I’m trying to model a space ship, a coherent project that I will finish. The only problem is, I’ve discovered modelling to a blue print is quite nice… but my pen device conked out and I’m looking at buying a wacom a6 intuos soon… but untill then I havent a scanner or any way to place reference material into blender. So i work off sketches. What really gets me is that I work in like really low polygon counts at first… don’t know if this is because I can get a direction without on screen reference or because that’s a stylistic thing. But it looks pretty frackin ugly. Soooo, what I’d like to know is how the rest of you approach projects basically from your imagination vs on screen blueprints or drawings.
I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to model real world or sci-fi blue prints might actually be the way to go to acquire the necessary skill… if you agree please comment and I would appreciate it if someone could refer a very nice blue print site.
Another project is an Abrahms tank and the blue prints really dont line up. If you try to
fit the left view and the top view say with the gun as the anchor some blueprints don’t match up.
if you are having trouble getting the reference images into blender
do you have a camera? - you could take a photo of it and then import the image to your computer
(or look for the same blue prints on line)
you can also use the grease pencil to sketch inside blender if this helps (it’s a bit hard w/o a tablet)
but it always depends on the way you model
some people use reference images others don’t
if you are going for acuracy - it’s easier to use reference
but don’t forget - they are only reference images, if you start to model and it looks crap in 3D, you can always alter it as you go - it’s your project
if your reference images don’t match up - you can edit them with Photoshop or gimp and then bring them back in
Sometimes I just draw them myself. There are refs for sci-fi vehicles but it’s mostly Star Wars and Star Trek related. You could probably find what you’re looking for but it would take some searching. You could just find something similar and fudge it a little in the modeling.