outboard (space issues, firing arcs, etc.), since that's less work for a central vectored thrust engine to do to pitch or turn the ship.

The reactor itself is actually not going to be that voluminous; consider the cross sections of the Lambda and Theta-classes; comparable size ships, but with extremely compact reactors. Even at several times the power density, the Skipray won't have a huge reactor, and can easily fit it all in the fuselage.

@evillejedi:
What asymmetry? Just the gear in the engine? I think this ship (~25m long) is of a size such that isn't going to be cold-pressed out of a single piece of metal like some major TIE components might be. Given the droid assembly we've seen in AOTC, even very simple and small objects go through many different assembly steps; a ship this size can still be mass produced very quickly, just with correspondingly larger assembly rigs at each stage.

@Crossroads
See above about power density and wing gear.

[=Krieger=]

Looks gorgeous. I understand your reasoning with why you put the landing pad in the aft rotating section. My only issue with it is, especially given the tiny size of the landing pad, it looks like it might be a bit unbalanced in the back. Say if a repair droid were sitting on the wing, it looks like that weight might tip it over since the aft weight is so centrally placed and act like a fulcrum with the weight being at the ends of the wings. Maybe it you somehow managed to put two at angles?

[Thanas]

It really is remarkable, seeing someone take an admittedly crummy line drawing and develop such a cool model from it. Great stuff.

Seconded oh so many times.

I'm pretty sure you can second something only once, but I'm going to agree with your sentiment.

Then pray tell me why there are multiple seconds in duels?

[Ryan Thunder]

Then pray tell me why there are multiple seconds in duels?

Understandable if they're using swords. It can take time to penetrate a defense.

[evillejedi]

Fractal, my bad, on second inspection the lighting washes out the greebles on some of the shots so it looked as if they weren't mirrored.

[Abacus]

I'd love to see what you could do with the new (old might be a better choice of word...) ship design they have in Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG game.

Sith battlecruiser