Design: Eta-Class Shuttle
A frontal, full frame shot of the ship, showcasing its entire form and the density of detail in some areas.
Early in the year, I was asked by an online friend to create a ship model that they could use for a game. The ship they wanted me to make was the Eta shuttle from Star Wars, which would fit in as a troop transport and assault craft. I decided to put in a lot more work than usual on this and make it a viable portfolio piece. For this project, I had a very specific workflow, which I derived from the Corvette model, still in progress at the time. I blocked out the very front of the craft, and immediately went for minute details around the air intakes of the ship, which I had designed in and explained away for in-atmosphere travel and cooling. I continued this approach- blocking out small sections and completing them- for the entirety of the main body, completing most of its exterior before I moved on to the wings. As the wings would be much less noticed on the ground, as they would be packed above the ship when landed, I could afford to use less detail on them. For the wings, I blocked out the major shapes first, and went through my old process of detail passes through the model, slowly adding parts to each wing in tandem each time, mirroring the side wings, with the top wing completely separate. Once I had the entire ship’s exterior completed through a few minor passes and detail checks, I moved on to the interior.
A back view of the ship, showcasing a bit of the engine section and more of the wings.
The interior of the ship required me to core out sections that were cutting into the ship, something that I had disregarded earlier in my process. As Blender is a design software, it allows models to be inside each other, and I had to slowly move parts around and cut parts away until I had a viable internal space to work with. For the interior, I designed it for a frontal cockpit area and a back passenger area, with a drop-down door in the centre of the passenger bay. For this section, I first made a base interior blockout, then connected the front cockpit windows and the bottom drop-down door, so they would be usable for people to see through and exit through, respectively. Once that was completed, I did my typical detailing passes to cut away seat sections and detail the interior a bit. I left most of the interior empty for any props that would be added once the model was imported into the actual game, but made sure to include seats and necessary sections.
A wireframe view of the ship, showcasing a bit of the interior inside of it, but also highlighting the density of detail around individual areas.
