Spaceship -First Sketches

"Damn, those alien bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride."

THE ACTION HERO SPACESHIP

As the title pretty much implies, this science fiction spaceship I'm creating is going to be designed as the perfect companion for a 80's/90's popcorn flick protagonist. 

Main goals? It has to look cool, robust and reliable. Also, it may come in handy to think about it as a fast, powerful tool that can cause the demise of the evil forces (whoever those may be)

Description.

This is a ship capable to carry just one man at a time (or two, if necessary, however it is not designed for that purpose.) With that, it's a quite small ship. 

With enough firepower to defend itself, it makes for a trustworthy scout and a top-notch escape pod. This spaceship may have belonged to a humanoid alien race before, and our hero may have taken it from one of their highest generals when blowing up their mothership. So, esentially, it's as if Luke Skywalker piloted Darth Vader's own personal ship afer destroying the Death Star.

Giving the "Can I borrow the car keys, dad?"  line a twist.

Since it's primarily an escape pod, I looked upon ships like "Alien"'s Narcissus, and the like. Researching for that, I also thought it would be cool to add a cryo-chamber functionality to it, so the driver can easily relax while the ship reaches it's programmed destination. If the automatic pilot does not work, or the ship gets attacked by looters, the ship is really easy for one person alone to handle, and as said before, it has enough firepower to get rid of ships similar to this one.

Moodboards.

Space Ace - The Basis.
The "Space Ace" arcade videogame had a cartoony spaceship simmilar to what I wanted. Although I would probably not have anything of it in the final piece, I might as well post some, just in case some of it solves minor design problems.

Basic Shape.
Getting the concept of the ship, basing on one man ships, escape pods, sleeping cryo capsules and scout space jets.

Diagrams.
Above: the "Icarus", the starship from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy comics; a random concept art; and the "Prometheus", from the film of the same name.

Luxury.
I wanted to give a Ferrari edge to the ship, or make the materials really expensive looking, to highlight that the pilot was a very important man indeed.
It might be a no-brainer, but Syd Mead's designs do come in handy for that kind of style.

Engines.
To know how they look, and how they work.
From artwork all over the internet, Men In Black, and Battlestar Galactica.

Sketches.

Very little to say about them. I'm refining them as I came up with more ideas. Some of the things I'm thinking about including right now, for example, are some kind of reactor engines attached to the wings so the ship can lift horizontally before flight.

Model Sketches.

Since I centered my efforts on the research and sketches, I only have this lousy mockup model done in Sculptris to show. Not sure if I'll end up doing the whole model in it, or move to another program. However, it works to get the principles of the ship's shape right.