More Progress on the Spider Tank Model

There's still a lot to do, but I've made some progress on the model:

Earlier, I tried messing around with some Mental Ray materials. Interesting, but further refinement could go a long ways:

I should have more updates soon.

Object C

New vehicle concept, just for fun:

The war ended, the tide rolled back. Left behind were countless tragedies, and not a few mysteries.

The First Lord referred to *this* mystery as 'A jester to the Court of Mars' in a letter to his son, and most of the high command referred to it as Object C, when they referred to it at all. It was found in the desert, at some sort of research facility. The documentation was never good, and both the war and the circumstances of this discovery clouded things further. It had started life as a heavy cargo tractor of the sort converted to artillery duty in large numbers some years ago, but had been fitted with a novel weapon system. The nature of this system has been a source of discreet research and speculation since the end of the conflict, but to no productive end.

It would seem to fire some sort of liquid, though a plasma based system had been theorized at first. Tantalizingly incomplete, a number of design features and a novel use of materials suggested that it was based on some sort of rediscovered Founder technology, though this was impossible to prove. Indeed, when the base was searched for documentation, not only was none found but it was discovered to be not just deserted but devoid of all life (down to the bacterial level) and bereft of all organic matter. A lengthy investigation yielded nothing, but was the subject on intense speculation by all involved. Evidence of anything from an as of yet unclassified apex predator to interdimensional travel was rumored, but never materialized.

Currently Object C is in storage at Base South, awaiting restoration.

3D Spider Tank

For starters, I'm sorry this blog has gone more than a year without updating. Infant mortality among blogs is pretty high, but I'm still here and I want to develop this venue more as a place to share works in progress, tutorials, and tangentially related material. I'll be revamping www.doscher-design.com shortly and be using that space to display completed work.  It'll also show up here, of course.  My page at mikedoscher.devianart.com is my most current portfolio, but that green background gives me a headache.

Anyways, some time back I did a painting of an 8x8 armored car that was exploring the 'spider tank' cliche from the direction of superficial realism:

The vehicle backstory is this: An aging APC chassis converted into a rocket artillery unit. The batteries lower and are reloaded hydraulically from a magazine between the tube bays. Normally, the gun would be traversed to the rear when firing rockets to prevent damage to the barrel and muzzle brake. In this case, the commander has left the gun deployed to be able to more quickly engage infantry or light armor. This is the sign of either a highly experienced or dangerously inexperienced crew.

The painting was well-received and I found myself wanting to 3D version of it for some time, especially to explore the layout and action of the drivetrain and suspension.

This is just what I've got so far, though it's going pretty quickly. Most of what I've done lately has been for work, and not the sort of thing I can share because of my NDA.

Consider that for the few moments in between losing everything and the lights going out, you are immortal.

A nameless encounter in a forgotten place during the 2090 Troubles.  Speedpaint, done in Photoshop.

Blog, rise from your grave.

Social media makes me antisocial.

Let's see: We've got Facebook, where you get to call coworkers, distant relations, and people you're stalking 'friends'. Then you've got Twitter, which is optimized for tracking the mood swings of b-list celebrities and seeing what parts of London are burning at the moment. Tumblr is like being hosed down with sparkling unicorn poo.

Hello blaaaawwgosphere, I missed you. Sorry to have bored or otherwise disappointed the five or six very nice people who have clickified on some piece of Berners-Lee magic or another and come here. AS YOUR REWARD: Here's something large and rusty, along with a promise to update more often- regularly even.

Eve Online contest

I took time off from working on the book project to make something for the 'Design an Eve Online Spacecraft' contest that Deviantart was having.

I tried exploring a few different ideas for the design, mostly involving trying to make something with elements of 'classic' space opera vessels while experimenting with shapes that pushed the center of mass forward a little.

I also wanted to explore the tension between a (somewhat) smooth hull and the really baroque machinery and pressure hull underneath it. This is the reason for the 'cracked lava' look.

I started with a loose sketch of my idea, then made a low poly 3D proxy model to explore the basic massing. Once satisfied, I made a very light printout and drew my final linework over it. I did this for both the ortho and plan drawings.

The vessel is designed for a strike role, sacrificing armor for speed and firepower. The vessel name is a sort of comment on the vulnerability of the critical areas. =P

Not dead. Just in Vegas.

Oh hey, still alive- Working for Petroglyph out in Vegas doing concept design for a game of theirs. Also working on a book idea or three. This is what I'm working on right now: