BaronEngel
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Galeasses study
🕑 Added 2019-02-07 00:12:50 +0000 UTCLooking at a large, complicated, important illustration is often like looking at a iceberg. Most of it is invisible to the viewer. It lurks beneath the surface.
Same is true for a illustration. Before you start on a piece you may end up doing a lot of study and homework that the viewer will never see or know of. Unless you post it online like this.
Now before I go any further I want to make one thing clear. I am not an expert on ships, naval warfare, or design. I consider it one of my weaker areas of knowledge.
If you want to see someone who grocks sailing ships go take a look at Amarynceus on DA. She's probably forgotten more sailing vessels than I will ever know.
I am currently working up a rather large, complicated color piece as a patron reward for Caerdwyn. It is of one of characters from a previous D&D campaign. And the setting is on the deck of a ship during a naval battle. The main focus character is a rowing slave who has taken up his master's fallen sword and is defending him from the brigands who are boarding the ship.
Now the combatants are equipped in a much more medieval style armor and weapons, but this is a fantasy setting, and even though the focus character is from a very Norse type background Caerdwyn wanted a more swashbuckling type setting for the piece which is not what you'll find on a Viking Longship. Hand to hand combat on a longship is more like two people dueling in phone booth.
With submachine guns.
If you still can't visualize what I am talking about Google (Angus McBride Viking longship battle). Pinterest has dozens of images of the piece I am referring to. Also I want to go on record by saying that the late Angus McBride was one of the illustrators I revered and studied intensely when I was in college.
Beside Caerdwyn describes the ship as having decks, but I was still struggling with the composition for the piece. It wasn't feeling like the deck of a ship. So I remembered a piece of advice I got in college. Even if you're only going to show a small portion of location, object, or individual in a picture it is often prudent to do a drawing or drawings of the entire thing. That way you can get better understand the spatial relationship between different objects and their size compared to other objects and individuals in the piece.
So I referred back to another of my heroes of illustration when I was growing up. Bjorn Landstrom. I pulled my copy of his book The Ship and started reading. This drawing is inspired by Plate 340 in that book.
Comments
Cult of Dust
My take on the design: A ship for catching and overpowering small, fast pirates and raiders. The relatively low mid-section and high ports would be good for weathering a storm, and the oars would allow for a strong burst of speed or better mobility in low or unfavorable wind. The weapons are few, but concentrated forward would make as many usable in a chase. They're rather high up, but that does allow better range too. I'd expect mostly long guns to augment that. Possibly with the ones furthest back wide and short for anti-personnel grapeshot. The large number of oars along with sails would necessitate a massive crew. Good for commandeering hopefully captured ships but supplies would mean voyages have to be kept short. It would operate best in an area like the Mediterranean where weather can vary a lot but escape to open sea is less likely and range is less important. Expensive ship to operate, but highly capable.
Cult of Dust
I've read a little on ships. As far as I understand, there's several primary factors in sailing warship designs. The biggest is how high the center of gravity is; the higher the center, the more the ship will roll and possibly capsize or flood lower ports. However, excessively long or wide designs reduce mobility and agility so you can't just go outwards. Hence why most sailing warships all have the same basic shapes. On ocean-going vessels, you also have to consider storms. Higher gun-ports are important because storms will induce some roll, but a higher ship also can be pushed over by wind easier.
