Laserstar

Military Laserstar, i.e. a large warship carrying a single laser weapon as its primary armament. You're looking at a high-energy laser generator firing through a 34 metre multisegment primary mirror. Some liberties taken for a dramatic action shot in the second image, of course in reality no beam would be visible in the vacuum of space. Propulsion is a inertial-confinement fusion engine that also generates power for the laser by magnetohydrodynamics. The large mirror, 500 MW laser generator and UV-band laser make it good for a million kilometres or so max range. Large radiators help dissipate the vast amounts of waste heat generated, in conjunction with an internal heatsink. Paintjob is somewhat whimsical and based on the works of Chris Foss.

De Tomaso Pantera Group 4 Competition Coupe

Got contact patch?

Void Shark

Space pirates! First in an ongoing series of speculative spacecraft designs. I wanted to do a "realistic" take on a vessel for space piracy. Envisioned as a converted civilian craft (Kingfisher, second image foreground) cargo vessel powered by a NERVA-type solid core nuclear-thermal rocket engine. The pirates have added high-power radar, uprated RCS, armour plating, 20 MW laser generator with three beam directors, and large radiators to handle the excess heat. Oh and a sweet skull-and-crossbones paintjob to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.

Nuclear transfer vehicle

Nuclear-thermal transfer vehicle for translunar missions, with a solid core NERVA-type engine. Based off a Pat Rawlings painting depicting the vehicle about to dock with a lunar lander.

Mech technical drawings

Technical drawings for two mech designs. Inspired by the fantastic FASA battlemech 'blueprints'.

Dive watches

Just a quick little model I did to refresh, as I hadn't done any 3D stuff in a while. I'd love to put something together like this for real someday. PVD, fixed bars, sword hands, no date sterile dial sounds about right.

Laser weapons

The first time I saw  Luke Campbell's designs for laser weapons I knew I had to model them. It was an interesting exercise translating 2D sketches to 3D, with a few serious perspective issues! Seemed to work out OK in the end though.

240Z

240Z is available in a variety of fruit flavours!

Blue Mustang

One day I might get this on a shirt or something.

Battleship Orion

Battleship Orion in Earth orbit

Battleship Orion under fire in cis-lunar space

This large Orion vehicle was a General Atomic proposal to the USAF for a 4000 ton spacecraft, armed to the teeth with 5-inch naval guns, nuclear missiles, multiple 20mm point defence weapons and 'Casaba Howitzer', a kind of atomic-bomb powered particle beam weapon. It fits the description of a space-battleship pretty well, and was intended to hang out between the moon and the Earth, performing ABM duties and providing a completely unassailable nuclear launch platform. Of course it was never built for a multitude of reasons, not the least being unnecessary due to the Soviets' lack of anything remotely comparable as a space based weapons system.

Acknowledgements to Scott Lowther for doing all the hard work in piecing together the scarce information on the Orion battleship.

20 metre NASA Orion

Mars arrival

In Mars orbit

This is the 'last chance' Orion nuclear pulse vehicle proposed to NASA in the 1960s. A larger design with a 20 metre pusher plate, as opposed to the 10 metre plate of the 'baseline' design. This vehicle can deliver 50 people to Mars for a 450 day mission. Performance of the vehicle was nominally 16 Meganewtons of thrust, with a specific impulse of 3150 seconds. Ultimately it was never built, due to the changing climate in NASA at the time. This was a fun exercise in modeling, tricky sometimes due to the scarcity of good diagrams and references.

SSTO Spaceplane

SSTO spaceplane inspired by HOTOL. Seen here just before liftoff, the dawn sun low in the Eastern sky.