How often does your visual design then go back and change something about the technical design? Have you ever done something that just looked cool and they're like, oh, that wasn't really what we were planning, but maybe we change that?
TL;DRThere is a collaborative back and forth, where the artist tries to honour the technical design but can sometimes fit in extra room or changes after blocking the ship out in 3D.
Well, I do try to accommodate the design language as best as possible, really. But there is a backwards and forwards, like, hey, this would be really cool, can we try and fit this in? Or it would be really awesome if we got this instead of this. So there is this back and forth that you have to have because, as you say, design's very text-based, whereas this is quite visual, and we can see visually. And then once we've got this little thumbnail, we can block it out in 3D quick, and then we put little people in, and if it's got cargo we put cargo in it and see if it actually works, and then we can go back to design and be like, hey, look, we've got some room for extra, or not, basically. So sometimes you can wangle stuff in.
It's a very collaborative process.
It is.