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[Draignean]

Okay, so, as most of you don't know, I've wanted to put a mod out for the StarSector community. Formerly this was nothing more than an idle "to do", but recently I've been trying my hand at making ships and... I need help. So much help.

I tried just using Gimp and my innate art skills (Which would be impossible to represent without negative numbers), and that... failed.

Spoiler: Wear protective lenses. They're pretty bad. (click to show/hide)

So then I turned up something called the BSF editor, which was a lifesaver. Sort of like Pimp My Gun for ships. All I have to do after BSF is the post processing, which I'm decent at. After BSF I immediately went from making the above, to making these...

Spoiler: Not too painful to look at. (Chronological order) (click to show/hide)

And, most recently, I made this. The shiny version uses hard light blending, the non-shiny uses soft light, and I'm torn between the two. I've been using soft-light for everything else, but now I'm wondering if I might want to try and use Hard-light even though it takes longer to make the shading layer look good.

Spoiler: One of my prettier attempts. Hardpoints and engines look funny though. (click to show/hide)

So, Bay12, I know you have fantastic artists, critique me! (please) Give me feedback, tell me tips and tricks that I don't have the ability to fathom. Tell me what versions/models you like and what versions/models you don't.

[mastahcheese]

How can you say these look bad?
These look freaking awesome.

You don't even want to know what mine would look like.

[USEC_OFFICER]

How can you say these look bad?
These look freaking awesome.

This. I would be ecstatic to produce ships half as good as these.

Spoiler: Here's The Junk I Can Currently Make (click to show/hide)

You're a much better artist than you think you are, and you should be happier with how things have turned out because they are awesome.

[Draignean]

How can you say these look bad?
These look freaking awesome.

This. I would be ecstatic to produce ships half as good as these.

Spoiler: Here's The Junk I Can Currently Make (click to show/hide)

You're a much better artist than you think you are, and you should be happier with how things have turned out because they are awesome.

Honestly, most of what those sprites need is a shader layer and a mystical quality that is referred to as 'greeble'. Which I'm pretty sure is short for I-killed-part-my-brain-with-paint-fumes....

You're not using MSPaint are you?

Regardless, I made this one earlier today. Getting good at speed-painting shader layers. I love the way those things look.

This,

Spoiler: Base Layer, straight from BSF editor (click to show/hide)

Plus this layer mirrored,

Spoiler: Shader Layer Mirrored (click to show/hide)

With a resize equals this 'finished' sprite,

Spoiler: Unnamed Ship Thing (click to show/hide)

However, I still have no idea how to do lights well on the ship. Every time I try to add a handful, it looks like I barfed pixels on the hull plating.

[Lost in Nowhere]

What is BSF?
Anyways, most of those ships look awesome!

[Itnetlolor]

Battleships Forever.

I'll have to say, the lo-res ones are good for a startup base layer or reference, but the BSF renderings look pretty neat. If submitting them to anything, then I suggest that you credit the program as a medium/platform for what you worked with.

For post-processing, Paint.Net is always a good platform to work with as well. Makes pixel-work much more precise, including classic dithering effects when painting if you're working with a limited color palette (or making retro-looking ships with 4-16 colors; I suggest you shut off anti-aliasing before you work on any high detail pixel work). Even dither-overlays work out (transparent and a color set to any of the classic dither painting methods). Oh yeah, and Paint.Net is like MSPaint but with some features of GIMP/Photoshop, including using layers (which will come very handy).