Week 4 - Y-Wing

Initially, I intended for my second model to be an X-Wing, however I was unable to find suitable blueprints for it, so instead my second model will be a Y-Wing. This model is slightly more complex than the TIE Phantom, but should not be overly difficult to model.

The starting point for the Y-Wing is in fact easier: the basic chassis can be constructed from three cuboids. The first, central cuboid forms the main body, the second cuboid extends to the sides to connect the wings, and the third extends forwards to connect the cockpit.

Fig.1: The basic body of the Y-Wing. Additional detail will be added later.

The engines are a complex construct, but their basic shape is a cylinder with stretched hemispherical front. As with the TIE Phantom's wings, the engines are duplicated and moved into place; the model is centered on the X axis to make this easier.

Fig.2: The Y-Wing with the engines attached.

From this point onwards, modelling the Y-Wing becomes far more complex. The next stage is the cockpit, which has two separate parts; the main body and a raised upper canopy. I will attempt to model the main body using a single cube split into six sections, as shown in the annotated diagram in Fig.3 (I find using this modular topology much more useful than importing image planes into Maya).

Fig.3: The top view of the Y-Wing with various shapes drawn on it to help me scale each section. The cockpit is to the right, with six parallelograms drawn onto it.

Fig.4: The cube having been milled into the cockpit shape shown in Fig.3. The blue box in the bottom-right was used to help align the subdivisions and then to move the edges inwards.

Fig.5: The finished cockpit body, roughly positioned on the main body.

The basic shape of the Y-Wing is now complete. Next week I will add the finishing details and move on to my third and final model.