The Process

     I don't want to write this- in fact, I've been trying to resist this for two days now, But it seems I need to clarify a few things about how I work when it comes to my models and Nova Trek.
     First, off, I do work for a living- 6:30 AM to 2:30 PM Monday through Friday. Allowing for errands and other real life factors, I may not sit down at the computer till 4 PM- or later. This leaves about 6 hours to get anything done.
     When I sit down to work on Nova Trek, the first thing is to finalize the script. Once it's revised and last minute ideas are worked in, I make a list of what I need for that story in terms of ships, characters, props, sets, costumes and so on. In the case of the next story- "Last Voyage of the Sundown", this resulted in a two column list that filled all of one page.
     I then go through my files and Runtime and find what I already have- which is usually less than half of what I need. Then I check the internet- groups, forums and online stores. Usually I can find one or two items that way.
     Then it's time to start building what I still need. Getting the process to this point- getting the sets and ships and characters and costumes and props all built to my specifications can take anywhere from 2 to 3 months- barring dying external drives and faulty programs.
     Once everything is built textured and ready to use- only then, do I actually start doing what I call "The story art". These are the actual renders I need for the illustrations- and depending on the page, that can mean anything from 1-6 panels per page. Some evenings, if I'm lucky I might get half a page- 2-3 renders- done. Then comes the dialogue, word balloons and captions.
     Then after all the pages are ready- that can be anywhere from 80 to 130 pages- They all have to be combined into a single PDF file.
  This process takes roughly a year from the outline to the PDF. So any models I build are - understandably- going to be for Nova Trek first, then If I decide to release it, it's up to others to adapt said model for their use.
   Like I said at the top of this, I didn't want to write this- didn't want to come over sounding like a snob giving a lecture, But some clarification seemed to be necessary.