Shipbucket

See the discussion: Revisiting the style rules
http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... f=3&t=5204

Also Take a look at: Project Sail
http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... =12&t=4858

There was mention of adding some modifications to the Shipbucket Drawing Rules as they pertain to Sailing Ships. Considering that SB was intended to illustrate 20th Century shipping there are a number of drawing conventions that could use a little modification. This is a Thread for that discussion, suggestions, debate, and pissing matches.

NOTE: this is not intended to become a serious change in the Basic Rules. Most of the conventions work very well and should be kept intact to maintain the look, feel, continuity, and messaging of Shipbucket (in my opinion).

Have fun and let's see what happens!

CraigH

_________________
In active progress
More Ships with Sails
Early Torpedo Boats in SB and FD Scales
Some railroad stuff
More random stuff that strikes me!

Here's a place to start: Sails and Rigging.

These represent 4 examples of general color pallets and illustrative styles for sails. It is NOT all inclusive of what's been done on Shipbucket. There are also a few bare masted examples and a few with billowing sails. There are also several additional sail colors available.

They are organized by complexity.








I'll comment only on my work: USS Constitution and why I chose the colors I did.

Each color was chosen to represent: a general function, a general rope thickness, and to give a general representation of real world color. Function was broadly lumped into categories like standing rigging, running rigging, sail cloth, sail panel seams, etc. I also considered time period (natural materials VS modern synthetics and in the 1800's the advances in fabric production)*

* For fun I currently restore 1800's era railroad equipment, for a time I volunteered at the San Francisco Maritime Museum, and other silly things so dabbling in industrial archeology one gets a feel for this stuff.

So, up for discussion might be some ideas on creating some sort of uniformity on how we illustrate rigging and sails.

How much freedom should we allow for sails?
No limits?
Specific color pallets? Or several?
Filled with wind or as drawn in period sail diagrams?

Do we want to dictate rigging colors?
By function?
By apparent rope thickness?
A combo or not at all?

CraigH

_________________
In active progress
More Ships with Sails
Early Torpedo Boats in SB and FD Scales
Some railroad stuff
More random stuff that strikes me!

As for the Polly you'll notice the sails are different for the Rona, that because I went for the matching colour (Rona had a dull grey while the Polly has more cream)

I think part of the problem will stem with materials used, the Preussen had steel cables for rigging which is a grey (I'm changing all of the Polly's standing rigging as well as possibly the running rigging soon as they are a darker colour) While some ships used hemp which is brown.

One thing I do find is its best to show a ship with its yards hard to port, shows the detail of the sail and rigging a bit better, nice if it were standard.

_________________
Work list(Current)
Miscellaneous|Victorian Colonial Navy|Murray Riverboats|Colony of Victoria AU|Project Sail-fixing SB's sail shortage
How to mentally pronounce my usernameRow-(as in a boat)Don-(as in the short form of Donald)Dough-(bread)
"Loitering on the High Seas" (Named after the good ship Rodondo)
There's no such thing as "nothing left to draw" If you can down 10 pints and draw, you're doing alright by my standards

I drew a few sailing ships for the RTX AU, and used many of DP's techniques.

It may be simpler to dictate different colors for standing and running rigging, and to specifiy the amount of difference in colors for sails as opposed to actual colors.

My personal preference is to draw two versions of the same ship, one without the sails to emphasize the rigging, and one with sails. Rodondo likes the yards hard to port, but I always drew mine to starboard. An extra layer on the drawing made it a simple process to add the sails and their sheets.

That being said, whatever rules are decided for sailing ships, I will probably go back and rework my sailing ships after I bring the AU into the present day.

_________________
Redhorse

Current Projects:
Republic of Texas Navy
FD Scale F-14s

The more I dabble...
The less I like the idea of micromanaging what's allowable. That being said, there are a few areas that should be "managed" to create and maintain that SB family look and feel.

Rigging and sail material will be a challenge:

With sails we are dealing with wool, hemp, cotton, and an array of modern synthetics that all age differently. Then there are those with dyed/colored fabric. Right now I'm leaning toward not having standard colors BUT maybe dictating the amount of color separation between shades for shadow or panels, outlines, etc.

I'm also in favor of not dictating with/without sails. Artistic freedom and skill level would be the two main reasons.

Port VS Starboard running on sails...is actually a tough one! I've been toying with doing some to starboard to emphasize the amount of canvas carried on some of the late ships. Sometimes too, especially in SB Scale the rigging gets MESSY. Starboard running sails may be a solution here.

I like the idea of being able to go bare pole.
I like the ability to use any of several sail drawing styles even though I've settled on my own look. Not a lot of available reference material includes that level of real reference data.

With rigging we have leather, hemp, wire, and who knows what else.

My thoughts on it still revolve around line color by purpose and weight.
Why? An educational tool that will impart that bit of knowledge to viewers and help the drawer learn
what the lines actually do.

Maybe: 3 shades of brown/tan for running and sail handling
3 shades of gray for tarred/standing/wire rigging.

On each, I personally tend to lean for light colors, staying away from black.
The reason being:
Scale color: we are looking at these ships from a distance. Color fades with distance. Lighter
colors also give the visual impression of finer line-weight. Rigging all falls in the sub-pixel size
(except for anchor cables).

An other thought for consideration is the Double Black Line RULE. I keep running into a problem on this one when illustrating the ends of spars. Keeping the minimum 3 pixel width with black outline/spar color/black outline leads to overly chunky spar ends. Quite simply....it looks silly. This is one Rule I'd personally like to see relaxed for "sail".

Along that line, should we look at a single mast, it's spars, yards, and it's sails as a unit like a modern ship's gun turret...as a single unit? Treat it akin to railings, antenna, etc. in regards to internal and external outlining?

Maybe look at using a black line for the aft side or lower side outline with a brown or tan leading edge for thin 3 pixel or less structures?

Just some thoughts to ponder and discuss.

CraigH

_________________
In active progress
More Ships with Sails
Early Torpedo Boats in SB and FD Scales
Some railroad stuff
More random stuff that strikes me!