Shipbucket

Thanks for the feedback, its much appreciated. (the following is just to explain my thought process)
My thought was that with BBs (especially later on) there are so few that its almost less work to do them all (and you can include national styles for comparison), but early on I will agree their are to many and you way will be much simpler and more concise. Yes ok will go more generic.
I did at the top, but thought as they are RN guns they should be in metric (but will redo as totally generic) HAHA yes so did I till I started the project with a list (where to start Warrior ? or Devastation ?) and then decided it would be better to do the dreadnaught's first and make the list longer if I had not died of old age. I did think of that honest but just thought as it was generic it didn't matter and just when with the easiest thing to do (will fix). I did think of that honest but just when with the easiest thing to do for WIP (will fix),
Q what text type/size did you use (and how do you turn off MS paint F****** up the text ? That would be a good guide in its self).

Will get on redoing it (and making others).
JSB

With DD's and FF's I usually chose several representative examples (most of them could be found in SB archive), copied them to a large sheet and was comparing their layouts along the lines of:
"on ship AA distance from bow to turret A is ca. 15% of ship's length, on ship BB is ca. 14%, on ship CC is ca. 16% - average 15%,
on ship AA distance from turret A to bridge is 5% of ship's length..." and so on.
Generally these % values were usually very similar and gave good and practical basis to draw "generic ships".
I suggest not to make outlines for searchlights or smaller calibre guns - just arrows pointing to all their locations.
I used outlines just for belowdeck parts to show hull penetration.
And generally descriptions (like "boilers", "steam turbine room") located above the ship, not within it - yeah I know it's bit challenging to arrange these arrows in a neat manner, but over time I started to consider it a fun in itself.
I think that best option would be to use metric system with dual metric/imperial for main guns, besides, for "generic" ships it's not really practical to stick to a calibres of particular navy. (I had to make calculations what is that "13.5 inch" )
I would think of:
-broadside ironclad (Warrior-ish - but shown with simplified mast arrangement),
-casemate (centre-battery) with or without batbettes - Redoutable, Konig Wilhelm, Alexandra
-early turret battleship (Devastation),
-monitor (but not as much the original one, just rather Huascar or something similar),
-and then basically as You wrote earlier, but perhaps with two kinds of pre-dreds - early and advanced.
Deck height issues (both distance between "floor" and "ceiling" and thickness of decks) were something I always tried to be very conscious of, as the newbies are very persistent in not remembering of it and often draw ships that could be operated only by kids or midgets.
I was using basic Paint "writing". Never had to adjust any settings, but usually "squeezed" written words to get always regular 1-pixel distances between letters.
I could make for You a sample of letters and most typical terms, but You would have to copy-paste them each time.
(Or we could make a deal - You prepare the ship, I do the arrows and descriptions)

1) I'm trying to used MS paint writing but it goes all stupid shade's of black rather than neat (I think its calla anti-aliasing ?).
(I may take you up on that or at least give me a A to Z in the same size and I can fix mine).

2) I'm wondering how to show the armoured layout (obviously ist important part of BBs) but its normally hided.
I can think of 2 options,
A) big boxes over laid over ship (i.e. belt, different boxes for different thickness /barbets etc ?) what colour to go for ?(you have used red/green/blue/purple say orange ?)
B) small diagram near the ship with the belt on it simplified ?
will try out and post.
C) how to show the deck (as later on) this is the most important part ?

3) Should I keep posting in this guide or start a new topic ?



WIP (text/descriptions are placeholders, please comment if you can think of better words ? I'm leaving all numbers out and adding them in the block of text at bottom ? unless you think over wise).

JSB

PS would it be better to shade in the belt (with different shading for deferent belts ?) would spoil the clean look but easy to read like the ONI diagrams

1) I'll send You (or post here) the letters later, ok? And will be very happy to help with arrow/description arrangement.

2) I think that horizontal armor (decks) could be presented by color lines at the deck height (but mind that on these drawings - except for arrows - two colors generally don't touch each other, so it wouldn't represent actual thickness of the armor, just it's location) and vertical armor (armored belt) by outline on hull (so the two colors would have to cross each other like is the case with arrows).
But that's something that perhaps would be best to try first on "test drawing" if it's not looking too confusing.
With colors, so far I went with:
-green for propulsion (and associated stuff),
-red for armament,
-blue for sensors, directors etc. (including searchlights),
-purple for hangars (that would include also cargo holds and similar spaces on other kinds of vessels).
For armor... hmmm... tough question. Because of how it would relate to other elements, I'd personally think of either grey or yellow (but such shade to be clearly visible, yet not too close to orange, so it would be still clearly distinguishable from red).

3) I think that it would be best to keep it in this topic, and consider it as "workshop/discussion thread", and only later, if - hopefully more types of ships were represented - to create new topic where they would be arranged in more organized and less random manner. Much like it's the case with both Planebucket threads (discussion vs. non-comment gallery).

