Aaron Reece's work

[willieharper]

a place for drunken Englishmen

[Slack-jaw]

Excuse the poor quality on the images. Home scanner broke, and am relying on the heinous iPhone camera for quick shots. Quality scans will be coming soon.

[kohldude]

Ships adorned with bodies and painted in blood? Someone's been watching Firefly much? :p

[Slack-jaw]

rescans from the previous stuff

[Slack-jaw]

new stuff. I have a 3D concept model with an AO render on the way.

[Slack-jaw]

AO renders

[kohldude]

Ooh that's hot stuff.

[Slack-jaw]

Areus (Initial mock-up)

[kohldude]

So far I've mainly been designing my craft with the ideal of a unibody (or mostly unibody) construction in mind, best embodied by this quote from the Aeran Ascendancy page (http://2.7kelvin.com/portfolios/Aeran-Ascendancy-portfolio),

Aeran ships are often described as having an overall appearance much as if they had been carved out of a single block of wood or sculpted down from a large stone rather than looking built up piecemeal, as some human designs are.
and a couple of the references to unibody construction and the rare visibility of boxy corners/edges on the fleet makeup page (http://2.7kelvin.com/portfolios/Aeran-Ascendancy-portfolio/fleet-makeup).

I'm going to attempt to shift a little bit closer towards your aesthetic of more planar faces but with nice soft plane changes and curved edges. Also those main thrusters on the Aerus are great.

[willieharper]

Aaron's latest

[willieharper]

The latest Aerus concepts from aaron

[willieharper]

and the last one

[Jack Sampson]

and the last one

The number one thing this ship is missing is retro thrusters. It is unclear how this craft will slow down, short of spinning on its axis and pointing its thrusters in the opposite direction :)

Also, on a minor universe-consistency note, a vessel this size isn't going to mount nearly so many (I believe I counted 12) military-grade combat lasers. No more than one or two actual lasers would be much more likely, although with possibly multiple turreted endpoints. My initial conception of the craft was for 1 fixed mount laser and 6 light ammunition-based weapons, as per http://2.7kelvin.com/portfolios/Aeran-Ascendancy-portfolio/fleet-makeup/areus (basic shape & rhythm, weapons and armor sections). While you should feel free to modify the specific counts to match what makes sense for the shape you end up producing (in this instance, going with 3 projections rather than 6 will certainly change numbers), 12 lasers doesn't happen to fit universe cannon for fighter sized craft (even larger ones).

It's a very pretty ship, with lovely lines, but it diverges a fair bit from what I had in mind. I like most of the individual pieces (the engines are quite nice, I like seeing the side thrusters, the hammer-head is very pretty, and that's a nice looking main gun), but I'd like to discuss some more how they work together to make the Areus.

Some background: The idea that I had with the Nicander and Areus designs was to play in two different ways on the sort of "armored tube with stuff on the side" idea. In the Nicander, the soft bits (cockpit, electronics, etc.) are protected from the engines by an (incomplete) armored tube, with the engines on the sides. With the Areus, the same concept exists, but inverted: The dangerous bits (engines, reactors) are kept within the (complete) tube, while the cockpit and other systems are strapped to the outside or on projections. This is how I saw the two ships in some ways tied to the design present in the much larger Anaxander, which itself is dominated by an engine tube with additional bits strapped on or buried in the middle of the ship.

However, that doesn't have to be how the ship ends up, so let's consider for the moment something more along the lines of what you have now.

Three projections instead of six is fine. Excepting the lack of retro thrusters comparable to the aft thrusters, I like your secondary thruster placement and the thrusters themselves. For stylistic consistency, have you considered making the projections with thick side forward (teardrop shape motif)? Also worth remembering if moving things around at all, on a ship this size, the engines and reactor are directly tied together, so be sure to keep the primary engines and retro engines near enough the reactor(s) that they could conceivably be tightly integrated.

Cockpit placement - the cockpit should be placed somewhere other than built onto an an engine. As an analogy, consider if there was a motorcycle where you had to sit directly on the engine block or radiator. The cockpit is the only part of the ship that has to be viable for life - to the degree possible on a ship this size (which isn't much), it should be isolated from the bits of the ship most hostile to life.

Spinal mount - the idea I had was that the single fixed point laser would be the primary assault weapon of this craft (good shield penetration, ergo decent at doing job of softening up surface targets such as sensors, point defense, turrets, etc. on capital vessels being targetted by Agis class vessels). While a more visibly external spinal mount has its nice aesthetic properties, you might want to consider something other than a particle beam, given that a capital vessels' shields will render the beam mostly shrugged off (the Areus isn't large enough to mount relativistic and/or neutralized particle beam weaponry that might be somewhat more effective for such a role). The Aera do quite well at making ammo based weapons whose rounds have shield penetrating capabilities, so that's always an option, and one that fits the short-barrel limitations of the Areus's size (as such weapons, not being kinetic impactors, do not rely on achieving extreme velocities).

Torpedoes: good as they are. However, should you wish to continue to change how they look, that's fine too - there are any number of reasonable ways to represent the torpedo loadout. 6 torps, as currently shown, is a pretty reasonable carrying target.

