Okie doke, quick critiques:
@Lathan: Overall, brilliant effort. A+ for style and feel. A- for modeling overall. Gripes are very minor, but fairly important if you're trying to reach AAA status:
1. The cockpit and the gold "stripes" should be properly done with the skin, not the model itself, given that Spring doesn't (yet) support translucency. They're a waste of polygons.
2. I am forced to agree that the grille should be a flat face with a texture depicting the louvers. Didja see that guy who posted up his Dune wind-collectors? Now
that is how to make a flat face look 3D! I did a very similar thing with the Wolf:
As you can hopefully see, that back section is 6 triangles, but the texture makes it come alive. Not the most expertly-done thing ever- personally, I liked that Dune wind-catcher more, but you get the idea. Waste not, want not
3. In the future, pay especial attention to mirroring everything possible, for maximum ease of skinning. Anything that has two halves should be split perfectly down the middle whenever possible. It's even worth extra triangles on center bitz, because it saves soooo much time.
Overall though, very nice work- it sings, it dances, it kills bombers
@Rattle:
Well, you get points for pure originality. However, you lose lots of points for making a design that looks, for lack of a diplomatic way of putting it... completely impractical. Those rear fins look heavy, and would serve no real aerodynamic purpose, unless physics are completely alien in your universe. The turret would just interrupt proper airflow- look at turrets for WWII planes- even the sticky-outy ones were usually grafted onto the airframes with at least
some attention paid to airflow, and nobody these days would build planes like they did back then, cool-looking as they are. And the turbines look undersized and have no good path for airflow- there are a bunch of good reasons that all RL designs featuring this kind've thing either have the fans on the wingtips, or pass straight through the body. Basically, I really like that you felt free to give us something really wild- now make it believeable.
@MR.D: That's a pretty solid, competant effort. Like Lathan, you need to avoid using seperate pieces for stuff like windshields. The body is extremely well-made, technically speaking, even if I have a few quibbiles with the overall design, and made good use of box-modeling and mirroring. Personally, I think you should lose the fins on the rear- they look superflous- and I'd like to see it with a longer, slightly-drooping nose, giving it a more aggressive, supersonic feel, and I think that the turbines should be made flush with the wings, instead of bulging. IRL, you never see designs like this, because you've basically ruined the airlfow over much of the wing by distorting the geometry. There are good reasons why planes generally have their engines outside the wings on pylons, or built into the body. In your case, I'd move the bulge down until it's flush, making the top surface smooth and believable, but I'd also move the rest of it down, preserving the holes for the turbofans so that you don't have to remodel them.
Pretty cool stuff, guys.
but yeah... here for inspection and critique:
