"Atlantic Class"
Heavy Cruiser 1-1

"Atlantic Class"
Heavy Cruiser 1-2

"Atlantic Class"
Heavy Cruiser 1-3

Chris Foss
Factory Starship
Leaving Orbit

ATLANTIC CLASS HEAVY CRUISER: A TRIBUTE TO THE GAME "TRAVELER"

Atlantic Class Heavy Cruiser 1-1 and 1-2 are two images of a low-technology fusion powered military starship. The design is based on the Atlantic Class Heavy Cruiser created by Paul Jaquays in 1981 for the science fiction role playing game "Traveller." His design is featured in the "Traveller" reference booklet Supplement 9 Fighting Ships. I did my initial version of the Atlantic Class in the spring of 2003 using TrueSpace 6.5 in order to practice creating my own custom texture maps using Corel Draw and Corel Photo-Paint. The custom maps are used for the upper and lower surfaces of the main hull, the weapons bays, the antenna arrays mounted on top of the superstructure, the engine exhausts and various window details. Some existing textures were used to start the custom textures and also used for other parts of the hull. A Simbiont Dark Tree texture was used for the details along the spinal-weapons mount on the forward portion of the main hull as well as the two large openings in the aft portion of the main hull. One of the backgrounds was from the Amazing Sci-Fi Textures collection by Marlin Studios. Another background, running lights and engine glows were added using Universe Image Creator. In the summer of 2004, I did an updated version of my variation of the Atlantic Class Heavy Cruiser using TrueSpace 6.6. I tweaked some of the textures and added an image with orthographic views of the vessel.

FACTORY STARSHIP: A TRIBUTE TO SPACE ARTIST CHRIS FOSS

The design of Factory Starship is based on an illustration done by space artist Chris Foss as pre-production art for the science fiction/horror movie Alien. Foss's illustration can be seen in The Book of Alien, published in 1979 by Heavy Metal Communications. Factory Starship was modeled and rendered using TrueSpace 6.6. I created the custom yellow and black hull textures using Corel Draw 12. The background for the nebula image come from a Hubble Space Telescope website. The running lights and engine exhaust were added using Universe Images Creator 1.63. Chris Foss is one of my two favorite space artists / speculative spaceship design heroes.

STARSHIP EPIPHANY: A TRIBUTE TO SPACE ARTIST ROBERT McCALL

The Starship Epiphany images are a tribute to the spaceship design in space artist Robert McCall's 1991 painting, Valley of a Billion Stars. McCall's painting can be seen on page 111 of The Art of Robert McCall: A Celebration of Our Future in Space, published in 1992 by Bantam. Starship Epiphany was modeled and rendered using TrueSpace 6.6. The backgrounds come from a Hubble Space Telescope website; the one for the Valley of a Billion Stars tribute has been heavily modified using Photoshop 7, Corel Photo-Paint 12, and Universe Image Creator 1.63. The running lights and basic engine exhaust were also added using Universe Images Creator with the engine blast receiving some final tweaking in Corel Draw 12. While I perceive McCall's spaceship design as a large exploratory vessel perhaps hundreds of meters long, I believe it could also be interpreted as a sizable interstellar probe directed by a sentient computer. Robert McCall is of my two favorite space artists / speculative spaceship design heroes.

BATTLESHIP ZERVAFFENTHAN: A TRIBUTE TO "STAR WARS"

The Imperial I Class Star Destroyer from "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" is one of my all time favorite starship designs. The Zervaffenthan Class Battleship is my tribute to this well known science-fantasy vessel. While not set in the "Star Wars" universe, my ship is obviously a variant upon the Imperial I Class. This project was my first attempt at virtual "kit-bashing" using 3D meshes from fellow artists. I started out with a very detailed mesh of the Imperial II Class Star Destroyer, a 14 MB 3D Studio Max model by Thomas Ganshorn available as a free download from www.theforce.net/scifi3d/. This model was imported into TrueSpace 6.6 and then converted into a TrueSpace COB object. I made just a few changes to the existing model itself, mostly deleting details I wanted to replace. These alterations are most evident in the bridge module, conning tower, and forward underside hangar bay. New detailing was added by importing meshes from two sources. The first is fellow Renderosity artist and TrueSpace user Steve Wilson who kindly provided me with a generous selection of detailing parts he has used on his fabulous starships. I used his meshes mostly for weaponry and extra detailing on the superstructure. The other source of imported detailing parts is my own Upholder of Honor.