UPDATE: Art has been updated since the original post.

For the November issue of 3ABN World, we needed to illustrate a devotional article based on the famous Apollo 13 mission. After a futile search for a useful clipart image, I decided to take the plunge and make my own composition. Keep in mind that I do not have much experience in 3D — I think I could count my 3D illustrations on one hand — and I had only six hours or so across two days to work on this. Besides that, my tools were a clunky 3D application called Swift 3D 4.5 (nothing “swift” about it), SketchUp 6, and Photoshop CS2.

I found a number of 3D models. Interestingly, each one was different in various ways, including in regards to the colors and materials used for major pieces of the Apollo command module. So I compared them all, noted the common features, and also perused some online articles about the Apollo 13 mission (characterized by fuzzy, black and white images). In the end, I went for as accurate as I could guess, along with adding a few random stylistic elements that are almost certainly not true to life, but which make it look more believable.

Here is the base model that I downloaded. Note the absence of color and detail, and that the dish antenna is completely missing:

I added basic colors, materials, and textures in Swift 3D, and got the angle set to what I wanted. Then I exported it as a PNG image, and opened that in Photoshop. Then I added more color, shading, and texture. I also added lettering, rivets, the words “United States,” and other little do-dads. In the background I added stars (using a real photo of the night sky, not just random stars), and a view of Earth.

Originally I had added a dish antenna borrowed from another model, which I retouched in Photoshop. But I was not happy with the result. The new graphic below shows the new antenna that I made from scratch using SketchUp, Swift 3D, and Photoshop.

Here is detail of the craft:

Here is a small version of the final image. The full size one is 11 inches wide at 300 ppi.