Designing ships [possible BFG scale]

[Malika]

[mangozac]

Maybe around 60mm diameter?

[Malika]

Considering the castability of my models, I never even considered this for my original Legion ship, assuming if it could be printed, it could be cast, not considering all the undercuts.

So now I have this awesome ship design, but it might be a challenge to cast easily. Which means it's tweaking time! Since the first print I've slightly updated the design, and now this process will continue. Undercuts and such will be removed, whilst maintaining the model's original aesthetic. Let the challenge begin!

[Islacrusez]

Is it really that uncastable?

[Malika]

I noticed there were quite a lot of undercuts, tried to get them out. Especially the thrusters and distortion engine can cause problems. The torpedo prow might be a bit tricky as well, not sure yet.

I've tweaked the whole ship here and there, especially the area surrounding the thrusters have received a make over and the thrusters themselves are also a separate part now:





Especially the Distortion Engine will need some work, I'm also planning on making the round components removable.

[mangozac]

I didn't see any big casting issues on the first design. Perhaps you need to actually just try out some casting before you go doing too much tweaking. Small undercuts aren't a big deal with silicone moulds (and large undercuts are still possible, they just have the trade off of shorter mould life).

[Malika]

Well, you might be right. I just wanted a design that's also super easy to produce. Then again, it's also a perfect excuse to revisit the ships again and try to make them cooler.

In the meantime I made a scale picture of the Legion ships I've got so far:


And yes, that little fellow is the latest addition to the Legion family...

[Malika]

Legion battlegroup (will come up with a more corporate, less war sounding title)



As you can see the escort is finished (for now), which means I'll be making some test prints at Shapeways in the coming days.

[mangozac]

From what little I can make out of it the escort design looks quite cool!

Also, I don't mind the working title

[Malika]

Thing with the working title is that I want the Legion to be very.... To them everything is abstracted to some sort of business lingo. Forced assimilation is a merger, conquest is an acquisition, execution a 'biological layoff', and so on. Kind of imagine the way Donald Rumsfeld was talking about the Iraq was when it just started (terms like 'theater of operations' and such), and then turn up the notch to 11.

I would imagine the Legion would do horrible things that come with war, maybe even a level higher, but in their language it is so abstracted that it just sounds like some sort of business deal rather than for example genocide.

[Malika]

Look what Malika just ordered to test print...

[Malika]

Look what arrived at my doorstep...





First of all, apologies for the bad quality photos. I'm not that great a photographer, and I should perhaps have the models primed/painted to do them true just since this see-through stuff makes the lighting very annoying.

I must say that the quality of the FUD print isn't as bad as I expected! I really thought it was going to be a lot worse. However, this doesn't mean that it's suitable for casting, there are still visible print lines and there are some tiny inaccuracies in the prints here and there (which weren't on the model).

Looking at the model I'm quite happy how it turned out, some of the smallest details on the ship are around 0.15mm and even they are pretty visible. I wonder how they would look lie with a layer of paint...

[Malika]

Been playing a bit with SketchUp's colours...



For some reason I imagine the Legion's basic colour scheme to be grey, the blue is just a very...well, trendy futuristic colour I guess!

I'm imagining the basic game/battles to be some form of internal strife, it's the Legion fighting itself. I would imagine this strife, or at least the main campaign/storyline for the space ship game to be along the lines of either a colonial war or a war between equalized powers.

The colonial war would be very much like the wars of independence throughout the Americas. The colonies didn't really seek independence because they wanted everybody to live in freedom (Haiti probably being the big exception), their resistance has been very economic/political in nature, especially in Latin America, meaning they wanted to get more power and profit, not longer interested in sending it off to the distant throne in the old continent. In case of the Legion these would be more 'distant' colonies (subsidiary worlds) that seen great autonomy, forming their own alliances. Of course the Legion as whole isn't so happy about this idea and starts sending in their fleet to teach these secessionists a lesson.

The war between 'equal powers' would be akin to two colonial powers fighting amongst themselves for domination. Kinda like the British versus the French I guess. Perhaps some sort of 'small Psidemic' occurred, leaving vast parts of the Legion empire separated, it basically cut the empire in two factions, both believing themselves to be the true Legion. They try to establish new colonies and outdo the other one. It could also be more of a Cold War scenario in which both these factions try to fight a proxy war, akin to the Soviets and Americans. But then with elements of the French/British wars (got to love naval war).

All very possible scenarios of course. I would imagine that symbolically these factions be white (pearl) and black (obsidian), each a different aspect of the Legion, together being Legion grey. Oh well...food for thought!

[Islacrusez]

While different, I'm afraid it comes across as terribly bland... You seem to have reduced a sci-fi world to chess; black against white, equal in all respects. I expect there is far more to it, but that's just the way it feels.

On the other hand, I do like what you were saying with regard to the Legion being corporate, as that has a nice feel to it, somewhat unique but not outlandish. Bring it alive by giving them a completely different faction to face, perhaps some power-hungry warlords or passionate rebels?

[Malika]