3D sketching #1

After Shiptember I’ve been thinking about how to speed up my ship design process. This is what I’ve found.

A couple of weeks back I spent about an hour roughing out some shapes in 2D and very quickly came up with x9 silhouettes.
I did this without stopping and overthinking too much as that’s where I start to slow down, noodling details. From here I then added another layer of colour and drew for about an hour again, but this time looking for interesting lines that followed the flow of my initial sketches, easy! Once I had done all nine, the next step was to make copies and merge two of the ships together creating a variant. I found by repeating this process I could easily combine/erase existing shapes and create over 40 ship designs in an afternoon.

This obviously isn’t anything new, I’ve even tried it before myself about ten years ago when attempting mechs for the first time. It is however super useful, if you’ve not given it a go for some time.

With all the messy sketches down, I made a start on my first model last week, but again I’m keeping these fairly quick and rough too. The design hasn’t changed much from that 2D sketch, it’s lacking refinement but I’ve managed a couple of test renders and for a days work I’m happy enough with the result.

Finally I have a goal to give myself a little break each week from the dreaded applications of doom and rejection emails that follow 👎 Remember, give yourself some time to create! If you’re also going through all of this uncertainty right now, you need a little time. I promise, It helps!🙏