Panzer IV D

I have not earned any money on Turbosquid yet, so I have to make some more models! But quantity is not everything, I want to make this as detailed as possible. The last three days I worked on this WW2 German Tank "Panzer IV D". I think it will be finished soon :)





Progress

The Hangar/Gate

I was really uncertain if and how I should add a big hangar with gate on the front part of the spaceship. First I thought it would be a great idea to place it on the very front, but it kind of looked silly, like a face of an animal or a dragon. Could be nice in some cases, but I didn't want that. So I placed it on the back part of the front. It is not the biggest Hangar, it can maybe fit 4 tanks or so. At the same time it could be the main entrance for the crew.
Since I decided to place the thrusters on/in the wings there is plenty space for a much bigger hangar on the tail section. Pictures will follow.

Inspration From Everyday Life

I got stock with my actual project, the space carrier, But today I saw this hairdryer in the bathroom and I kind of liked the design and I thougt immediately that it looked like a turbine or thruster thingy. It matches with the clean style of the rest of the ship, so I decided to apply this somehow to the turbine under the upper wing. this is far from the final design, but I think it is a good point to start with.

My first model is on Turbosquid!

Here it is. I Just uploaded the Tie Fighter on Turbosquid :)
http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/794063

Side Projects

So, I decided to edit this post, whenever I make some other models, which don't are related to my biggest project yet - namely the big spaceship (which still has no name).

This is what I made the last couple of hours. I love Tie Fighters!

Well, this is a picture of the very first 3D model i'm going to (hopefully) upload for sell on the3dstudio.com today :) I'm excited!

And the Star Wars session goes on!

The Brigde/ Cockpit

This is roughtly how the bridge will look like.. (Side panels and roof is hidden to have a look inside)

Worked a little more on the interior. I imagine a big som kind of projected windshield under the armor plating instead of using glass/windows.

Guns!

What would a spaceship be without guns??
I don't want to destroy the ships clean style, so I decided to to make them dissapear under the plating. When it needs to shoot, they will be pulled out and ready to fight.

The technolgy for the guns need to some kind of Tesla/electric/Laser thing. I don't want them to look like any other guns I found on the web so far.

Update! This is the more or less final gun:

New Project

The last couple of weeks consisted of learning, learning, learning... for university.. So I had to take some time off and what would be better than some modelling sessions, right?
A couple of days ago I found some very inspiring Sci fi animations on youtube, made with Blender. The guys channel is Daniel Brown CGI. He has some nice tutorials and ery impressive animations of spaceships he has designed by himself. You definately have to check it out! here and here.
So I got inspired of his works, since I myself am a sci fi fan. So I started, modelling a my own spaceship, instead of learning for exams....

During the modelling, I realized that the front didn't match with the tail, so yesterday I spend many hours on developing a new front and I ended with this:

There is still MUCH MUCH work to do, since I also want to design the interior. 
The little red dot indicates the size of a 1,90m tall human, just to have an idea of how big it is.
The idea is, that the clamps on the middle part are a kind of launchers, where I later will place smaller fighters.
I decided to place the thrusters on the back of the (very thick) wings. When I researched on space/sci fi thrusters/ engines, they all kind of looked like something we now from our real world, even in movies like Star Wars. I think this seems a little unrealistic, making some turbines, that look like the ones we now from airplanes, when they are able to fly fasther than light...
About the style..I think it is a blend of some newer Star Wars thingy and it got a touch of TRON.. maybe because I listened to the TRON OST while modelling?
What do you guys think? Do you like it? any suggestions? Something you hate on this model as sci fi fan? Whatever you have in mind, I would like to read some comments :)

My Developement

These are renderings from my very first Blender projects.
Skilled users of 3D software recognize instantly the lack of knowledge about light setup, texturing, perspective and especially composition. I still have to fight with these topics, but I would say it is becoming better in recent work, whick you may be can see on the pictures above... (I hope)

My Blender Work

About one and a half years ago I started usinf Blender to make 3D models just for fun. Until then I ised Sketchup, which btw is a very nice piece of software. But, as the name already describes, it is a tool for sketching - and not for making any complex models, which should look photorealistic, could be exported to any game engine and so on. So I decided to use Blender instead. I knew it ever since I started using Sketchup, but I was really scared about its very complex looking interface. It was really a hard software to manage, when I was used to simple interaction like in Sketchup. (Recently I read a text, where the point was, that complex interaction is not always something negative, but instead gives us a bigger understanding of how it works and it is a kind og necessity for making smart interaction like on a smartphone or computergame.) Even though it was hard to start with, I found some really nice tutorials (eg. Blenderguru.com and Blendercookie) which helped me to understand how to use it. I learned so much in the last couple of mounth, that I can't resist trying out new thing in Blender every day, just because there are so many possibilities. My purpose is NOT to make any advertisment for Blender, but i am a big fan of open source software, and here Blender comes in very handy.
Long, boring intro - sorry for that! My purpose with this blog is to share my developement within Blender. My eyes hurt, when I look at some renderings I made a year ago, and they will hurt in a year too, when I look back at what I am making now. At least I hope that's the case, because then I know, that I actually am becoming better and better.

Enjoy my blog
Kelvin