USV CA21 Shenandoah

United States Space Force - Shenandoah Class Medium Attack Cruiser

Description:

The United States Vessel (USV) CA21 Shenandoah is a Shenandoah Class 2nd Generation Medium Attack Cruiser designed and built for the United States Space Force. She is the first vessel of her class and is the namesake of her family, named after the West Virginia River and is also the capital ship of the USSF 2nd Fleet.  

The Shenandoah began life at the Abrams Wells Shipbuilder's Dry-docks located at Earth-Moon L2. She is a powerful ship built with a balance of close and long-range combat capabilities. Her body is long and segmented, each module designed with a specified purpose. She sports a quartet of M-45 BW Dynamics RET-7 True Shot Railgun turrets, capable of punching holes in the enemy or delivering devastating orbital bombardment campaigns. Her weapons compliment also include 8 torpedo tubes capable of deploying a variety of offensive and defensive packages like torpedos, terminal and kinetic kill vehicles, and reconnaissance probes.

The Shenandoah includes a comprehensive defense system comprising heavy segment active and passive armor as well as 10 M-PD7 BurrCorp Z5 Thunderclap Point Defense turrets.

The primary drive of the Shenandoah includes 4 Bauer Sniers S250 Inertial Confinement Fusion Drives, capable of propelling the vessel at 1/10G and up to 1/6G in emergency situations. 

Idea:

The inspiration for the USV Shenandoah followed on the creation of the USSF Shasta, the second art piece I made for the this project. Many of these works drew inspiration from hard science fiction series. James SA Corey’s The Expanse Series was of particular inspiration in the methodology behind the design. Where the designs of the Eleran Eclipse’s works differ are in the rationale that informs the overall structure of each spacecraft.

I wanted the ships in Eleran Eclipse to be more informed by real engineering practices. Long conversations with other space geeks and hours of trawling through websites like Atomic Rockets helped my reach the design you see above. Some things to note are the longer bodies of the spacecrafts and inclusion of things like radiators, radiation isolation structures, and shielding.

The hope is that these pieces would be a closer extrapolation of what space travel, habitation, and combat would possibly look like a century or two into the future.

This 3D rendering is the latest iteration of the concept art. Previously, the design existed on as a 2D schematic made in Adobe Illustrator.

Process:

The design of the Shenandoah began with a rough sketch that laid out the parts and dimensions of the spacecraft. This ship would be the third illustrated spacecraft made for the world building in the writing project. It was the first design that would utilize a flat, more schematic-like layout so that I could focus more on the details of each piece of the artwork. Previous pieces featured an isometric oblique layout that emphasized the shape of the ship. However, I felt that the pseudo 3D imagery forced me to focus more on the general shape of the illustration and made it difficult to dive into the minute details.

In the 2D schematic rendering, the ship was drawn in Adobe Illustrator and began is a series of basic shapes, from which details and textures were added to bring the who piece together.

Transition to 3D Modeling:

Over the following years, I became interested in pursuing more artwork in 3D. This ultimately culminated in me diving into Blender 3D and beginning my journey in 3D modeling. From the outset, I knew I wanted to recreate my designs and work in the Elysian Eclipse world in 3D.

Working in 3D:

Like with my first proper foray into Blender with the CSV-Langley, the Shenandoah was a step up in detail and complexity. Ultimately, I did feel I bit off a bit more than I was able to chew at the time. In process of building the model and getting it to completion, a lot of lessons were learned. While the whole process took longer than I was hoping, I was quite happy with the result, and the skills I learned will definitely be put to use on the next project!