Hammerhead - looks sweet. I'll be interested to see how it fits in once the retro thrusters are added.

I'm very interested in seeing what this craft looks like once the retros are in - as I said before, the components are good and appealing, and I think once they all come together just a bit more, this whole vessel will look great

[Slack-jaw]

New revision with some adjustments.

I've added a dual cockpit with a saddle type cradle between the two connecting to the top extrusion. The cockpits themselves are designed to break away from the main housing to eject as escape pods from the main craft.

I've also placed the retro thrusters into the design at the front of the three extrusions. And I've started adding in some recessed lighting strips along the side of the spacecraft, and on the cockpit saddle structure. I've also placed small light markers at the tip of the hammerhead and the extrusions next to the thrusters.

As for the main weapon running down the center, that was intended to be the singular laser weapon defined in the boiler plate , but I mislabeled it as a particle cannon previously. Also, the six laser mounts are no longer labeled as lasers and are now just secondary cannons of some sort. No more particle cannons.

[kohldude]

The cockpits need to be larger in proportion to the rest of the ship. An Aera is 2-3 meters long roughly.

[Slack-jaw]

OK, so in an effort to find a better shape and look to the Aerus I've made a rough redesign that better fits whats listed in the boiler plate. Thanks to Chris Kohl for his assets to make quick roughs for my redesign process.

Some of the language in the boiler plate descriptions still confuse me. It makes it hard to understand certain design points on the Aerus. Jack, you have the vision of what you're looking for in the Aerus design. If you can provide a simple rough sketch outlining the basic shapes of the craft, I feel I can do my job much better and more efficient. (The cockpit design specified in the boiler plate is probably the most troublesome)

In this redesign I feel like I've better captured the basic look and shape of the Aerus. I still like the idea of a a fully forward, yet slightly recessed singular laser design. The boiler plate specified that the laser design was custom to the Aerus, so I felt more liberties can be taken with it. It's still up for change, I look forward to feedback.

I've also worked on a trio of torpedo warhead types to be used in conjunction with the Aerus's custom twin torpedo launchers. The torpedo design uses a singular main thruster with a four smaller thrust adjusters for flight control.

The first is your standard torpedo warhead. Big bang, nothing fancy.

The second is a sensor disruptor (chaff type) warhead. Once launched the body plates blow out and separate to reveal a hex shape design shape of 2 clusters of 6 canisters. The canisters eject from the warhead housing and explode to create a particle type cloud that can disrupt the sensors of enemy vessels and weapons.

Lastly there is the cluster bomb warhead. Similar to the sensor disruptor, but this employs spherical charges that detach and the open up to release several dozen smaller bomblets.

[Slack-jaw]

Last one showing the bomblet design

[Dee Bingo]

It's really looking good now but I think that the cockpits need to be moved back towards the middle of the fuselage as described. I would double-check the description to make sure you are touching on all of the specifics of the craft so that it will look more unique. Otherwise it looks pretty kick ass and I think we are definitely defining the Aeran aesthetic pretty damn well. :)

[Jack Sampson]

OK, so in an effort to find a better shape and look to the Aerus I've made a rough redesign that better fits whats listed in the boiler plate. Thanks to Chris Kohl for his assets to make quick roughs for my redesign process.

Some of the language in the boiler plate descriptions still confuse me. It makes it hard to understand certain design points on the Aerus. Jack, you have the vision of what you're looking for in the Aerus design. If you can provide a simple rough sketch outlining the basic shapes of the craft, I feel I can do my job much better and more efficient. (The cockpit design specified in the boiler plate is probably the most troublesome)

In this redesign I feel like I've better captured the basic look and shape of the Aerus. I still like the idea of a a fully forward, yet slightly recessed singular laser design. The boiler plate specified that the laser design was custom to the Aerus, so I felt more liberties can be taken with it. It's still up for change, I look forward to feedback.

I've also worked on a trio of torpedo warhead types to be used in conjunction with the Aerus's custom twin torpedo launchers. The torpedo design uses a singular main thruster with a four smaller thrust adjusters for flight control.

The first is your standard torpedo warhead. Big bang, nothing fancy.

The second is a sensor disruptor (chaff type) warhead. Once launched the body plates blow out and separate to reveal a hex shape design shape of 2 clusters of 6 canisters. The canisters eject from the warhead housing and explode to create a particle type cloud that can disrupt the sensors of enemy vessels and weapons.

Lastly there is the cluster bomb warhead. Similar to the sensor disruptor, but this employs spherical charges that detach and the open up to release several dozen smaller bomblets.

I'll try to produce some quick sketches (I apologize in advance - my sketches will be... wanting for talent) to help. I guess I really should have said slung like saddle-bags rather than slung like a saddle for the cockpit... but I'll try to make it much more clear. Pointing out where the language is unclear and needs more visual aids is great feedback for me, so thanks :)

[Slack-jaw]

Another revision of the Areus design.

