Factions and Ships

So we have Space-Yanks and Space-Charlie, which is all well and good but what sets apart our ideologically dichotomous friends from one another in terms of aesthetics and design? To answer this question I, of course, developed some moodboards.

Looking at the space technology of both the US and USSR I came up with some rough guiding principles for the aesthetics of my two factions.

USA: The American designs were to be sleeker and more sophisticated in appearance to their Soviet counterparts. They were to be symmetrical and clean in appearance with white, blue and silver being the predominant colour palette.

CAC: The Soviet designs are more hashed together with style sacrificed for practicality. They look older and more bashed up and utilise a much more eclectic colour palette including the colours red, orange, cream, yellow, green and white.

Both factions will also feature egregious references to their respective native cultures, predominantly in the design of their capital ships.

Speaking of ships, I had to design some of them. Spaceships fighting in space is the main theme of the game after all. So I hashed out some quick ideas for the two sides in the only way to hash out quick ideas, on a big Photoshop canvas with a thick round brush:

USA Concepts.

CAC Concepts.

I got some good ideas from sleek cones to shuttles with huge burners thrown on to ungainly cylinders thrown together with reckless abandon and an engine stuck on for good measure.