Tales of Acadie

Spaceships, spaceships, spaceships. I love designing spaceships. Have a look in my sketchbooks; spaceships- all over the place.

DECONSTRUCTED requires the design of a spaceship; The Evangeline. I was given the following brief:

DESIGNATION: LOS PERDIDO COMBINE SHIP EVANGELINE
TYPE: COMMERCIAL SALVAGE VESSEL/ HAULER
CLASS: AMERICANA HS B-20

Not a lot to go on huh? well, thankfully Den is more than happy enough to furnish me with additional details as required. After a few well aimed e-mails I was able to ascertain that Evangeline was somewhere around the size of Serenity or Betty- a kind of Millennium Falcon affair which needs to be atmosphere capable, able to carry two 'Donkey' size snowcrawlers and capable of microgravity salvage operations. Den also mentioned that Evangeline is private rather than military so large battle cannons and maser guns were pretty much out of the question...

First up I went back to an old design you'll find hiding here and tidied it up a bit but I thought it looked a little too airplane-ish

I played and played and played with the design but every time I ended up with something that looked like a cross between Colonial One and Darth Maul's sith interceptor... I got a little obsessive with the overhanging bridge module element as you can probably tell, and don't even ask what I was thinking about the one that looks like a tugboat with a tail...

It came down to this; I wanted a ship that looked utilitarian but also shaped like it could enter an atmosphere without any of that 'shields' or 'repulsorlift' jiggery- pokery. It needed to be tough, but clearly not military, and about the size of a middling to large airliner. Obviously we needed space to store and deploy our snowcrawlers and also areas to stow cargo both internally and externally. I wanted to have an engineering section distinct from the cargo and command sections.

All the designs I was producing started from a side elevation design and were falling into the same trap- too streamlined, too nice to look at, too aggressive- some even looking like fighters. Pretty cool in most respects but not Evangeline, so I started afresh. Not fair to say i went back to the drawing board as I never left it but I certainly attacked the problem from a new angle and more importantly a new perspective- I started not from a side- on view but a 3d projection allowing me to create the shape and presence I was looking for, whilst simultaneously making something that was pig-ugly from the side. Much more satisfying.

This looks not like an airliner, but a flying Tonka-toy. I can fully imagine this ship being coloured building- site yellow or John Deere green. Certainly a tool rather than a joyride.

Evangeline awaits Den's approval. Or not. He might hate it. Erm.