BRIEF:

The people of the planet Forestfull are very ingenious. Being rich in natural biological resources, but metal poor, Forestfullians have leaned on other materials to advance their society. Use of plant products, like cellulous from trees and grass, as well as selective horticulture and DNA manipulation have allowed them to create almost anything they needed, without the use of massive amount of metal.

 

The challenge has been that, no matter how creative you are with natural products, there comes a point that you do need metals to move further. This become particularly true for applications that need light weight power plants, such as aircraft.

 

The Forestfullians recognized their need and decided to reach out to Universal-Motion to see if they could attain some technologies that would allow them to take the next step in their technological innovations. Universal-Motion, which saw a great opportunity to do business with the Forestfullians, had to also keep in mind their "Non-interference directive." This directive states that U-M will not provide technologies to organisms (humanoid and non-humanoid alike) that significantly advances their technology or impacts their culture. Because of this directive, they needed the Forestfullians to demonstrate that they had achieved a level of sophistication befitting the level of technology U-M would provide.

 

To show U-M the level of technical acumen they have achieved, the Forestfull government contracted to one of their local manufacturing companies, DNA\Composites, to create a feasible flying machine made from all natural products using the newest growth and DNA manipulation techniques. Flight has been something that has alluded the Forestfullians because of the need for light weight power supplies that they could not create themselves. They believed that showing U-M that they could create the aircraft of their own design, U-M would provide the light weight power supplies to power them.

 

DNA\Composites went to work to create the requested machine. Using patterns found in nature, they were able to create a craft based upon the seed pod of one of their many hardwood trees. By growing the pod to exceptional size, but keeping the skin exceptionally thin and the entire wing area hollow, they were able to create a wing area large enough to lift a significant weight, but have very little weight itself. To improve the strength of the wing, they filled the hollow area with hydrogen gas, which acts to increase shape holding of the wing as well as improves its lifting ability.

 

To improve flight characteristics, a boom with elevator and rudder controls was added. These too are made of natural materials such as a bamboo like grass found in the tropical areas of the country.

 

Once completed, U-M was shown the results of the effort and immediately saw that the Forestfullians had achieved a level of technical sophistication that would allow for introduction of internal combustion engines. U-M immediately contracted to build and supply their "Power-16" aircraft engine, which is an inverted V-16 diesel with 15 liter displacement. The engine is liquid cooled and can run on a variety of natural and artificial fuels that can be manufactured on Forestfull.

 

U-M supplies the engines complete with fairings, fuel tanks and propellers, as well as spare parts and training on maintenance, field and shop repair.

 

With the supply of engines now available, Forestfull now has a small fleet of six commercial aircraft, with more slated to be built over the coming years.

WORKFLOW:

This had been an idea that I've had for several years now and ZBrush seemed like an ideal tool to create it. I've been doing lots of solid surface modeling and wanted to try something that required more organic shapes. I tried a couple of different "sketches" in ZBrush until I finalized on the idea of a wing and pod with external engines. Looking at references of Maple tree seeds help to solidify the body shape.

 

Using knowledge of WWI aircraft and some google research, I come upon the idea of using inverted V engines mounted using struts as the power plants. I was originally going to use a jet engine, but I liked the idea of something a bit retro. I wanted all attachments to the wing to look like they had been "grown" over the things being attached, so I made sure I raised all the surfaces where the struts met the wing.

 

I also realized that I needed control surfaces. I was going to grow those along with the wing, but I liked the idea of interfacing the mechanical control surfaces to the organic wing shape. It really gives the craft a unique feel.

 

The aircraft's color is based upon maple leaf coloring. It was created using the Polypaint function in ZBrush and imported seamlessly into KeyShot. I like the organic look.

 

All the figures used were created in DAZ|Studio using the DAZ3D Genesis models. The clothing and figure were used either in the IF-197 or the WLR MkII. This saved some time although reposing the figures took a good solid day to do.

 

Finally, everything was rendered in KeyShot using a very high definition HDRI image that I purchased on line. Once the render was completed, I moved it into Photoshop where I created the blur effect of the spinning propeller, added some exhaust smoke and grounded the figures my added grass textures and shadows around their feet.