I had the lucky task of developing Jim's concept for the ISV Venture Star interstellar vehicle, starting from Jim's sketches and copious technical notes and delivering a partially textured 3D asset which was adapted for final shots by Blur studio (which uses Softimage and could open my native scene files). Enormous help with design, detailed modelling, and even texturing came from three brilliant friends - Tex Kadonaga, Joe Hiura, and Rob Johnson. I was the master planner of the ship but these guys designed a lot of the critical components. It was not unlike the real development of the ISS! More info in this io9 article.