Time for artdump!
I'm working on a Yamataian power armor that I'm labelling as the M15 Kishi. This is hardly my first sketches of the design, but above is me revisiting the helmet and trying to figure out its functionality/versus how it'd look like.
It's meant to have a few criteria:
- Internal transparent durandium visor. Also meant to project visual HUD (think Star Trek 2009 movie viewscreen on the Enteprrise's bridge) if volumetric or in-OS alternatives are not possible/prefered.
- External armored visor. Opaque, eyeslit is actually just a sensor slit that's around the operator's eye level.
- Cowl-like insert. At base, the armor's insert serves as a hood to cover the wearer's head. The neck is especially thick to provide much improved resistance to head-directed blunt trauma as well as make most Mishhu head tearing/neck breaking tactics futile while retaining enough mobility to still move the head around.
- Helmet canopy has enough headroom to slid both visors upward and have them remain 'inside' the helmet rather than outside like a motorcycle helmet.
- The helmet is not removable by default. Rather it's part of the power armor's backing. Both 'jowls' split like mandibles, swivel up to align with the crown of the helmet along with the visors, and then the whole thing is moved around to rest behind the wearer's head instead.
Silhouette explorations regarding volumes on the unit.
This is where I settle on a semi-final helmet shape, and try to make it part of the rest of the suit. As in, I'm trying to figure out my volumes while trying -with difficulty- to have the design's part look like there not disparate.
The chestplate, like the helmet, is meant to open up to allow the wearer easy horizontal boarding of the unit. Main components for that is the dorsal backing, each sides of the chestplates, and each sides of the lower ribcage.
There's some struggle to get the shoulders into a condition I'd like, but the thick helmet is making it difficult. I settle on a look I kind of like, but try to find variations on it because it looks too much like it's inspiration; the Mass Effect's version of the Blood Dragon Armor. Balancing out the thick neck gives the temptation to significantly enlarge the shoulders, but that threatens to have me stray too much toward another of the suit's visual inspiration; Samus Aran's Gravity Suit.
I do try to cover the legs as well, but aside from some base notions, I was actually pretty blank on what I wanted them to look like. The only thing I settled on was the boots/feet... and they do look like Samus Aran's here, but I flagged it as "couldn't be helped" because there were good composition reasons I needed them to be that way. A boot is a boot.
The above is more work on the shoulders to try to stray away from the previously mentioned inspirations. I tried to change the orientations of the banded pieces of armor to match the ones on the torso, for one, but wasn't sure if I liked it. Tried playing some more with the shoulderblocks themselves, mostly based on their functionality (they have components in them that's supposed to fulfill a purpose). Namely, the shoulderracks are there, and supposed to be motorized to double as semi-turrets.
I originally tried to have each side have two, one that's maneuver over the shoulder, the other from under the armpit - and both would join together to carry bigger equipment pieces. As time goes by, though, I find that having only one per side may be better. For one, four would be too much of a departure from the previous M2 and M6 power armors. Also, having four would make operating the unit more complex for players - and the unit offers a lot of versatility besides that already. I figure if I want four, I can try in a future variant and allow room for upgradability.
I'm still not sure I want the shoulder-rack on the shoulder armor itself - that thing has to pivot around; I'm giving it a lot of movement room and having a holstered rifle swivel around on every shoulder movement looks really impractical. I'm thicking that the best way to apply the whole concept would be to have a shoulderblade-like armor plate suspended from the dorsal backing, and have that be the mounting point for the motorized shoulder rack.
Torso also got worked on, mostly from the point of view of from where the arm branches out. Also tried to get (unsuccessfully, I believe) visual cohesion between the chestplate and the ribcage plating.
Smaller doodles, mostly meant to tackle the Kishi from a full body view in an effort to make sure. Rightmost doodle is a clumsy rendering of how I'm figuring it'd open up.
Changed topic. Now on shuttlecraft.
