Lovely renders

I know, I know... It's pretty bad, but hey, I like it.

Destiny Jumpship

Been playing a lot of Destiny, love it.

Random snapshots of various things

Report: History and Suspected fate of The Aztec

History and Suspected fate of The Aztec

Filed by: CODENAME GARDENER

Date: REDACTED

Location: REDACTED

TOP SECRET

EYES ONLY

>BEGIN REPORT

Afternoon sir,

Well, you certainly like to set interesting tasks, don't you?

The Aztec was a luxury cruise liner, more like a flying city than a ship. It was a resort for the ultra rich and about as exclusive as you can get. It's construction wasn't greatly publicised, and the construction details were never officially released, hence no one had ever really heard of it. Being as less than one percent of one percent of the population could even dream of affording a ticket, the existence of the ship was basically passed on by word of mouth among the A-list celebs of the era. Records are sketchy, but from what I can tell, it entered service about 50 years ago. The crew were recruited from all over the place, but a lot seemed to come from New Milan.

Must be something about the food there, I think.

Anyway, they mostly lived aboard the ship, lessening the contact with the outside universe. So, a super luxury retreat for the ultra paranoid. Lovely.

The Aztec tended to avoid populated systems, and cruised through the frontier worlds, visiting as yet unsettled planets, I suppose to give that 'exploration and frontiersman' kind of feeling for the passengers. In reality, The Aztec was actually just the main ship in a small fleet of tender vessels. Scout ships would travel ahead of it and make sure the planets were safe to visit (i.e. no dangerous wildlife, or pathogens as well as suitable environment). Appendix 4a is as complete a map as I can find of where The Aztec went.

As far as construction goes, this thing was like nothing else. The designers seemed to want to guarantee the safety of the passengers without ever including weapons in the design. The central power system was actually 24 smaller generators capable of operating alone or in tandem, and the power output at peak capacity rivalled some of the biggest warships we have ever built. Of course, most of the energy was focused on maintaining the ultra high class lifestyle the passengers wanted, but when trouble loomed, The Aztec boasted triple layered shields and a thruster and linear jump system that could outrun pretty much anything, despite its massive size.

And now we come to the really interesting part of the story, and, I suspect, the real reason you wanted this report; the fate of The Aztec.

After nearly thirty years in service, the war brought galactic tourism crashing to a halt almost overnight. No matter how good the ships were, patrons lost all confidence in their ability to keep them safe, and so most cruise liners were mothballed. Some ended up being requisitioned for the war effort, as troop carriers or hospital ships and the like.

Now, this is where it gets really strange. The records show that a ship matching all characteristics of The Aztec (but also unnamed), was registered as being in orbit around the second moon of Darius for around five years. However, records from that region survived relatively well, and there is absolutely no corroborating evidence that the ship was ever there. No sightings from observatories, no listing on the in system traffic system, nothing. Quite what the ship did during these years is a complete mystery, and one that is well beyond my ability to solve. What we do know is that five years into the war, The Aztec suddenly arrived at Carran, and an enormous refit of the ship began. It was supposedly sponsored by a 'reclusive billionaire' which is media-speak for 'we are being paid a lot of money not to talk about this'. All the workers and equipment for the refit had been arriving in system for weeks prior to the ships arrival, under the pretence of defence planning. Everyone thought they would be building bunkers and the like, but as soon as The Aztec arrived, work began in orbit. The ship was essentially turned into an ark. Survival gear, rations and supplies were fitted in incredible amounts. Now, as you must be suspecting, Carran was right behind the front lines during this period, and soon enough, the war arrived there. The Navy put up a hell of a fight, and held the combat to the outer system for almost a week. During this time, The Aztec began loading passengers. Quite how anyone was chosen isn't known, but it seems from the records I can find (among the debris, Carran was really trashed), that the architects of this plan wanted as much genetic variety as possible. All different races and nationalities were taken aboard, some even against their will, if what I found is true.

With the destruction of Carran only a day away, The Aztec finally broke orbit and fled. Whatever refit they did to her, the engines still worked fine, because she hit the jump point in only a couple of hours. And there ends my report. No known records exist of her intended location, and no sightings have ever been made since. The Aztec simply vanished.

