Early this month I engaged the services of a freelance 3D artist to build some ships for Star Hammer. I’m pretty impressed with the results I’ve been getting, so I wanted to show off a few images.

The artist is Charles Oines, and he runs Irrational Designs. Go check his work when you’re finished reading this post.

The art process we’ve got going is (I think) working out quite well. First, I create a rough low-poly model of the ship, and texture it with a rough colour scheme. This is taking the place of concept art, which regrettably, my budget doesn’t allow for. I can’t draw to save my life, so creating something in 3D is a much better way to communicate needs.

Charles then uses my ‘programmer art’ mockup to make something that actually looks good, and has similar dimensions. Any key features (such as the position of the launch bay on the corvette below) can be matched identically, meaning I can use the mockups in the game, and simply replace them when I get the good models.

These are work-in-progress renders from some of the models Charles has built. I think they look great – but I have to admit to being biased.

Alliance Tug/Transport

Fighters – the X-24 Spectre and the X-36 Stalker. These are what players will pilot in the game

Alliance Corvette. This is the baseship the player launches from. In the game, it’ll have swilling turrets. Hot!

Cool, huh?

I’ve just entered my first game competition, DreamBuildPlay 2009. It’s been an intense couple of weeks. I’m not sure why I was rushing the last few days, there are still 18 hours until the submission deadline.

I’ve submitted the latest build of Star Hammer (formerly Operation: Star Hammer). Here is a video :

Wish me luck