Starship Artwork

[Badbru]

"Oh that's sweet Ted"

Well that was my initial reaction anyways but then I found I didn't like the single dorsal turret like structure, when the classic Dragon/Shukugan class is supposed to have two missile barbettes and two turrets? What's up with that? More obvious weapons mounts just didn't look good to you, or something in the Gurps conversion?

 

[tlindsey]

Badbru: I'm going to create the two missile batteries that are embedded in the central hull now that I have some reference images to work from. There are two hardpoints for turrets, one each on the dorsal and ventral sides and I just stuck a generic missile turret on for a placeholder.

- Ted

 

[Malenfant]

I like the stretched out nose of the SDB...

And your texturing is awesome, BTW. This is one area that Jesse DeGraff doesn't appear to be that skilled at. (then again, I can talk. My experience of texturing goes only as far as slapping maps on spheres to use as planets

)

 

[tlindsey]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
I like the stretched out nose of the SDB...

And your texturing is awesome, BTW. This is one area that Jesse DeGraff doesn't appear to be that skilled at. (then again, I can talk. My experience of texturing goes only as far as slapping maps on spheres to use as planets

)

Thanks, Mal! I wanted to update the Dragon design somewhat but still retain the classic form. I'm currently working on the aft section which will show the thrusters and ECM pod as well as new turrets.

I put a lot of work into the textures since this can make or break an image. Scarecrow is another artist doing Traveller work who does a great job texturing and lighting.

- Ted

 

[Tikon2000]

Here's another art piece I really liked. Got this from my old Buck Rogers XXVc game.

http://img75.photobucket.com/albums/v227/Tikon2000/Games/?action=view&current=Ceres.jpg

 

[Blue Ghost]

One of my favorite sketches is from DGP's "Referee's Gaming Screen." It's a beautiful sketch of a half submerged scout with Parrot Dragons fluttering about it. I always imagine I'm the guy sitting forward with my shirt off, and catching some rays.

The signature is "Peters '88" Next to Dietrich that guy's a genius. I like the details he's put into the sketch. I like the alerons and/or flaps on the trailing edges of the scout, the recessed and slanted windows, and the safety tape around the turret topside. That I really like his sketching style.

I wish I had a larger print of this sketch to put on my wall.

 

[Scarecrow]

Originally posted by Tikon2000:
Here's another art piece I really liked. Got this from my old Buck Rogers XXVc game.

http://img75.photobucket.com/albums/v227/Tikon2000/Games/?action=view&current=Ceres.jpg

That reminds me of a sketch Ron Cobb did for Total Recall. He designed this 'Mars Express'. It featured a central, cylindrical orbital ship to which docked half a dozen massive space-shuttle shaped landers. Once docked, the orbiter would begin to rotate, creating gravity for the passengers in the landers. It would then make it's way between Mars and Earth. Once at the other end, the landers would courier the passengers down to the surface. He did a couple of illustrations. One was a worm's eye view of passengers making their way through a boarding tunnel. Above them, through the glass ceiling could be seen the collosal lander, towering above them. It landed on it's arse, so I'm not sure what the layout inside would have been - perpendicular or horizontal.
He also did a design for a Camel spacesuit. Which amused me.

Crow

 

[Tikon2000]

Neat, do you know where I could find this piece? Probably hard to come by nowadays. But this is the age of the internet. Where you'd be surprised at what you could find

 

[Scarecrow]

Sorry, no. The only time I've ever seen these pics is once in an old sci-fi movie magazine (Starburst or something) about the time the film came out.

Crow

 

[ElHombre]

let's see if anyone knows about this. back in the 70's, my dad bought me a series of sci-fi books by author stewart cowley. they were all illustrated by artists such as angus mcjie, peter elson, and jim burns. the books were:

spacecraft 2000-2100 ad
great space battles
spacewreck:ghostships and derelicts of space
starliners

i still see copies of these books on amazon. what made them cool to a kid like me was the stories that mr. cowley wrote around the artwork. (although looking back at them now, the stories are a bit silly at times.) has anyone else heard of these?

 

[Malenfant]

Oh yeah. We've heard of them alright - the Terran Federation books. Usually a wave of nostalgia washes over the board when they're mentioned

I wonder if anyone has Travellerised any of the designs... They're a bit odd - kinda like TL8 spacecraft with fission power plants and nuclear missiles.

Some of the art, IIRC, is by Chris Foss. I think some of his pieces (or those of an arist similar in style) were used for the T4 covers.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Oh, I *loved* those books when I was a kid. Still got 'em somewhere. I was a little disappointed when I discovered the art was mostly recycled book covers.

Yes, there's some Chris Foss in there, and yes, some of that was recycled again for T4.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

http://www.geocities.com/~banksp/Rec/TTABooks/TTABooks.html

 

[Andrew Boulton]

also http://www.aemann.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/tta/index.html