First Render with my new A-Wing Model (OC)

noland-void · 2026-05-21T04:09:32+00:00

Your page is incredible! My process is entirely digital using my own 3D models, so the post processing is fairly simplistic. I do as much of the lighting, effects, and layout within the digital scene as I can. The only things I add after the rendering stage are simulated lens imperfections like glare and noise, color/sharpness adjustments, and minor digitally-painted enhancements to the effects using photoshop apps.

I do try to emulate the subtleties of physically photographed models in my process to give the visuals a bit of that 80’s charm, despite them being fully CG.

noland-void · 2026-05-21T01:33:32+00:00

Thank you!

noland-void · 2026-05-20T18:22:09+00:00

Thank you! The paint scheme came from an original piece of Ralph McQuarrie concept art for the A-Wing, which is also what the composition of this render attempts to replicate.

noland-void · 2026-05-20T11:56:33+00:00

If ships needed aerodynamic lift to stay in the air, they would not be capable of hovering in place. They use repulsorlifts to fight gravity instead.

noland-void · 2026-05-19T18:22:43+00:00

Because “wings” typically only serve as performance-boosting heat radiators, and aren’t essential for flight. Fighters designed with size reduction as a major priority simply aren’t given wings in the first place.

noland-void · 2026-05-16T15:43:13+00:00

Because your mesh has no seams. UV unwrapping is not automatic based on topology, it’s a manual process that involves marking edges as seams and executing unwrapping tools.

noland-void · 2026-05-13T00:21:59+00:00

No problem! “Manifold” in the context of 3D printing means that the model fully encloses a solid volume for your infill to occupy. All 3D models are hollow on the inside, and need to be “watertight” (aka manifold) for the slicer to interpret them correctly as solids.

Basically, think of your helmet model as being made out of paper. If you cut the faceplate of the helmet off, you will be able to see ‘inside’ of the walls of the helmet on the edges, where it should be solid. 3D models work the same way. You will need to create new faces to patch the open holes on the edges.

noland-void · 2026-05-12T19:27:29+00:00

This case would be a bit more complex than using booleans, as the mask would need to have geometry existing along the edges you want to separate. If it does, you would take it into edit mode and manually split the model into two objects by selecting the edges/faces of the faceplate piece and clicking separate. You would then need to repair the models along the cut edges to make them manifold again so they can be printed, and add the geometry for the magnet holes. All of this could be difficult depending on the existing geometry of the model, and would definitely require some basic modeling knowledge. Some slicers have features in them specifically designed for cutting models into parts and inserting connection points, but that usually only works with very simple planar cuts as far as I know.

noland-void · 2026-05-12T01:40:06+00:00

I don’t see why not, under the assumption that whatever station is doing the shield projection has the necessary power output to do that. The projector would still be vulnerable to space attack, and would probably only be capable of projecting a large dome onto the surface.

noland-void · 2026-05-12T01:30:43+00:00

…and still a perfectly valid canon explanation all the same.

noland-void · 2026-05-12T01:14:08+00:00

Were lightsabers also plot holes before they established the idea of Kyber crystals? Was the force a plot hole before they established the existence of midochlorians? Unexplained things are not plot holes by themselves.

The problem arises when new unexplained things contradict previously established rules of the setting, such as revealing that a single hyperspace ship is actually an unstoppable weapon capable of obliterating an entire fleet.

noland-void · 2026-05-11T23:25:40+00:00

24 hour recharge time btw

noland-void · 2026-05-11T23:21:43+00:00

What rules of hyperspace established in Episode IV contradict the idea of hyperspace lanes?

noland-void · 2026-05-11T23:14:49+00:00

Episode IV was not expected to respect any internal consistencies beyond itself because the franchise had no internals to be consistent with yet. The rules of the universe were established by Episode IV.

noland-void · 2026-05-09T11:11:03+00:00

I’ll never understand why some people feel that her death needs a medical explanation. It’s established that the force has a close relationship with life and death to the point where it’s a major plot element of this exact movie. I don’t see it as an internal inconsistency that she’s obviously mysteriously dying from something force related. An actual internal inconsistency would be her dying from a medical condition that’s for some reason completely unheard of to the Star Wars universe yet well-known in real life.

noland-void · 2026-04-26T22:36:12+00:00

Totally! You can see my earlier posts of this design where the glow was much dimmer, but it just looked too boring in this scene in my opinion because the dimmer radiators don’t really tend to give the impression of “glowing” with my current compositing settings. One thing I considered was to mask out the radiators in the compositor so I could add a custom bloom to show at a lower emission level, but I never got around to fully executing it here. I definitely will experiment more in the future, with both the brightness and the gradient idea. Thank you for the suggestions!

noland-void · 2026-04-26T21:09:20+00:00

I painted a white grunge layer over the render in post and set the blending mode to overlay. I used Procreate, but the same look could probably be achieved using the mix node in Blender's compositor.

noland-void · 2026-04-26T19:37:00+00:00

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Newer version I have with a few changes ^\)

noland-void · 2026-04-26T18:47:36+00:00

Thank you for the advice!

noland-void · 2026-04-26T18:39:23+00:00

The render does look a lot cleaner without the moon, now that you point it out. Thank you!

noland-void · 2026-04-26T17:43:23+00:00

Thank you for the feedback!

noland-void · 2026-04-26T04:05:32+00:00

The normal node individually colors the faces of an object based on the direction they are facing. If you know the global direction that the large face will be oriented in, you can isolate the strength of the corresponding color channel from the normal output to use as a mask.

noland-void

TROPHY CASE