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guide:creating_a_starship

Creating a Starship or Power Armor

This in an ongoing list of resources to help you create an awesome starship, power armor, or similar technology.

Size Guidelines

Type SP Min Length Max Length
Small Escorts 10 30 meters 100 meters
Destroyers 20 100 meters 250 meters
Cruisers 30 250 meters 500 meters
Carriers, Heavy Cruisers 40 500 meters 1000 meters
Battleships 50 750 meters 1500 meters

What Resources Exist to Help Me?

Creating Articles

Templates

Guides

References

Tools

Creating Artwork

Artwork is required for starship submissions.

Art Programs

3D
  • DOGA (Free and very easy to use 3D package, similar to lego in feel; the preferred package of our community - beginner)
  • Google Sketchup (Free, Surprisingly powerful and easy to use free-form modelling package - intermediate)
  • Sculptris (Free 3D sculpting program for organic forms - similar to handling clay - intermediate)
  • Modo (Very powerful payware 3D program… Very easy to learn. Poor animation support. - advanced)
  • Cinema 4D (Rich 3D package with excellent animation tools but poor modeling and rendering tools - advanced)
2D
  • The GIMP (Free open source image editing program - beginner)
  • Paint.net (An impressive and free mspaint alternative, bundled with Windows 7. Download for 2000/XP/Vista - beginner)
  • Sai Painter (A cheap high end photoshop alternative, extremely popular with Japanese artists - beginner)
  • Pencil (Free open source 2D animation package, great for producing short cartoons - intermediate)
  • ArtWeaver (A cheap freeware alternative to Corel's Painter X, producing highly stylized work - intermediate)
  • Photoshop (An expensive professional suite of tools - extremely powerful - advanced)

Art Reference

SARP
Art theory
  • Beginner's guide to drawing (dotted over Expertvilliage's channel … lots of excellent tutorials for people who claim they can't draw)
  • CG Art Success (Great video tutorials for digital painting, color and design ideas … great resource)
The psychology of design
  • The Paradox of choice (More choice isn't always better… Choice can leave people unsatisfied. Here's why.)
  • Interview with Syd Mead (Get into the mind of one of the great designers of the 20th century… Tron, Short Circuit, Flight of the Navigator, Aliens, Gundam, 2010, Startrek, Wing Commander, Yamato 2050… You name it, he's done it.)
Visual references & inspiration
  • Gears Online (A breakdown of work by many popular Japanese mecha designers through the ages - Excellent if you're looking to study Japanese styling)
  • Collection DX (A good source of both Japanese and western mecha toy reviews, lots of transforming robots… Excellent way to rapidly broaden your frame of design reference for things like proportion, aesthetic and transformation mechanics)

Wanted Starships

What are the requirements/restrictions?

  1. Ships should use the Starship Template as a basis for their pages' format.
  2. Ships' “About the [Shipname]” sections should be at least two paragraphs long, with at least three sentences in each paragraph, all of which contribute to the description of what the ship is. The history section should be at least one paragraph. DO NOT post ship designs with just a one-sentence description!
  3. Ships must follow all the Submission Rules.
  4. Ships speeds should try to fit well with the Starship Speed Standard.
  5. Articles not yet approved MUST be tagged as not approved and should be listed in the WIP.
  6. Artwork is REQUIRED for starships and spacecraft, and strongly encouraged for all other submissions.

Where do I submit my design?


Quality:
guide/creating_a_starship.txt · Last modified: 2024/03/24 08:07 (external edit)