Harkonnen Ornithopter: Update - Feb 22nd 2010

This will probably be My last update for a few weeks as I have to start packing everything up tomorrow ready for the move from Washington State to Los Angeles on Saturday.
Worked on the wings today and started trying to sort out the underside details.
Set up a rig for animating the landing gear - which you can see midway through extending in this image.

Harkonnen Ornithopter Update

Since I am only working part time and there is still a week to go before I can really start packing for the move to LA, I have been spending a bit of time trying to finish up the "standard" Harkonnen ornithopter so I can "Special Editionize" it.

Here's where I left it last time...

A bit crap really... had only just sort of started trying to get everything in place.

Now, using the blueprints kindly provided by Dune production artist Ron Miller, it now looks a bit better (Even though there are certain details that just don't show up clearly on the blueprints).

Lots and lots of detail still to add to the main hull (Ironically you can't even see this detail in the movie - at least on the DVD version I have - it might show up on Hi-Def though)
I'm having a helluva time trying to model the large windows at the ends of the main cockpit though - that whole section is really complicated and essentially just intersecting curves in everywhich direction. (See reference pic)

Harko City WIP

I've been twiddling with this for a while on and off.

 

  

 

(click images to enlarge)

Have had the tram done for a while, but the city structure is new. Have to redo the baby faced "oil burner" and spend a lot of time detailing it - it's covered in scaffolds and piping. Ugh!

I had modeled bolts on the structure but the poly count started to kill My poor old puter (It only has 512Mb RAM), so had to take them off and will have to use textures to depict them I guess. Whipped up a little render to see how it was looking. Pretty basic for now.

(click image to enlarge)

 

Going to make interchangeable panels with various combinations of parts so I can quickly build the city into whatever shapes I need.
Hope to put some more time into it after I move (Yeah... moving again - to LA again!)

Exodus

(Click image to expand)

Currently working on this little scene... the original was one of the better VFX shots in the movie but it's still a little wonky by today's standards, so I am trying to really amp up the sense of scale by starting the shot with one of the Atreides ships close to the camera so that it at first seems larger than the Guild Heighliner, but as the shot progresses, you discover just how tiny it is in comparison.

Hope to have more on this one soon. I still have to sculpt the incredibly ornate "door frames" that the ships fly through.