Heavy cargo shuttle (ex Nerodia)

[bszlrd]

Brief:

Nerodia is a medium cargo shuttle from OPLI-Barnard's. The original models size/volume is about right. The ship is built for short range travels ferrying cargo from installation to installation in-system, on couple of days long trips at most. It is mostly cargo hold, and has a relatively small habitat module for the small crew and a relatively small fuel tank compared to the hold. The main point is fast turnaround, so it has ample cargo hatches for quick loading and unloading. The backstory is up in the air: do you want it to be a good, likable ship? Or it is a botched one that got a bit of a following later in its life? Or it's just a run-of-the-mill workhorse nobody really cares for? Or a well liked ship with rich history? (I'd say I'd lean towards the less-liked side, because shuttles are built to be cheap workhorses) The reason why I'm saying that ex-Nerodia in the title because I came up with a bit more elaborate naming scheme, and I figured that those snake names with -a endings are for freighters, and -phis endings are for shuttles. Could be named Simophis for example. (Names are from the Colubridae genus of snakes)

Todo

The rough workflow/work plan. I tend to add subtask as they pop up,

• [ ] Brief - fleshing out the short description a bit
• [ ] Reference and inspiration gathering - for OPLI ships I want to reference '80s cars, and then as the size increases go towards industrial machinery, diesel engines and industrial ships for inspiration on the shape language.
• [ ] Sketching/blockout - about as detailed and clean as the image you posted
• [ ] Modeling
• [ ] Detail modeling, decaling
• [ ] Cleanup and UV
• [ ] Shading
• [ ] Texture baking
• [ ] LoDs & setup

[bszlrd]

@Wrofiir: And to answer your question: no problem in reusing parts. That's one of my intentions with the overhaul, to standardize some parts a bit, and allow for reuse, so ships are more consistent. But I think I won't reuse the engines or the docking collar for the Nerodia, since it is a much bigger ship. I've already did the engine line for OPLI, and if I'm correct the Nerodia has three S3 or S4 engines. The docking collar templates aren't detailed yet like that, but the sizes are there. The Sinonatrix has an S1, but I suspect a couple of S3s and one or two S2 would be fitting for the Nerodia. The sketch you posted is nice, but rather more flowing and round than what the intention is for OPLI ships. Hence my suggestion for a first step in fleshing out a brief and collecting some reference photos to have a basis to start the ideation process from.