Jayfourke
Thames-Class Coastguard Patrolboat
Well, here we go. It's done. I don't know what to say about this. It's been an uphill struggle to finish. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but I don't know why. I love the cockpit and the stripe. But I say that about everything I ever build. I like the slide doors on the roof too. Got to have yellow and black warning stripes. There's loads of little bits and designs that I really like, but I think the end result leaves something more to be desired. Like a better end result.
I think part of the problem is that I feel compelled to add some kind of bonus hanger bay. I did the same thing last SHIP, the Random Octangent. But that was even gimmickier, since it had a petrol station on the roof. But in this build, I'm dedicating a 20x20 square to a elevator system. So to get the narrow, slim cockpit design there's got to be a lot of growth in between. That being said, the elevator system works adequately well, controlled by the middle engine.
I don't like the panel system as much as I thought I would. The attachment method isn't particularly strong. It's also quite prone to shifting a bit and it's difficult to line up exactly, as is probably evident in some pictures.
The engines started off as a huge afterthought, but I'm pleased with the big black panels of bizarre angular bodging that I managed to fashion and hide the unsightly gaps caused by my disregard for technic's angular system and how it factors into normal system angles. I made it work somehow.
The interior is sparse, and there's a very simple reason for that. I got fed up of it after a while. Once again, I made the fatal error of building a tough exterior shell and by the time the technic beams were locked together I couldn't actually build an interior that would connect to the ceilings. Also, I have less light grey bricks than I thought, so that was an issue too. I'm swimming in plates. Who knew. So the interior's quite empty and very open-plan, which isn't really ideal on a spaceship where you'd expect space to be a premium and every square inch utilised.
In terms of inspiration: The cockpit design is based on this concept art www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2014/gurmukh_bhasi... , but the rest of the ship is more inspired by this www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2015/steve_chinhsu..., which is also where I got the idea that the ship should be able to deploy ground units.
I am aware that the photography is appalling, and I'm sorry. I feel like a half-baked SHIP with half-baked photography is doing the concept a disservice, but oh well. I'll try taking more pictures again, and maybe a video too, if I can make myself sound cheerful enough to want to submit it.
Length is roughly 122 studs long, 46 wide and 22 high. I don't know how many pieces are in it because that's a stupid statistic. Time to build is a month or so, give or take. Some days I just looked at it forlornly and wondered where I was going. Other days work got done.
Finally, a bit of a fictional backstory. It's designed to be a coast guard ship, essentially. No guns, but heavy, segmented exterior plating for durability. The front section is black because it's heat-shielded (and certainly not because I built the cockpit in black first and didn't want to change it.) It's designed to perform SAR functions such as rescuing lost and stranded ships, attending and scouting planets for shipwrecks, and so on.
Let me know what you think of it. After writing all this out and realising how harsh a critic I am of my own attempts, it would be nice for someone else to tell me they like it.
Thames-Class Coastguard Patrolboat
Well, here we go. It's done. I don't know what to say about this. It's been an uphill struggle to finish. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but I don't know why. I love the cockpit and the stripe. But I say that about everything I ever build. I like the slide doors on the roof too. Got to have yellow and black warning stripes. There's loads of little bits and designs that I really like, but I think the end result leaves something more to be desired. Like a better end result.
I think part of the problem is that I feel compelled to add some kind of bonus hanger bay. I did the same thing last SHIP, the Random Octangent. But that was even gimmickier, since it had a petrol station on the roof. But in this build, I'm dedicating a 20x20 square to a elevator system. So to get the narrow, slim cockpit design there's got to be a lot of growth in between. That being said, the elevator system works adequately well, controlled by the middle engine.
I don't like the panel system as much as I thought I would. The attachment method isn't particularly strong. It's also quite prone to shifting a bit and it's difficult to line up exactly, as is probably evident in some pictures.
The engines started off as a huge afterthought, but I'm pleased with the big black panels of bizarre angular bodging that I managed to fashion and hide the unsightly gaps caused by my disregard for technic's angular system and how it factors into normal system angles. I made it work somehow.
The interior is sparse, and there's a very simple reason for that. I got fed up of it after a while. Once again, I made the fatal error of building a tough exterior shell and by the time the technic beams were locked together I couldn't actually build an interior that would connect to the ceilings. Also, I have less light grey bricks than I thought, so that was an issue too. I'm swimming in plates. Who knew. So the interior's quite empty and very open-plan, which isn't really ideal on a spaceship where you'd expect space to be a premium and every square inch utilised.
In terms of inspiration: The cockpit design is based on this concept art www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2014/gurmukh_bhasi... , but the rest of the ship is more inspired by this www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2015/steve_chinhsu..., which is also where I got the idea that the ship should be able to deploy ground units.
I am aware that the photography is appalling, and I'm sorry. I feel like a half-baked SHIP with half-baked photography is doing the concept a disservice, but oh well. I'll try taking more pictures again, and maybe a video too, if I can make myself sound cheerful enough to want to submit it.
Length is roughly 122 studs long, 46 wide and 22 high. I don't know how many pieces are in it because that's a stupid statistic. Time to build is a month or so, give or take. Some days I just looked at it forlornly and wondered where I was going. Other days work got done.
Finally, a bit of a fictional backstory. It's designed to be a coast guard ship, essentially. No guns, but heavy, segmented exterior plating for durability. The front section is black because it's heat-shielded (and certainly not because I built the cockpit in black first and didn't want to change it.) It's designed to perform SAR functions such as rescuing lost and stranded ships, attending and scouting planets for shipwrecks, and so on.
Let me know what you think of it. After writing all this out and realising how harsh a critic I am of my own attempts, it would be nice for someone else to tell me they like it.