I want Serenity from Firefly/Serenity

[FLGMwt]

Why, who wouldn't want her, being the best boat in the Verse (save for a crappy compression coil or two). ; D

I plan to model the titular character of the cult show/movie Firefly/Serenity. Given, I'm about a couple weeks fresh in this 3d art endeavor, but the Intro to Maya 2013 gave me a little bit of confidence to follow a few reference images. I will use Maya and Photoshop for the model(novice in both) and I intend to finish with a flyby animation or possibly a ship crawl Star Wars fakeout. As I mentioned, I'm very new and I would appreciate any type of feedback on the project. My feelers are pretty stiff and I'm intentionally striving for a challenge, so no graceful bush beating required.

Will post sketches tomorrow but fair warning, they'll be bad. Cheers and thanks mods and DT ^.^

inb4 - dibs

Update 1 - 7-5 10:58CST

Woke up and found some good reference pics, including a pretty high res shot that seems to be the one used in all the marketing shots and such. Pretty ship.

Spent about an hour on the body and neck and got this so far. bodneck2.jpg Not overwhelmingly confident about my geometry but I think I was trying to be too strict with the source and I'm not good enough to do that yet. Hooray learning, wot.

[Daniel "Sound"]

How could I have not thought of serenity? ><; good idea, I'll enjoy seeing the development of this one ^^ going to probably even re-watch all the episodes and the movie now

[justin_m]

Shiny! Can't wait to see it!

[chrisg]

Ooooh, nice. Can't wait to see it take shape!

edit: that's the second post I replied a minute later than Justin ><

[FLGMwt]

Update 2 - 7-5 3:30 CST

Maybe it'll get easier? O.o backandring.jpg

[FLGMwt]

Update 3 - 7-5 5:31CST

Having to work and look at that hideous front makes me want to start that part again. But later. Mehhh.

I was excited to start on the engine because of its many rotation possibilities. From my references, the curl of the engines was pretty clear but the twisting seems impossible due to a few structures that appear under the wing and connecting the wing to the engine group. If anyone knows where the origin of the rotation about X, feel free to chip in with your impressively esoteric trivial knowledge. Tried watching the pilot where they do the flip thing but the shot is from the outer side of the engine and blocks the wing connection bit.

For the wing and simple engine, I basically followed the same method as the ship in the Intro to Maya 2013 course I did a week or two ago (by the way thanks for posting, Justin and Chris, should I celebrity swoon?). Did a Boolean difference for the wing cut that kept giving me errors for invalid NURBS shell but I think I accidentally got it to work by selecting the inside of the cutter object. Mreh. Many challenges yet to come it seems.

[kufskr]

OMG. I was trying so hard to think of something really good...and you...just found the best one I think. I'm pretty jealous I didn't think of this.

[Badgerbaiter]

Good luck with this. I have been wanting to do this for a long time... and the Sulaco... and the Roger Young...
I have a few reference images that you may not have unearthed if you wish...