EDIT: My adaptation of the JSB's generic battleship.

Thanks for the text sheet in general I really like your redoing of it.

A few questions ?
- purple for command ? or should it be sensors (what are the sporting tops/control tower unless they are the equivalent of a radar ? and you destroyers have main directors in blue ? (1930/45)).

- I'm not sure about the armour, I think its very important in a BB and this doesn't really show the layout (and thickness) Ie that the belt is a mix of 12 and 8 inch not AON.(this makes a huge difference to the ships 'power'). Changing armour layouts are one of the main improvements in BBs from 1918-1930s , how to show that ?

- I think the main guns should say twins (as going to triples/quads was mostly a later idea to drive down the citadel length ?).

- How do we deal with AA guns later on (I'm working on a 45 ships at the moment and it will look very messy if we mark on all the 20/40mm guns (and some are on top of main turrets ).

JSB

1) Purple rather for "(super)structure features" (like helicopter hangar for later ships). But You're right about control top - changed it to blue.

2) I thought that more detailed arrows for various parts of armor would make the whole picture less clear. Besides, that's supposed to help newbies, not do all the job for them. It shows where it is - and rest they can find out.

3) Changed main guns to main turrets. I deliberately not mentioned how many guns are there. Here there are two per turret, but in WW2 era ships that was 2, 3 or even 4 - that's why I prefered to have purely generic ships, so they would be only minimally influenced by particular arrangements of particular class.

4) Since these are just an examples, AAA guns on top of main turrets can be simply not included. Majority of small calibre guns can be probably dealt with in a manner similar to how I dealt with depth charge projectors on 1945 destroyer, destroyer escort and frigate (or small calibre guns on 1910 BB). I support my offer of co-operation: send me the ship outline itself, with major features just pointed out, and I'll do the outlines, arrows and descriptions.

It seems that the pictures in the opening posts are no longer in the working condition, while some discussions in the recent months in the AU and Personal Designs forums (recently esp. in the Mister Hoover's Navy thread) suggest that actually there could be some use for such type of tutorial, so I thought that at least I'll re-post the drawings here.

Also, there were (as You all can see in the earlier posts in this thread) some intentions toward developing a more comprehensive guide, covering all major categories of ships (esp. warships as these are most commonly drawn here, but doing at least some work on generic merchant ships would be also welcome).

If the plurality of Members consider that it would be worthwile to have such guide thread, I am willing to supply the drawings, but I would prefer to cooperation with someone better educated in technical aspects (the way Acelanceloet did it (partially) for initial entry).

Destroyers

1900 - Examples - C-class (Great Britain), Bainbridge (USA)


1915 - Examples - Laforey (Great Britain), Wickes (USA), Tatra (Austria-Hungary)


1930 - Examples - V-class (Great Britain), Admiralen (Netherlands)


1945 - Examples - Fletcher, Allen M. Sumner (USA)


1960 - Examples - Indomito, Impavido (Italy)



1975 - Examples - Suffren (France), Tromp (Netherlands), Audace (Italy)


1975/1990 - Examples - Tachikaze, Hatakaze (Japan), Audace, Luigi De la Penne (Italy)


1990 - Examples - Spruance (USA), Hatsuyuki, Asagiri, Takatsuki, Tachikaze (AAW) (Japan)


2005 - Examples - Daring (Great Britain), Horizon (France-Italy), Hobart (Australia)




Frigates

1945 (DE) - Examples - Evarts, Cannon, Rudderow (USA)


1945 - Examples - River, Bay, Loch (Great Britain)


1960 - Examples - Whitby, Rothesay (Great Britain)


1975 - Examples - Amazon (Great Britain), Vosper Mk.10 Niteroi (Great Britain/Brazil), Vosper Mk.7 (Great Britain/Libya), Lupo (Italy)


1975 (US) - Examples - Bronstein, Garcia, Knox (USA)


1990 - Examples - MEKO-200, Bremen (Germany), Kortenaer, Karel Doorman (Netherlands),


2005 - Examples - La Fayette (France), Brandenburg (Germany), MEKO-A200 (Germany/South Africa), Fridtjof Nansen (Norway), De Zeven Provincien (Netherlands)



Battleship (just single example, 1910)

Thanks for reposting these!

Once the new site is up I'd like to start formally adding new articles on everything from drawing style to ship design to the drawing process, so an article like this would be fantastic.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

I agree, I think newbies can get a lot from these, especially allied with a general drawing and shading tutorial like we currently have.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Responding to poular demand ( ) I thought that although the upload to new Main Site is still far from complete, but I could slowly try begin drawing more generic ships for possible future Tutorial on the Main Site, starting with Battleship (and their immediate predecessors). And I guess I started bit too ambitious as I am hardly expert with sail ships - so I would like You all to look at it and say if it looks ok to You (especially sails - of course they are shown only symbolically for purpose) and what can be improved.