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 As mentioned, today's post broke the two-hundredth of the year. That's a lot of prattle farming! Quite a lot of incomplete terrain renders, to be sure.

Shamrayev Project

We're getting close to the end of the first pass. I feel like I need a break, but I also recognise that I'm feeling like walking away from a project because it's managed to sneak out of the feel-good zone by slowly accumulating design compromises and bodging the modelling.

Building really complicated things is hard and takes a lot of time and effort. When my patience wears out, I start to bodge things. You might notice that I'm no longer fighting my way out of the "box". This is where you don't work hard enough to hide the underlying primitives. The viewer can sense that you created simple forms and made some changes. Really good models look real, they look manufactured and don't betray that they started life as a cube.

Today is not a day to put my tools down. Let's get this thing finished. Once finished, it can be undone, repaired, changed, or, ultimately, discarded. 

Missing shield

Last thing yesterday, I was going to add some more detailing and think about what to do next. Something didn't look right... I have turned off the shield element. Nope! Turned out that I'd accidentally deleted it. Going back to the previous scene version is a quick fix, except that it isn't, because it was the last thing that I built. Oh hum!

So, this is nature's way of telling me, "Now do it properly!" The plan was to make the shield look lightweight but complex. I'd just sculpted a big block. This time, we'll build a complex sub-assembly, then array the thing into existence.

New shield starting point. Engineering mess

The engineering section is a visual mess, but I like it. What does it need to make it pass the test while staying messy?

I need to better sell the idea that those cylinders are plug-in tanks. I could incorporate ribbing into the connector elements to make them stand out from the main tank. I could add more elements to the retaining rings that show where the tanks connect to the engineering section. These contribute to the mess, but in doing so, they look like engineering....

V-Tanks (Volatiles)

Shield Array and Bigg A$$ thruster

These are not the most difficult elements; you can hide in the complexity. This should be easy! [Narrator: famous...last...words...]

• Don't overdo it.
• Think Big:Medium:Small just within this separate part.
• The shield shouldn't look like a solid mass, but it should have parts that make sense, such as water/ice bags and some plating.

I may post an update later if progress runs smoothly.