Here is a compilation view of the 4 playable races’ concepts, so you can better compare them side by side. Relative ship sizes are roughly as i envision them in the game, with ‘heavies’ being the largest, and ‘fast race’ being the smallest.
Here is the next concept in the series i planned, one for each faction. This time it’s the ‘Fast race’. I really feel i should make it a priority to think of some proper names for the factions, as it sounds so silly addressing them as ‘Shield race’, ‘Fast race’ and such… sorry for that, have to identify them somehow until backstory work has started.
This one took way longer than the Shield one. I think this was mostly because the Fast race’s art style is farther apart from my natural art style than the Shield race. Closest to it being the Heavy race actually (Those who know my Homeworld past shouldn’t be surprised about that)…
Another reason might be, that the Fast race is kinda my least favourite faction. Yes… because they remind me of THAT race from EVE. That caused Amarr to be forever underpowered.
Also, a hard decision was whether to use clearly vertical detailing, or try to keep it as ‘flat’ as possible, because the end product will be top-down 2D. In the end i decided to keep the vertical shape (the center spine of the ship with the laser domes, that is rising above the rest of the hull). If it turns out to be problematic later in the game, i can still flatten it, but i generally think, a design is more proper if it uses all three dimensions.
You might already know, that i plan on reusing the races, and some of the ships from Star Temple TD. The ships would be remastered of course, to be shown in higher detail in the MMO. I am exploring multiple ways of how it would be efficient to recreate the ships in higher detail. One of them is 3D modeling them.
This started as a study model of what level of detail i could achieve reasonably quick. Seems 3D will not be an option, unless i can find a resonable detail compromise, and significantly cut down on production time. It already took too long to get to this state. However, i will still try to finish it, as it’s own project, because i am quite satisfied with how the Fast Boss holds up as a full-fledged 3D ship.
