Re: SPELLJAMMER Art

Yup that's me ;)

Well, deck railings have to be 3'--4' high, I usually work off 3'. Most
sailing vessels of 14000-1700s seem to have 3 to 4' high railings, as they
were also to save you from attack and be defensive.

I look at the exterior and then interior plans, and the interior plans often
simply don't match up. And there's no way you could have giff or other such
races onboard most of the original designs.

Look at a clipper ship and actual cargo ships from say 1500-1600, those were
big.
I get yer point about submarines but that doesn't apply because...very
different. Few crews so well trained, facilities and weapon systems very
different etc etc :) A racing yacht definitely doesn't apply, totally
"false" design compared to a trading/warship.
Real life merchant vessels did have crew crammed in, but, they didn't
require helm rooms, rooms occupied by weird spell casters and so on.

The ram and tail flukes on the squidship are enormous, the "snail shell" of
the nautiloid would make the gravity plane much higher than it's supposed to
be...thus making gravity plane same height as the catapult deck, making the
ballista deck totally unusable. But I let them be, though I reduced the
thickness of the ram on the squidship as it was grossly unbalanced.

When I build I use a program that builds in exact sizes, I use imperial
since it's easy for scaling. I import a human model to check sizes and so on
if I need but, as said, it's all built in/on a grid to foot scale. Then I
have to think about giff etc. I know sailing vessels had to build as tight
as possible, but they didn't have 8' tall crew and they weren't as small as
many folk think (depends entirely on what ships were talking about). The oft
said Santa Maria was a ~small~ ship for her era.

I rebuilt ballistas to exact real-life sizes as well.

So should I decide to make ships unusable by giffs, umber hulks and other
such big races? If so, then how do they fit into the entire setting?

Classic one is the mind flayer nautiloid, as the internal deckplan doesn’t
make sense for the size of illustration.
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/nautiloid/nautiloid_cutaway2.jpg
that shot shows the problem clearly. 
Then add in problem of: slaves, food for slaves and mind flayers require
brains to survive...the Nautiloid is said to be 35' tons, no way in hell can
it be 35' tons even going by original deckplans it's much bigger than the
Hammership!

Another point is the neogi Deathspider, it is indeed, enormous, the
originals give it an INTERNAL deckplan of 210' long, but the front of the
illustration says it has a 175' long keel! That's the deck , not including
the legs. And since you've got umber hulks it absolutely requires 10' doors.

So I'm stuck, if I stick to the originals, they don't work it's
non-sensical. Sigh.


I could re-do the Tradesman, but it would still need much larger deck
entrances than original design shows as as said, large races would find them
utterly unusable. Should I stick with 6' ceilings, or 10' as I did to allow
giff the ability to actually use that ship?

My re-designed ship sizes:
Nautiloid 219' (original 180')
Deathspider 254' (original 175', and original size is smaller than the
deckplan shows which is a glaring obvious error and leaves out the length of
the legs of the grapple ram)
Tradesman 159' (original 120')
Squidship 201' (original 250')

Notice that I made the squidship shorter than actual. Now have a good look
at the squidships illustration, then it's deckplan...both are
irreconcilable! And you have the ship's living/storage space utterly dwarfed
by the flukes and ram.
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/squidship_2006_1.jpg
to me, that's exactly how a squidship should be sized, about equal to real
life merchantman/small manowar of the 1600s. The man on deck shows scale.

So I'm screwed either way, all I can do is *interpret* the originals because
they are so glaringly wrong in many cases :(

But at least you like them :)


-----------------------------------------------------------
I'd rather be a Fool who believes in Dragons,
Than a King who believes in Nothing.
-----------------------------------------------------------
www.silverblades-suitcase.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Spelljammer Setting Discussion
[mailto:SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com] On Behalf Of Charles Sykora
Sent: 03 January 2007 17:23
To: SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] SPELLJAMMER Art

I love your art, but if I remember correctly, you are the guy that  
thinks the original sizes as published in the canon materials are  
unworkable.  While they aren't perfect, I think they are much closer  
to some of the super-size ships I've seen in your deck plans (if you  
are the guy I'm thinking about).  I posted once my logic (as a  
submariner who knows how much you can do with a very small space and  
how much space you need for 120 men to live in) as to why I preferred  
the published sizes, but you never replied to my post.  So, while I  
love your work, it is not 'canon' as we've been saying on the list.   
Some of the external shots work, but even then, the overall scale is  
flawed when, for example, deck railings are sized according to your  
concept of reasonable, which are then off-scale for the published  
hull sizes (or tons).  If you aren't the guy using the wrong size  
scales, then I apologize.  For someone like me who wants to stay  
'canon' as much as 3e makes possible, it's a shame, because your  
designs are marvelous and in every other wise very true to form.
--Dale--

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