Model, render and paint a starship

9 min read

Marnix Rekkers combines CAD software and Photoshop to create a detailed intergalactic image

MOI3D | KEYSHOT | PHOTOSHOP

Practical tips and tutorials from pro artists to improve your CG skills

To design my starship, I used a combination of techniques across 3D CAD software Moment of Inspiration 3D (MoI3D), KeyShot and Photoshop. That’s what I’ll be showing you here, as I use MoI3D to create the model and KeyShot for a quick render, giving us a great base to paint over in Photoshop using the shapes, colours and light provided by the 3D model and render. KeyShot is not totally necessary if you don’t have access, so any 3D render software will do.

We’ll be going over the ease and simplicity offered by MoI3D, and how quickly you can make interesting shapes, and give you an idea of how this can be utilised in your workflow. The speed and quality of MoI3D is why it has become one of my favoured programs. As soon as you’ve gotten used to the basics, you can create designs incredibly fast.

As the render is fairly simple we won’t go over KeyShot in too much detail. The trickiest part will be painting in Photoshop if you’re not used to it, but don’t worry about it. Most painting skills are simple layeron-layer style painting, keeping it simple and clear. The textures used in this tutorial can all be found for free on textures.com.

**AUTHOR Marnix Rekkers** Marnix studied international game architecture and design at Breda University of Applied Sciences, and is now working towards a master’s in game technology. He also works at Opus Artz and helped create Impeller Studios’ game *In the Black.* bit.ly/3PKo7DB

01 INITIAL SHAPES

Start by making a shape using the Spline tools, drawing it from a front view or side view depending on how you envision the form of your starship. Don’t worry about topology as it’s CAD; MoI3D allows you to export to any 3D software available on the market. Creating a simple shape is important to get a good idea of your starship, and using this technique we’ll be making a lot of simple shapes.

02 FIRST DETAILS

Now we’re going to cut out massive areas in the front, sides and back to create interesting shapes for our starship. Do this by drawing a spline to remove sections from the main shape you just extruded. Insert the selected lines that are in the front and back, and select both sides in the Extrude menu to see how deep the shape is going to be when cutting it out, then select the main shape that you want to cut into. After that we’re going to create smaller shapes and details to add onto our spacecraft.

03 BUILD UP THE SHIP

Now we have interesting shapes in the main body of the starship, we can select a few edges and bevel them on the outside for a smoother appearance. This can