posted 04-15-04 08:40 PM EDT (US)
Stage 1:
Bah... This is gunna take longer then building the model. The thing I like about making models from cartoons is they're uncomplicated. The thing I hate about them is they're uncomplicated. Since the clone wars cartoon's ships were made with cell shading, it's upto you to make the gradients and the shadows look real. But because there's such a low amount of detail, if you can, rely on different references DO IT. I made Skywalkers fighter from a toy. They're great if you can find them, better then blueprints.
This stage is easy. Take a cylinder, squash it and slice it in half. Then put a sphere in the middle. There, you're done.
Stage 2: You want to cap the end off with a box so there's a surface there, and it looks like it has some depth. You don't want it too wide, just enough to stand out. Now make a smaller one in the middle right behind it. Stretch the vertices along the edge that's touching the larger rectangle. All that's left is creating the four gun ports. You can do this by making one cylinder and then copying and pasting it where you want. Tip: When dealing with models with symmetry like this, it's better to have polygons overlap then to copy flip and paste everything. Stage 3: Notice that I've not only colored in the fan blade and the cockpit, but the gun ports too. This gives me a better idea on how I want it to turn out. Make two smaller rectangles that connect to each pair of gun ports. They should touch only the corners of the main support rectangle. Last... the ship has an extended body so take a cylinder, squash it, and reduce one of the ends. Stage 4: I needed to squash the two main boxes that go along the height of the ship because they were too wide. You can also smooth out the fan blade if you need to. To make the shape of the end of the gunports take out a cylinder with lots of sections. Select the bottom half and push it up as far as you can. Then select the right half and push it all the way to the left. There are plenty of other ways to make this shape but this technique only takes about 2 seconds and is all you really need for a swgb model. Stage 5: What you're going to do is slice up your sphere. You can do this by selecting all the surfaces you want and hitting If you really want to go into detail you can cut into the cylinder behind the cockpit and line up some rectangles to give it that jet intake look. You can do this with texturing but I prefer to do it this way. Last up is making that curved look. You can do this by making a box underneath and then smoothing it out. Or you can make a cylinder, cut out what you don't need, and then combine it with an existing polygon. Then add two cylinders for the lights and that's it. Stage 6: Create a cylinder and place them though where the guns connect with the brace rectangle. Then texture the fusalage and all the metal. You can find the full sized texture here: Stage 7: Texture the cockpit and shade the fan blades the correct colors as seen in your reference. By my count there should be eight blades. Stage 8: Voting for George Bush is like winning the Special Olympics. You might win but you'll still be retarded. [This message has been edited by Invertix (edited 04-16-2004 @ 02:51 PM).]
Texture the back of the guns and the fan blade and you're finished.
[¦Hair!¦]
