 An honorable mention is this little guy, the Fruit Bat. It was one of my early designs in KSP and is mostly aesthetic rather than innovative or extraordinarily capable. An all electric atmospheric plane, the fruit bat is not particularly fast and is not designed for orbit. It is fun to fly though, and performs like a solid little jet. It was designed to familiarize myself with the all electric propulsion systems in KSP and to proof the onboard electric generation systems for long range flight.
The Fruit Bat is reliable and fun to fly, plus it looks like something straight out of a sci-fi anime, and that was kind of what I was going for. -NR
If we seek to, we grow in many ways. Knowledge expands our perceptions and connects us to greater understanding. Through application of the lessons and repeated attempts at new methods of behavior, we find the wisdom within the lessons.
We look back on what we once were to recognize what we are now. Cultivating what we want and culling what we no longer desire within us. Seek out, and center in. Breathe out, then back in again. Allow your spirit to blossom and drape you in the petals of the past, to amend the soil of the future. The love remains, and so does the pain. Go with care. Love, -NR I have been doing fast paint studies from my own photos. One hour each, a single layer, and only one brush. These constraints help keep me flexible in my process, and keeps my hand moving so I don't get into analysis paralysis. I am also learning to push colors to be a bit bolder than the reference I use, and finding ways to display complexity and detail with less work.
This exercise is also helping me process some of what has happened in the past five years, and gain some orientation as to where I am now. Life throws us seemingly continuous lessons to be learned and maintaining healthy habits to integrate and move forward with these lessons is imperative. I encourage people to go outside, get close to nature, examine the way this world is in it's unabused form, appreciate the people (animals included) in your life, and transmute the difficult lessons we are taught into something beautiful. A photo on your phone is enough to record those moment s of divine beauty. -NR The Manta-Ray.1 The Manta-Ray was mostly an experiment in animal form aesthetic, but ended up being a fair design for a really safe, slow, and stable plane. It runs on electric charge and hydrogen. I didn't get it orbital, and it's not particularly acrobatic, but super stable. It rolls well, but is a pain to pitch back and if not anticipated, will cause problems. Perhaps a multi-atmospheric submersible design could be inspired by this little guy. I wanted to design a plane that looked like a Manta Ray and this was the first round draft. (Name changed because I just found out about the x-44) The Hydray.1 The second attempt at a Manta Ray inspired plane looks good, but is tough to fly. Once flying the plane is extremely stable, but again does not pitch back well at high speed. Still running on electric charge and hydrogen, the best parts of this plane were the look and the name. The Hydray.1 inspired the name for my second novella, and a very different craft. More about that later.
 Swift: inspired by modern fighter jets, the Swift was actually awesome. I used some experimental thruster configurations which made for a stable flight platform, with flexible engine combinations. It was not designed for it, but I was able to push it out of atmosphere, even with conventional intake reliant electric thrusters. It was fast, stable, and responsive.  Swift.2: This was the second version of the Swift, but designed with orbit capability in mind. It worked. The first version was kind of a minimal build, so the 2.0 version was not. Extra energy storage and generation systems, airbrakes, survival systems, lights, and a hydrogen Ion thruster sent us into space and back with repeatable success.
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Nicholas RodriguezArtist, designer, musician, writer, craftsman, nature geek... Archives
March 2024
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