I am currently working on a space shoot-em up/rpg type thing. You play as a fighter pilot who travels with a galactic fleet. I need some help designing ships and fighters for the game. I can do the drawing but I need ideas. This is what I have so far. http://www.geocities.com/ussnewjersey4/fighter.bmp

I would make the enemy ships considerably different from your own ships.
Maybe the enemy ships could be somewhat organic (like the zerg race in starcraft), and your own ships like you have drawn them.

I like the style, go on like that.

A few "standard" ship designs are: organic; big and bulky; sleek and with lots of chrome; vaguely-remniscent-of-Earth-airplanes-and-ships; and Platonic solids.

Edited to fix a spelling error.

careful with the pillow-shading there...

As for ideas - it all depends on what kind of style you want for your game. Gooey Space Aliens? Sophisticated Cyborgs? Gritty WW2-style Ships?

I´d suggest that you try to find a sort of common line for the whole game, then do some sketching (on paper) to gather enough ideas. Also look at reference games, books, etc. (especially those airplane and spacecraft books can be a great source for ideas)

Right now your player ship (at least I assume that that´s it) looks very much like a helicopter (which doesn´t really fit with the galactic fleet thing), whereas the opponent looks extremely retro (reminds me of space invaders and the like). If this is the direction you want to be going, keep at it, but don´t mix too much.

also, you might wanna check out pixelation for technical advice on drawing pixel graphics.

Thanks for the replys.

Depending on the scale of the game, I'd like to see capital ships and fighters in proper proportion to one another. If a carrier can hold five dozen heavy fighters, it should be a lot bigger than they are.

How do you post images? I have updated the pictures with some new ships and a larger carrier/battlecruiser. Im not sure which just yet. For some reason the shading does not look right to me. I tried to get away from the pillow shading.

As for the right proportions, that is exactly what I'm after. The player will play as a fighter pilot for a big carrier that is part of a fleet. When you are out fighting so will the rest of the fleet, so you will be able to see your carriers and cruisers attacking the enemy as well.

EDIT: the new location is http://www.geocities.com/ussnewjersey4/fighters.bmp

Use <img src="http://www.geocities.com/ussnewjersey4/fighter.bmp"> for images. Just html :P

Thanks. Here they are then:

Something that I would like to see more of in space combat games is ships that can fire to the side, like naval ships way-back-when. Maybe a rectangular capital ship (frigate) with some turrets all around.