Furthering my work in Blender, I came across some useful tutorials by Dan Brown including how to model panels on smooth surfaces.  I combined this by modelling a planet atmosphere in Blender (a little old, but can be still be done for the latest Blender version) to create a slightly 2001-inspired space scene.

I also recreated my Avalon Station in Blender, very roughly:

I then learned a little more about UV mapping in Blender and to put together a space plane, following this tutorial to get the after burner effect:




This was all done using Blender’s Cycles node based texturer and renderer, which I’m very impressed with…hope you think this is an improvement on my last effort!