How long does it typically take to design something like the Crucible or the Caterpillar? And how has this process changed during your time at CIG?

Every ship's like a unique little snowflake in that it takes a different amount of time. I mean, we talked about variants before, we talked about the different things going on with each individual ship. So on average, it's taken me anywhere from three to five weeks to get the interior done, the Confluence page done, working with the artists, working with the leads, the directors, the engineers, talking about what the mechanics need to go with each ship, talking with Sherman, because I always do a pass once I get the interior solid, then I go through a couple of days just working with Sherman, looking at the components, the sizes of the components. Once we know all the components fit in the little nooks and crannies where they're going, make sure they're facing the right way so that way they can have an access panel to open up, get the component out, put it back in, make sure they fit through the hallways, everything like that. We actually do put a lot of thought into the interiors.

And this is just the white boxing. This isn't building out the interior of the ship. If you've seen the Crucible video or the Caterpillar video or the Starfarer video, this is just laying out the interior, not building it in engine.

So yeah, I mean, we actually do build it in engine, but it is all just basic blocks of geometry and stuff, as people have seen in the videos. So it takes a while to get through. But it's multiple iterations, multiple people are looking at it. There's multiple checks. At least two or three times I'm talking to you, talking to Calix, I'm talking to Kirk, I'm talking to everybody else. So basically I'm like, hey, I need feedback on this. And then moving stuff around, adding things a little here and there. Like, what was it? On the Crucible, I was working on it, and then towards the end, Calix asked a simple question of just, so where are the spotlights? And it was like, oh my god, I forgot spotlights. So little things like that always get added in here and there. So it's always a constant iteration.

I mean, it's definitely something also where it's never just us as designers doing this treatment on a ship. Like Randy even mentioned, we have to work in tandem with the artists on this because, like all of our departments, we have to play to our own strengths, where we can handle the design, we can handle the spec work, we can handle all of that. But we also have to know and trust our artists, like Owen, Gurmukh, those guys, to just be able to jive with that and then knock the ship out of the park and make something really incredible.