STARBRIGHT
I L L U S T R A T I O N S
BRETT
FITZPATRICK ILLUSTRATOR
3D Illustrations
3D illustrations are very well suited to shiny things like spaceships.
Until comparatively recently I have been standing on the outside of the
shiny world
of 3D illustration looking in, but that has all changed thanks to
Microsoft. Microsoft has released the trueSpace 3D engine free of
charge for anyone to
download and make use of. Naturally I couldn't resist. I had already
attempted to download a few free and open source 3D graphics programmes
to
experiment with for my illustration but none of them had ever worked.
Perhaps the graphics card in the old Sony Vaio that I use to produce my
illustrations wasn't quite up to the task of running one, or at least
so i thought. Both treSpace and Sketchup, the Google version of the
free 3D
illustration and design solution, and to be fair Google did it first,
work a treat.
This 3D illustration of two, remarkably similar, spaceship designs
dogfighting in a nebula in outer space is one of the very first 3D
illustrations I
produced with the software and I'm very happy with it. If I were
producing this illustration again, I would now add more detail before
rendering - and
would you believe it was produced without using the mirror modeling
function - but I think, all in all, it has held up very well.
Since my earliest encounters with thinking about design, rather than
just consuming it, when I was looking at the work of the great Ralph
Mcquarrie I
have been interested in spaceship design. I produce illustrations of
the exteriors and designs for the interior. I also do design sketches
of the
equipment found within and on the surface, which are just perfect for
role-playing game illustrations. Anyone who has played Traveller will
be aware of
how much these sort of designs and illustrations add to the suspension
of disbelief.
Please have fun looking at my 3D illustrations, and don't be afraid to
drop me a line to tell me what you think or ask about commissions.













