Among the various side projects I’m working on, I’ve been dabbling back in 3D animation as of late. Some of you may notice I haven’t updated my TIE Interceptor- but I assure you it’s not for a lack of trying. It appears to be sealed in the hard drive of my old computer. It’s not lost per-say. It just needs to be recovered, which I haven’t had the desire to do yet. But eventually I will and when I do- it’ll be there lol.
Anyways, I had the urge to build something larger then my previous TIE Fighter, but I didn’t want to build necessarily something massive like a Star Destroyer. A bit of inspiration later and I’m building a CR90, or better known as the Rebel Blockade Runner. Being the very first ship featured in a Star Wars film, the CR90 has always appealed to me due to its unique shape and wonderful design.
Luckily, I’ve been able to get my hands on some great reference images and the building process has been moving along wonderfully. The hardest part was blocking out the shape in great enough detail that I could be confident with the shape. “Official” blueprints are as usual completely useless. Though they always appear to look right at first glance, they usually don’t match up with reference material from the film, or the actual props. As a result, it took a couple hours of tweaking to get the shape correct.
After the shape was blocked out I decided to work from the middle out (more or less). The idea was I’d rather get the main bulk of the ship correct, so that all further adjustments (longer/shorter, fatter/slimmer) can sorta have a ripple effect. Maybe it’s a crazy theory, but when I made the TIE I designed it from the wing tip inward and I made for a lot of edits later into the process.
You’ll note perhaps two things from the images. The first, is that the cannons aren’t accurate to the screen. It wasn’t from a lack of reference material but rather because I didn’t believe the guns (as mounted in the film) could actually work. Namely I don’t see how they could properly rotate to be effective. But I’m not sold on my current configuration. I liked them at first, but I’m wondering if maybe I should just settle with the normal configuration and stop thinking about it too hard. Or maybe make minor edits to make them work as they should.
The next thing you may note is the wonderful lighting. I recently discovered the Arnold render engine which replayed Mental Ray. It should say how long I’ve been using old software considering I didn’t realize Arnold replaced it some years ago! But, that aside I really love the system and how easy it is to use. Not to mention the huge variety of effects you can create.
With the next edit I will have the top side of the main body finished- I am desperately eager to achieve that goal. Once finished, I’ll probably start working on the top ridge of the craft, finishing that so I can begin work on the underside.