Black Scarab

Some time ago I started working on a spaceship/shuttle for a comic of some sort. During the development, I started to realize things that I.. already knew. A ship that's just shape-play is not that interesting. I think Time Bokan has a really nice ship. The Grandis tank from Nadia is fantastic too.



Important features

* Familiar shape, or theme.
* Sub vehicles/units that can be deployed by the characters..
* Transformation and adaptability, i.e. flying, underwater, tank, walker, mole...
* No superfluous detail. Each component should have one or several functions.

On top of this, the design needs to have camera space inside, and perhaps windows so the interior and exterior can be connected clearly and not become two different sets.


Notes on my designs:


Ship

* The engine nozzle doubles as a propeller.
* Legs double as fins.
* Cockpit dome doubles as gun turret.
* Engine+leg area can swing down, VTOL style. This uncovers the exit hatch (and an extrudable ladder) on the back, thus using this area for warranted detailing rather than greeble.
* Unfortunately I couldn't come up with a way to tuck large wings into the design while keeping the bug theme, so I'd have to cheat with some kind of force field wings (partial). Feathers can be packed together, but it felt wrong for my bug theme.


Robot 1

* The top observation knob doubles as detachable observation drone, R2D2 style.


Robot 2

* A humanoid robot which is transformable into a hover bike. Hands turn into handles, feet into pedals. Maybe it can use the ship's main gun, which could be detachable (and usable as a regular rifle even).

There needs to be some kind of micro mechanic too, similar to the Doozers from Fraggle Rock. Yatterman had little robotic ant mechanics iirc.