WIP! Dictator-class imperial battlecruiser, Warhammer 40,000
I was looking at some of the ship renders by the mighty Ansel Hsiao/FractalSponge and got inspired to start doing this little project. For now, I won't be able to reach his level of detail, but I can get close enough.
Visually, I'm going for a balance between classic "used future" science fantasy aesthetics mixed with the dark future of Warhammer, so pipes, panels and antennae will fight for space with skulls, arches and spires.
The ship will be roughly to scale, around 5,5 kilometers from prow to stern - I have a little human-sized rectangle for a measuring stick. In practice, this means one of those broadside cannons could fit a house (or several) in its barrel, and the top of the prow has room for a suburban neighborhood.
The first picture shows where I'm at with it currently, the rest are detail shots from different stages of the project. No idea when I'll be done with this, but showcased here is a few days of work in total.
Everything modelled and rendered in Blender, textures drawn in GIMP.
I really like Ambient Occlusion-only renders somehow.
Prow turret. Perhaps a lance cannon, so it fires really big lasers.
Surface greebles that I'm copypasting all over the flat areas before adding some handmade details for variation.
The prow ornament is, of course, a big skull. It could also serve a practical purpose, maybe it's a hub for sensors and scanners, hence the antennae and scary glowing eyes. The glowing eyes are totally practical.