Ship developped has been delayed mostly because I wanted to make sure of its scale. That scale would determine how many vehicles would fit into it, and the relatively size of components such as torpedo launchers on the 3d model. But for that to happen, I actually need to figure out the smallcraft and auxiliary craft it'd use.
One notion I realized when designing how I'd allocate internal space was how delta-shaped vehicles were
darned inconvenient to store. Yay rule-of-cool and aerodynamics, but you have up wasting a lot of space in a square area... and imbricking triangular crafts together like closed triangular sharkteeth is damnably impractical too.
The same goes for power armor weapons, really - the more squarish they are, the less space you're actually wasting.
So, the above was me trying to make a shuttlecraft more squarish - at least when seen from the top. I still wanted a sleek aerodynamic look.
I wanted the engine components to each side, somewhat inspired from the Banner of the Stars Calicke and the Kodiak shuttle from Mass Effect 2+. I wanted an unibody construction that wouldn't expose the sled-like engines like the T7 Raccoon does. I wanted to match other designs of mine with missle pods being mounted dorsally, fore and back. I wanted a cockpit usually manned by one, but with 2 jumpseats in case other people needed being involved in shuttle-oriented action. Then a passenger space for six person. An airlock at midline with ramps to the side, meaning that rear boarding was moswtly for cargo/power armor, while the side-doors would be for passenger and pilot usually. And the back is cargo space - meant for six power armor, typically.
Current state of the shuttle is not to my liking, but I'm getting there.
My ship doesn't just have shuttlepods; it also has a larger mission-specialized auxiliary craft - the Kanzashi-class corvette. Tried making a departure from the Hoshi/Byakuren/previous sketches and indulge rule of cool more to get a more aerodyne shape that would be able to fold back its wings when stowed inside a larger ship. Another departure from Hoshi/Byakuren is the bridge - there's none. This one is smaller enough that it doesn't pretend to be a Nozomi scout - it has a more shuttle-like cockpit.
I felt rule-of-cool was met, but practicality as a craft able to fulfill its expectations weren't. What exactly was I going to fit in that thing that wouldn't also sit nearly as equally well on a shuttlepod? I did arrange for twin armor bays, but previous roleplay with Hoshi indicated that having both of those got confusing location-wise to the roleplay of characters.
Another concern was how much internal space I was losing just to have the wings fold in. And why the slender neck? What would I fit in the slender neck that would have any use, or warrant some reason of having a structural weakness like that?
At the bottom, I ended up returning to the former shape - filling in the insides and sprouting another set of stubbier wings similar to sketches done before.
Not that I was exactly contented by that. I kept working on the shape, and once I got to the one at the center-top, I felt it was kind of nice and started detailing what interior I could make of that.
Space was at a premium and I was trying to make something advanced for a very small spaceship. After all, the point of using that craft was to do what shuttles could not: go on extended missions and be homebase of several armor teams; be an able short-range scout/stealth ship; provide decent fire support. One thing I did to save space was think of making crew quarters double as escape pods... and that got me thinking of making its insides modular so that such a ship could be adapted to multiple specialities (i.e: Kanzashi-class
medical corvette). So I created other module ideas for it.
But that got me thinking about how inefficient its silhouette was to stow in the allotment of modules I was trying to give it. Like the shuttle of earlier, the curves didn't seem to help it all that much on its top-down silhouette. That got me thinking of reducing them. That got me to the 2 ship sketches to the lower-right, with which I have good vibes.
The first I gave small sensor 'ailerons' to the front, and from the back was small forward-swept wings with 3 pivot points - when stowed those would curl over the roof of the craft and take less space.
The second... was at first inspired from the prevalency of pylons of the KFY gunboats/gunships and a previous idea about having a belly-mounted fold booster that would be pushed outerward/downward on struts before being in use. Pushing on with inspiration drawn from the Star Trek Online Aquarius Light Escort and the Banner of the Stars Flicaubh attack ship... I figured that it might be nice if I could have gravimetric drive nacelles that would extend out, and the graviton control in them could have them double up as railgun weapons at the same time.