[BFG] - Designing new ship types - 3d printing madness

[Thinking Stone]

Congratulations on finally reaching the milestone, @Malika! I remember when you started fiddling around with designs in the first place, and it's pretty exciting to see you at the stage of manufactured metals! If only we hadn't both missed out on actual BFG ships

About the Q-ship prow: ah, taking another look, I was mistaken about how far the torpedoes protrude! I suppose on the model scale, extra detailing there won't be easily noticed, but it still seems like a little extra detailing could be nice. Maybe even have 4 small corner bumps to represent some kind of lights? Anyways, just my thoughts, you're the master designer with actual ships in production

[Malika]

No worries about the q-ship, there will still be some tweaking before it's ready.

[Malika]

I've started working on a Lance Frigate as a follow-up to the Heavy Frigate I've done for Vanguard Miniatures.

I'm wondering which version you guys prefer: 3 lances (sides and bottom), 3 lances (sides and prow), or 4 lances (sides, bottom, and prow)?

[osjclatchford]

Sides and bottom without a doubt. Nothing on that lovely prow as far as I'm​ concerned...

[Malika]

Thanks a lot! The keel mounted lance will be the most likely be the one made, most people prefer that one.

In the meantime, I've gotten a bit distracted and started working on another Destroyer:

[Lord Borak]

Aye, The prow mounted Lance looks a little odd. Leave the prow alone

The destroyer is looking very nice indeed! I've just recently bought some of your 'light cruisers' off of Vanguard and they're very cool. They're just a bigger, chunkier version of a sword frigate which is exactly what I'm after.

Just a shame I need 15 of them

Did you want a scale shot of your  Panthera Heavy Frigate next to a GW model? I have them sitting in my case. They are fantastic models, really well detailed and just have such a nice look to them. I just have no idea what to do with them. I'm thinking of Defence Monitors or Ad-Mech light cruisers.

[Malika]

Aye, The prow mounted Lance looks a little odd. Leave the prow alone.

I keep hearing that. I could do a more workable version of the prow mounted lance, but for some reason I just wanna stick with the keel mounted one now because it just looks a lot cooler.

The destroyer is looking very nice indeed! I've just recently bought some of your 'light cruisers' off of Vanguard and they're very cool. They're just a bigger, chunkier version of a sword frigate which is exactly what I'm after.

Keep in mind that the Light Cruiser has been designed by someone else (Ben, who also did most of the Defeat in Detail range), and is a tiny bit smaller than my Heavy Frigate:

Just a shame I need 15 of them

What's stopping you?

Did you want a scale shot of your  Panthera Heavy Frigate next to a GW model? I have them sitting in my case. They are fantastic models, really well detailed and just have such a nice look to them. I just have no idea what to do with them. I'm thinking of Defence Monitors or Ad-Mech light cruisers.

I'd love to see what you'd do with the model, as for a scale shot: yes please!

As for how to use the Panthera, I guess it could be used as a Gladius Frigate standin, otherwise one of the Imperial Navy, Rogue Trader, or Inquisitorial frigates?

[Lord Borak]

Here's a scale shot



The Light cruiser is just a bit longer and chunkier than a Sword class frigate so it's more of a heavy frigate than a light cruiser. It'd work well as a Defence monitor or a Havoc.

The Panthera is shorter than a Space Marine strike cruiser but it is a LOT chunkier. If you wanted to, the Strike cruiser prow would sit pretty well on the Panthera

Seriously though. Please can we have the Panthera with a more 'Imperial' looking Prow.

What's stopping you?

My wife lol.

[Malika]

Imperial ships have different patterns, look at the variation between the normal ones and the Voss ones for example.

I might look at doing different prows for these in the future, but it's not super high on my to-do list.

As for the Strike Cruiser, I'm working on the Frigate's chunky brother as we speak.

[Malika]

The station is almost ready...



And I'm continuing to work on the Defence Monitor: modular prows!

Unarmed prow:


Torpedo prow:


Lance prow:

[osjclatchford]

holy shit! that station. I need that to live! seriously please tell me this will be up for sale soon too...

[Malika]

The station is almost ready, it'll need to be greenlit by Vanguard Miniatures and the caster (to see if there would be any issues). I do want to tweak the turrets a bit since right now they are the dorsal turrets from the Panthera frigate. Would like to have them look slightly different.

[Malika]

Still working on the Escort Carrier, including the prows:

[Malika]

The Defence Monitor and prow / turrets sprue is ready. If there's any other feedback, please let me know before I ship it off for printing.

[Thinking Stone]

The station is very swish! It definitely fills the round, Gothic station-sized hole we have at the moment.

The prows and turrets look swish, also. I like the small 'observation deck' blip on the underside of the prows!

On the topic of different prow types: prow design seems to be a really easy way to mark out a ship as belonging to a certain aesthetic, and a good target for modularity. It seems like a future project with Mars, Voss (and maybe other options) prows on a sprue (with perhaps more turrets to fill space?) would be popular.