WIP: More "Star Wars" Fanart: the Naboo N3A1 "Super Peregrine"

In the story that I am participating in over at Spacebattles.com, it is some 40+ years after the Battle of Yavin, which means that it is maybe 60 or so years after the initial Blockade of Naboo that kicked off the adventures. The government I write is based in Naboo, where the elected constitutional monarch is the sovereign of a large Republic faction spanning several sectors. They have their own fighter, the iconic Naboo N-series, still in its J-Type Nubian configuration.

I like to imagine that the Naboo stuck with their design, since it is iconic and they are clearly a people that value tradition. I knew a few things going into this: the N3 version was "bigger, beefier, and had more armor". It also has bigger guns and the engine nacelles are intended to be variable-geometry, much like the wingtip nacelles on the Serenity in the TV show Firefly.

As you can see, I drew two different types of nacelle here as I started playing around with the design. I also changed the cockpit. Initially I was making it look like the Kamov Ka-50 attack helicopter, but in sticking with the original notion that Star Wars fighters were based off of World War Two dogfighters, I went with the more appropriate P-51D cockpit.

I took an image of the N1 from the Mandalorian TV series and started with that. By this third iteration, you can see I've settled on what I want the nacelles to look like, specifically the engine intakes. I've also made the cockpit and droid socket smaller, to make the overall ship bigger. I've also started adding extra armor plating around the pilot compartment, which is portrayed by the lines drawn along the hull.

Then I added the coloration. The galaxy has been wracked by years of war, since the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War, and then the wars that happened within our story's own internal canon after that. So a bright yellow and chrome finish seemed unrealistic to me. This version of the Naboo fighter is a dedicated warbird.

You can also see that the "finials" or "rat-tails" from the engines are shorter and studded with finlets to dissipate heat in a different way. Again, this (to me) made the ship more "tactical". Also added are some flare dispensers, two on the top of each engine and two more to either side of the bottom hull just aft of the droid socket. Also added are small fin antennas, for either transmitting or spoofing incoming sensors, and a pair of pods on the front hull aft of the guns, meant to be dual-linked targeting sensors.

More detail is added here; I'm starting to add the "finishing touches" like the engine intake alerts and some of the other "danger area" bright paints. If you look at the cockpit, I've also added an F-35-style serrated cockpit seal.

Now the shading. Yes, I gave it "traditional" shading like it was sitting in the sunlight even though it is of course a spaceship. That's the because the purpose of this image is to showcase the spacecraft rather than create a diorama.

Finished up! This particular N3A1 Super Peregrine is part of the 210th "Royal Reds" squadron, also known as "the Queen's Own". They are, as the name suggests, the fighter squadron dedicated to the immediate defense of the Palace at Theed, and if the Queen goes anywhere, a contingent of them always fly escort (or go on board the same Star Destroyer if times are dangerous).

Sticking with the WW2 motif, the 210th Squadron has the "invasion stripes" like Allied aircraft had during the Normandy invasion, but in red and white, reflecting their "Royal Reds" designation. The red & white invasion stripes were used during the final campaign against the Yuuzhan Vong by all Sovereign Alliance aerospace fighters, but the 210th got to keep theirs after the war and still fly these colors to this day in the story.

So that's that: the N3A1 Super Peregrine, a dedicated warbird version of the classic N1 Naboo design, modified through years of strife and conflict.

I'll have more BOHICA Blues stuff next week!