You didn't ask for a conclusion, but I'll give one anyway. The survival equipment, the resources, the weird passenger selection. It seems pretty clear to me The Aztec was intended as an Ark. I have to imagine they are out there someday. Perhaps we'll find them.

Yours,

G

>END REPORT

Greeble study - Broadside

Decided to try a slightly more detailed model. Its not a whole ship, just a slice out of the side of a battleship. Enjoy!

USS Amazon

Well, Star Trek is out, and it was good, so here are some star trek ships! The first was just an experiment, the second was something I actually worked at. Enjoy!

Bonus pic: parallel universe fight!

Back again!

Same ship, slightly updated. Point defense guns, a couple other little details and some interior hanger spaces.

Enjoy :)

It's been a while.

Been playing a lot of Halo 4 lately, and after seeing the Infinity (which is a DAMN good looking ship), I thought I'd have a go at something similar. Though as you can tell by the windows, this one is a bit smaller.

Anyways, that was just an evening messing about. Enjoy folks.

Corvette

Minecraft!

I play a lot of Minecraft, some survival, some building just for the fun of it. Here's something I've been working on for a while: The city of Fans and Light, and the city of Blades and Shadow.

The city of light floats above, thanks to massive fans and balloons.

The market district, with stalls and the docks for skyships

 

The central administration building, containing immigration and the post office.

The rich district. Large houses, unrivalled views. 

The poor district. Cramped, but at least they get daylight.

The central plaza of the City of Shadows. I tried to make it look as though the building were crumbling away, and had been repaired with wood. 

Temple district. the walls all around the city are crumbling with age and neglect.

Star Wars!

I've recently dug out my old copy of Star Wars Battlefront 2, which thankfully still works on the 360. its a brilliant game, even now. And, with that, my love of Star Wars is coming back too, so expect to see several models on that theme coming up. I'm far too lazy to copy the designs exactly, so mostly my ships are 'inspired by'. So with that in mind, here is a ship based on the Acclamator Assault Ship.

Interiors

A quick something I was working on the other day, pictures aren't brilliant, sorry about that!

Love the hologram table.

View from a side corridor

Details and paint

Here's what will likely be the finished version of the ship I posted earlier. A bit more detail and a nice paint job!

Afternoon doodle!

Trying out a new technique I've been thinking about and this is what I can up with!

Let me know what you think!

3D Warehouse

For anyone who happens across this blog, some of my models are uploaded to SketchUp's 3d warehouse, so you can download them for yourselves. If anyone more artistically talented than me wants to paint them, or improve them, then please go right ahead, I'd love to see what you can do!

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?viewer=0350943216192127381335382&scoring=m

A few quick previews

These are a few of the things I've made recently, and I don't think I've posted any of them before. Mostly they are, of course, spaceships! They range from done to very much work in progress. I don't tend to colour them very often, so for now they remain the default SketchUp colour. Enjoy!

I'm not really very good at this...

I keep forgetting I have this blog. There generally isn't a day when I don't at least mess around with ideas on SketchUp, but I rarely post anything on here. Add to that a rather dire internet connection and you get a rather neglected blog, as evidenced by my pitiful amount of posts, and absolutely no comments!

I know my models aren't exactly brilliant, but I only make them for fun. My laptop can't really handle much detail before it crashes, so I tend to make very basic models. But I'd really appreciate anyone who stops by leaving a comment or something, I like to discuss things, on topic or not. Hell, if you just want to argue about which is the best spaceship ever, I'm totally happy to do that. In return, I'll try to post a bit more of my stuff, and generally improve my skills. With that in mind, here's something I made this morning:

It's a spaceplane, mostly ripped off from Halo Reach. It has a basic interior, which I will hopefully be improving soon, and then adding a paint job.

TL;DR I will try and post more, LOOK AT THE PRETTY SPACESHIP!

Upgradable ships

I've had this idea for a while, and my laptop is littered with failed attempts. What I wanted to make was a ship that would fit into an RP type game, where the player could buy upgrades as they progressed. What was most difficult was making there some sort of visible progression from one to the next, and making each step up more powerful or more useful. So, with that in mind, here they are. I've included a person and a 50m line for scale.

Frigate

Heavy Frigate

Cruiser

Carrier

Battleship

Dreadnought