Chris Foss' derelict designs inspire Firefly?

leading from

Alien echoes

and
Chris Foss' derelict   

a) On the 10th of December 2013, "Matfink" said to me on my blog "Amazing similarities between derelict 1 and the design of Serenity's Firefly..." and seeing an immediate connection I decided to take a further look


b) One of Chris Foss' initial concepts for the derelict ship showed a long bodied vehicle with a thick barrel shaped part in the middle of its body and from that part the front of the ship rose up as if it has a bird like neck sloping upwards ending in something that would be the head with an almost beak like nozzle.

concept for derelict by Chris Foss, no.1

c) In 2002, a few years after Joss Whedon wrote the script for Alien Resurrection featuring a band of space pirates aboard a relatively small spacecraft called The Betty, he went off to make his TV series Firefly followed by the cinema movie Serenity. The main space craft was the Serenity that was a Firefly class ship. It looks slightly similar to the front half of the derelict concept art by Chris Foss, with the barrel part as mentioned forming the main body of the ship which also has a half raised  bird like neck ending in a beaked head.

d) First impressions about Foss's concept is that it resembled an oversized prawn and the Serenity from Firefly has the general shape of a bird with its wings replaced by engine arms and the head has evolved into something almost reptilian. Other concepts for the Serenity ship Firefly went in other directions.

Serenity. Early Concept Design by Carey Meyer, courtesy of Rocco Passionino.
Source: Firefly- Still Flying Titanbooks.com

The Serenity

The Serenity

remains of a large version of the Serenity spacecraft ( source io9 )