Follow this fantastic free tutorial to realise your very own model of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise and find out how 3D hobbyist Gerard Duffy spent a year creating this labour of love
We found this excellent tutorial on Gerard Duffy’s aka Taranis’ Blog.
It’s hard to believe, but Taranis is a CG hobbyist. He devoted a year of his life to create this wonderful training to model the starship from the classic TV series Star Trek and he’s currently looking to create another tutorial.
“It took just over a year [to complete the training], my aim was to show the easiest way to build a model (in this case the Enterprise) using only the native tool in LightWave… or only using what LightWave has when you first install it into a PC,” says Taranis.
So if you own LightWave, there’s no reason why you can’t just grab your workstation and get LightWaving right now.
Download the PDF tutorials:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Once you get started, show us how you’re getting on by posting WIP images to our Facebook page.
The Enterprise designed by Walter 'Matt' Jefferies, has become a hugely popular design. For over 40 years it has inspired generations of designers in many fields from the plastic model hobbyist to CGI modelling
Taranis has always enjoyed viewing Space or TV graphic art and when he learned it was done with 3D software he was hooked. “LightWave is my favourite software; I have tried others but LightWave suits me best.”
He’s currently working on another tutorial and in the meantime has a few words of advice to share with fellow 3D artists.
“[Friends in the CG industry say] to work not only on the modelling aspect, but Textures, Lighting ie scene setup, find a good teacher or, even better, a school.”
We couldn’t agree more. If you’d like to know how you could take your 3D skills further, we have picked out a couple of useful articles for you.
The first article has advice for 3D job applicants. With 10 Golden Rules, and tops tips for creating job-winning showreels – it’s well worth a look.
If you’d like to know about how you can find your ideal animation school, then 3D World issue 154 is your best choice:
And if you liked this tutorial and want more, check out our two free tutorials:
Rig your own Transformer in LightWave
Step-by-step 3D tutorial: Creature Scultping
Star Trek copyright and trademark are held by their relevant copyright holders no copyright infringement intended
Posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 at 11:41 am under Guides, Tutorials. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: A beginner's guide to modelling, LightWave 3D, LightWave for beginners, Lightwave tutorial, Lightwave Tutorials, modelling, modelling tutorial, NewTek, Star Trek, USS Enterprise
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