Wait, What?: A slight detour straight down

Last year I happened to be killing some lunch break in a toy shop, and spotted a "Storm Blaster Hurricane Warrior" ... just leaving that name hanging for a sec... water pistol at like 75% off, so basically free as my other half would say, and there was just something about the shape that looked like it could be useful for something.

Storm Blaster Hurricane Warrior water pistol

The mighty Storm Blaster Hurricane Warrior

And because I've been looking at a lot of Star Citizen content for the Space Hulk project, I'd seen this video (click the link, it's worth watching) which kind of inspired me. Crashed ship. Salvage. Shanty town. Sandwurms. Ok maybe sandwurms later. But definitely crashed ship.

Current status.

So having sawn the grip off and sanded off the surfaces I can reach, all of a sudden I have a new scenery project.

I'm still in two minds whether to make this a decent size ship in 6mm scale, or more of a skiff in 28 (I think probably 6), but I've only just started, so for now it's concept and inspiration stuff - after the jump.

Film

Probably because of my age, film is the underlying strata of any project for me - consciously or not - and although it wasn't the trigger point for me this time, it's still an immediate and obvious resource in the thought process.

The LV-426 wreck

Although not quite the original spaceship wreck in film, to my mind this is nonetheless the definitive one - certainly the earliest largest most convincing one I can recall. Apart from the ship itself, the disconcerting angle it sits in the landscape, the unnatural contrast between the bulbous curves and the eroded rock outcrops are what I take from this.

That bleak landscape is a bit of a signature motif of your basic crashed spacecraft it turns out.

The Force Awakens wrecks

And then we have the much more recent The Force Awakens with the iconic Star Destroyer suggesting ancient drama much as a castle ruin and breathing sheer scale into the scene - surely the cinematographic highlight of the film, and something achievable in 6mm - while the ship hovel concept piece is a much more intimate piece that works for 28.

Pitch Black Set Ship, (Coober Pedy, Australia)

Another 28mm friendly reference, the visitable surviving remnants of the crash landing in Pitch Black. And more deserts of course. I assume the relative ease of filming sci-fi in real life deserts is the driver that became the trope.

Games

For once Alien Isolation and Doom aren't helpful, but as I said Star Citizen is what set me off on this - more deserts of course.

Raider base? Salvage op?

Not the best image (go look at the video). I'm not sure what this is intended to be within the game, but from a modelling perspective I like the tarps and ropes and gangways, and the whole concept of the temporary oasis formed around the mechanical whale-fall.

The game also features at least one more wreck out there - I think this stuff is procedurally generated, but somehow it's another desert.

Art

The last and greatest resource is of course the wonderful world of google image search.

I am continuously blown away by the depth and level of creative talent out there on ArtStation, DeviantArt, Imgur, Reddit and the like, a smattering of which is below.