JETCOPTER : Rough Sketches

About a year back I was contacted by a production company over in LA looking to have some vehicles designed for an upcoming movie. In the end they decided to go with another artist so I didn't get to start, but the description they gave was a helicopter with retractable rotors that turns into a jet. There weren’t much more details than that, so no explanation as to what kind of copter it was. What size or what it would be used for.

Just for fun and to scratch that itch, I’ve decided to do a few very quick sketches of some jetcopters, various sizes and shapes with different kinds of rotors. Just exploring different ideas.

For the first one, I decided to do a very small lightweight “little bird” style assault jetcopter. This one has very large rotors that can swing back to form wings when in jet mode.
For the second one, a hybrid copter/jet aircraft. This one’s rotors extend out from a central unit. They retract in when the copter goes into jet mode.
The third one, a wide body executive jet with rotors set into the wings. Not quite retractable rotors but it’s another option.
And the fourth idea, a much bigger vehicle with some fold out powerful turbo rotors. The front end is for passengers and the rear for cargo, with a rear door for loading. I'm going to take this one further, perhaps do some more finished colour images and I quite fancy building it in 3D.