Ork ships

[Malika]

Started a new little project. Also meant for printing, but this time something for the Imperials to shoot at...

[Islacrusez]

Damn, feels like the slums in Cape Town all over again... What's with all the shacks bolted to the side?

[Malika]

Scale wise this ship might not look fitting for BFG, since those shacks would be too big I guess?

I kind of imagined Ork design to be a mix between Mad Max' post apocalyptic madness, WWII Germans and a good dosis of shantytowns. Ork architecture/urbanism, to me at least, is shantytowns pulled into a new extreme.

I imagined many Orks who live in space to live on their ships, the ships become their homes, meaning they bolt all sorts of stuff to them. I was also inspired by the for Octavus' (over at Dakka) Orcs in his dieselpunk interpretation of the Warhammer World.

[Islacrusez]

It just looks weird, because you automatically connect it with those flimsy shacks (too recognisable), and those things are just not spaceworthy structures. While most cathedrals aren't either, at least it seems reasonable to build them in a spaceworthy manner, while shacks... Just don't. It doesn't work in the brain and gets rejected.

Rather than blindly copy an existing structure, use the same influences to create one as it would have evolved in space. It'll be different, even if the core values are the same. Think about how and why the structure would've evolved a certain way. As an example (reading from your current design), would it have a sloping roof? Would it have "windows"?

[Malika]

I guess it's part of the old school Ork aesthetic. Look at the Mega Gargant model for example, it seems to have all these round castle like towers on it.

As for the sloping roofs and windows, I think it's a bit of a matter of...how should I put it, recognizability. How do you get that same shantytown feel on a ship if you won't recognize it as such? I think it's probably also why the official models look like giant goldfish (or piranha's for those of the more bad ass persuasion). I get a feeling that Ork models already tend to be kinda a parody of themselves.

Same kinda goes for windows on such a ship, you even see them on the Imperial and Eldar models, mostly painted on, but sometimes also on the models themselves. Considering the scale we're talking here, these things would be ridiculously big. But then again the whole design of such ships is rather flawed and unrealistic. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that realism isn't really something that should stand in your way when designing stuff for the 40k universe.

However, I'm curious about the challenge, especially since this ship is a stepping stone to a more scrapyard/shantytown version of the Legion cruiser I designed a bit back.

[mangozac]

I actually think the shacks are an interesting design idea and would suggest not abandoning them until we see what they look like in the context of an entire ship. Yes, the scale is screwed up compared to Imperial ships, but remember that model sizes have no correlation in BFG. Perhaps these Ork ships are actually relatively small but still extremely hard hitting for their size?

[Malika]

Scale is indeed a very tricky one in BFG. I mean, we're talking about ships that are kilometers long, why the heck would they have a normal big bridge like a normal ship? Is the captain going to look out of the window and say "oh, give me my binoculars, I might see some Orks in the distance!"?

I remember the game Space Marine also had Ork ships, but they were so much smaller. But I guess that was more about the design being workable for such a game.

Whilst the idea of ships that are kilometers long are very cool, it is a rather odd thing to get your head around, designwise at least, especially since the way we think is generally so used to ships that are a couple of hundred meters at most. Now everything becomes magnified to almost ridiculous size, any accents you want to put on your design will look totally off. A turret will be the size of a skyscraper, aircraft are the size of (a couple of) a Boeing 747 etc. It takes some getting used to when designing ships, even for the GW designers I think.

[Islacrusez]

Honestly I don't think the GW designers ever quite got it anyway. Either that or they got lazy. All went south around the time they started stretching existing designs to make new ships. If you see the chart comparing all the sci-fi ships known to man, to scale, you'll see just how derp most of the GW ships really are.


As for bridges, there are still uses for them. They can be useful for visual inspection of the bits of the ship you can see, formation flying, navigating tight spaces (formation, asteroids, docks, shipyards, wreckage). There's also the fact that they don't particularly need to be there at all, but still can be. There's no reason why they can't be a relic of the days of old when they were necessary. Remember WW2, when Northrop designed the flying wing. The Americans said no, because it didn't look like a plane! Now look, one of their most advanced stealth bombers, the B-2, is a flying wing. Sometimes designs stick about because that's the way they've always done it (especially in the military), and sometimes because they look right, not necessarily because they're necessary.

Even something like Imperial ships, with a massive bridge and half the view blocked by a massive golden statue. It makes no sense in reality, but internally it makes perfect sense because it's the Imperium and they are that daft. That, at least, is viable design.

Another thing to consider is an armed incursion of the ship. A central command section as you might find on a submarine is going to be much less defensible than an elevated bridge with only one way in or out. Sure it has other weaknesses, but at least in BFG you can't target hardpoints that way, and the penalties for it getting hit aren't as drastic as say Rogue Trader.


In a way, scratch-building Ork ships is easier than making them digitally. Why? Because you can build up the layers and the progression will seem natural - because it is. You bolted something to the ship, then you bolted something else to that. That's how Ork ships would have developed and the aesthetic is very distinct. It is far more difficult to do it all from the ground up in a 3D program. My only advice would be to try and replicate that procedure, or at least keep in mind the progressive growth of an Ork ship. If it looks like you've thrown a number of shapes at a wall covered in superglue, it won't look right.

[mangozac]

We keep coming back to the same thing here: BFG designs are the way they are because it looks cool. Practicality and feasibility are all irrelevant. I don't think the designers got it wrong at all - they did exactly as the exaggerated 40k style required and I personally think the results look fantastic. Unrealistic, sure, but stylistically the best space ship miniatures ever produced (don't get me wrong, there were some pretty crappy designs too).

[Islacrusez]

[mangozac]

[Islacrusez]

While I agree to a large extent, I believe functionality is an important part even if the primary concern is aesthetics. If something looks like it could never work in any way shape or form, it'll detract from the whole. Similarly and potentially worse, if something is identifiable as a specific object, and you're using it from something else entirely or either the RL object cannot fulfil the role given to what you have created, or the object you have created cannot reasonably fulfil the role you have set and the RL object takes precedence in association, you will have problems with how it is perceived.


So as to clarify, I like things having actual function, and I see beauty in functionality, but I also am flexible enough to bend the rules (especially when something has a consistent style).


Back to the Ork stuff, let's wait until we have a complete ship, as these ships only work when they're done... However, be aware of what I mentioned earlier ^.^

[Malika]

Now with some teeth and more stuff on it. The left side (minus front head) is almost done. The right side will get a similar threatment, but it will also be where the forward pointing weapons are mounted on.

I'm playing a bit with the design, sure it's a bit cartoony, but the 40k Orks are rather cartoony. The feedback you've given me will be slightly incorporated into this ship, but will mainly be used for the scrapyard versions of the Legion ships I had been drawing.

[mangozac]

I like how it's progressing!

[Malika]

I've beefed the teeth up slightly, added some 'wounds' to the ship's hull, and removed some of the larger shacks. I need to rethink the shacks a bit, I like the concept too much to just drop it, but after putting the model next to the human ships I made, it seems a bit odd...