Conceptual Massing and You

How did I get Planet Express Ship to be so awesome? Matt Groening. Also, profiles. Conceptual massing in Revit/Vasari is very sweet and seeing that it's not destructive, I always have access to the underlying structure that created my form to tweak. I started, very simply, with an extrusion and went from there. I heard Zach Kron refer to these as the 'bones' of my form, so I'm stealing it.

Boneless

As you start your profiles, you will want to consider how flexible you want the resultant shape to be. You may consider adding Reference Lines with dimensional constraints to help you stretch or alter your shape later parametrically, but for me, this ship doesn't need to be designed, only modeled. With the form selected, head over to the form element are of your Modify tab and choose Add Profile. Now you have control (parametric or otherwise) over each 'sketch' to do with as you please.

Bone In

The surface will continue to contour and evolve as each profile is completed similar to a Bezier Curve in Illustrator (however, without the additional 'tightness' controller unfortunately). This can be a time consuming process, so be patient. A while back, I saw David Light post about creating the form from nested profiles and have some parametric control on the back end. Again, consult with yourself on how this form may or may not need to flex and go with the best option for you. I continued on using my method for each of the fins and other objects until the end.

mmmmm Fins

In conclusion, use the heck out of profiles, nest them, parametize them, host them. A great side effect of using the conceptual massing tool is that any edge can be used as a path for a sweep. Simply host a point on the edge and draw your profile on the perpendicular plane and sweep away! (see the banding around the base of the fins and the fuselage)

Lift Off!

Good luck out there.