I've shortened the extrusions, assembled them into hex shape design, and recessed the tips for the shell slingers to reside in. Added the 6 upward and froward/rearward maneuvering thrusters. Extended the length of the torpedo launchers, realigned the 8 missile pods around the top forward extrusion. Still iffed on cockpit.

Fleshed out torpedo design a little more.

[Jack Sampson]

I still owe you those sketches, sorry, work has been highly consuming - if i don't send them out soon, you or someone else should e-mail me so that I'm more likely to remember at a more useful time of day. :-/

Cockipit placement is pretty good now. Really like the work with the torpedoes. Torp launchers looking good.

Are those little round things on the end of the six projections intended to be anti-strike weapons turrets? If so, they're a bit smallish. I think for strike craft, even of this size on the larger end of the spectrum, we can shy away from full rotational turrets in lieu of structures suggesting limited freedom of movement on essentially forward facing weaponry. Depending on the particular type of weapon mount involved and the size of the craft, we may not even want to suggest much freedom of movement.

I'd aim, at least for the default weapons loadout, for trying your hand at imagining what an Aeran light artillery piece might look like - take, for instance, the M119, M777, or M198 howitzers (probably closer to the m119 in size than the other two, fwiw) as inspiration and apply an Aeran aesthetic to the fundamental physics problem of lobbing a warhead away from you at sufficient speed it's likely to be where your opponent is heading before he can change course :). Primarily forward facing, with mabe 10- 20 degrees of play in the mounting? Up to you. Those are my thoughts right now.

[Slack-jaw]

Been going through the motions with my computer, installing new hardware and reinstalling the OS. Haven't had a lot of time to work on anything this week, but I took your idea of a howitzer based weapon system and started to play with it.

The cap of the teardrop projection is a good installation point for a modular weapon system(s). I was playing with the idea of heavy fixed guns, to lighter adjustable guns, to multiple gun housings.

Tell me what you think. If I can grab those sketches from you by the end of the weekend that would be fantastic.

[Jack Sampson]

Perfect, perfect perfect! - those guns, and the modularity boundary (the tip of the projections) are just about exactly what I had in mind! :)

so, in the hopefully better late than never category, here's an Areus sketch from the original description: http://2.7kelvin.com/files/Areus_sketch.jpg

Note that I don't want you to go and redesign everything to look like this -- I just wanted to give more insight into how my mind works in terms of linking text on a page and images in my head.
(it also showcases some of the reasons I'm reluctant to rely on my drawing "skills" :-/ as communication tools, but perhaps between the sketch and the verbiage more things can be communicated than obfuscated)

[Slack-jaw]

Thanks for the sketch. It helps give me a better idea on certain design aspects of the ship. I'll get back to tinkering with the Areus ship design next week.

In the meantime, I've been playing with a modular torpedo launcher design. Its a recoil, thruster assisted design. You can interchange the recoil heads for faster reloading speeds and such.

My internet connection is ridiculously slow right now, slower than dial-up. I can't even upload the 3 250KB jpegs to this post. I'll upload them when my ISP starts acting right. (Stay away from AT&T U-Verse. Its a complete POS).

[willieharper]

Aaron sent me these for this week

[Slack-jaw]

I've got a revision of the Areus here. I've taken some points from the sketch and incorporated them into the design I've been working on. I've replaced the frontal recessed laser design with a single massive retro burner, and moved the laser itself up top as seen in the sketch. I'm getting somewhere with the cockpit design, let me know what you think.

I've added in the torpedo launcher and shell slinger designs I have been tinkering with. I've also started messing around with the idea of making the maneuvering thrusters modular. There would be a central housing that a cylinder type connector with varying thruster configurations can be attached to.

And per request from Platz, I've been playing with high poly normal map baking for low poly meshes. I've taken half of a redesigned chaff capsule from the chaff torpedo to demonstrate. I've done it all within Maya and its transfer map system, not using any external software.

Gamestepper is still being retarded when I try to upload images, so Willie will be uploading them shortly.

[willieharper]

Aaron's latest Aerus

[willieharper]

and the last of them

[Jack Sampson]

Fantastic!
You've made the Areus look great - and very definitely Aeran!
I'm particularly thrilled with your takes on modularity for the thrusters and the wing-tip weapons.
Cockpit size and placement looks good.

The only thing I'm not entirely getting is the feeling of from where/how the stored torpedoes are going to make it into the torpedo launchers. Maybe I'm just missing it. To the degree that we might want to make the torpedo storage or launchers upgradeable, (at least one of the two probably being true) perhaps we could have a magazine(the ammo storing kind, not conde nast ;-) ) bay on the bottom side of the vessel and the torp launchers linked to it somehow?

[Dee Bingo]

That looks bad ass Aaron! I agree with your use of the thrusters; they seem to make sense in this configuration. If this seems to be the reference point than maybe I should make more to accommodate craft of exceedingly larger scale(s)?

[Jack Sampson]

In case I forget to mention it soon enough elsewhere on the weapons page - those wing tip mounted weapons you did up for the Areus should be considered pretty damn good starting points for any work on the Makhaira series of Aeran small craft weapons.