Showcase: Tantive IV

Believe it or not, this was my first project in blender. It was the dark days of COVID, and I needed something to keep my mind busy, so I decided I'd build (and print!) the Tantive IV from Star Wars. While the printing hasn't happened yet - I'm mostly done with the model (I know, it's been years - but I've been busy with other stuff). I love how this model has turned out. It's just such great eye-candy. Modeling the cockpit was such a blast.

It's still far from done - lots of texturing left to do, manual painting and the like. The level of detail on the model is very high, which should allow me eventually to be able to print it out at scale. My original goal was to match the studio model size - about 5-6 ft long.

I know it sounds crazy to start with something like this when you're learning a new tool - but I find that these kind of projects are amazing. They teach you all sorts of new techniques, and because the models are so detailed, you end up doing a lot of repetitive work, memorizing key-bindings and looking for ways to be more efficient. This whole model was done from scratch - just visual references of photos taken of the studio model were used. My advice to my younger self? Less geometry, more subsurface modifiers, more transforms. Less is more, let the computer do the work.

Rendered Model - Details of turrets

Reference photo from the web of the studio model.