Haibianr - docks area WIP

[mearrin69]

Starting to play around with detailing this one. I want to put a few "Western" style ships in the harbor along with a few local "junks" and other boats. This is supposed to be the ship aboard which the PCs arrive in Haibianr. It's docked in the central area of the map - and they'll be taking their shore leave in the nearby area. The shadows are pretty hinky. I'm going to have to go do some learnin' about making shadows. Oh, also, that bit of white froth on the water is just the start of detailing the surface. It'll react to stuff more properly in the final...and I'm going to add wakes for the ships that are moving, etc. Any advice on shadows? I'm all ears.
M

[LonewandererD]

Cool, thats a nice boat, how did you make it?

-D-

[ravells]

Wow, the texturing on all of it is looking super beautiful. I really like all the different roof textures. It looks like you're detailing those shadows very painstakingly individually for taller structures which are irregular (ship's sails). The result will be beautiful and I admire your patience.

[mearrin69]

Thanks, guys. The boat is actually taken from my encounter map, Intruder Alert. I collapsed the image and overlaid the quarterdeck over the main deck. Then I drew some shadows on the deck by hand in a layer over the top of it (black brush, multiply). My encounter map doesn't have sails so I drew those on with light grey and then used burn and dodge to highlight them.

Think I'm going to throw some things on the deck as well (the thing up front that the anchor wraps around, suggestions of ropes, some cargo, etc.) Have to do a little more research on rigging to see what else should be visible. There are two more ships in the bay, but I haven't started on those yet...going to see if I can get away with using slightly resized/recolored versions of this base ship so I don't have to draw another one. Alas I'm going to have to do a "junk" from scratch because of the different hull shape.

Just realized that the docks probably need some posts holding them up or something...they're kinda just floating there now. Eh. Probably starting to go overboard.
M

[mearrin69]

Little more. Two more ships and I've finally figured out something about shadows. The ship that's partially on the map has its sails shadowed properly. The two ships to the right and below just have masts...got to figure out how the sail spar thingies should be oriented. I'm sort of getting there. They're probably not correct but they're much closer than I had before. Still need a junk.
M

[Crayons]

I'm not an expert on square riggers but I've sailed bermuda and gaff rigs (which are far more advanced!) but I'd hazard a bit of physics to suggest something like this?

However, you can get away with murder this close to shore. The incoming ship will likely be luffed up and spilling wind to lose speed - so the sails will be side on to the wind much as you had them and flapping about.

I'd like to add my appreciation of your different roof tops here - what slightly jars for me is the uniform consistency of the docks themselves. They all look like they where built by the same contractor using the same flatpack docking kit from Ikea I'd like to suggest that maybe some traders can afford stone piers and some are really cheap and rotting planks, perhaps? On the other hand, I could imagine this as a well ordered and perfectionist japanese port compared to a smelly, rotting fish-heads and sewerage european port!
Just thoughts really!

[mearrin69]

Uh oh. Critics with Profession (sailing)... Heh. I don't know jack about sailing, but I guess I'd better learn since I'm drawing ships. Thanks for the input I'll see if I can change the direction of the sails without too much trouble. BTW, does the one on the docks look okay? I was trying to indicate that the sails were "rolled up" or whatever the term might be. LOL. I'm a complete know-nothing here.

Thanks for the comment on the rooftops...but you're completely correct about the docks. I do plan to work on them a bit to change up the textures and such. When I first started this map I really wasn't planning on adding this kind of detail so I sort of thought that one texture would suffice. They look plastic at this point, even with some grunge on top. This is a fairly well-kept area (not Japanese-level well-kept, but decent) but that's no excuse for them looking like they were all built at the same time with the same materials. Next project. Ahead of the junk...another thing about which I know nothing.

BTW, I'm going to do some work on the shoreline as well. Was going to add some flotsam (or whatever) and maybe suggest places where the bank is shored up with rocks or something like that. Any suggestions there would be appreciated.

Thanks for the comments and help on it!
M

Edit: Actually, let me petition you for additional help here! I want to put a couple more ships in the harbor. Maybe a biggish junk and a smaller boat. Any suggestions for what type of boats? Any suggestion for position, heading, sail response on a junk in the harbor somewhere? Honestly, left to my own devices it'll be in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. Thanks for any help you can give on the subject!

[Crayons]

Oooer!
Erm... I can sail a boat, but then again, I can drive a car but I don't know all the stuff that makes a car work! I'll do my best!

As for the two kinds of "junk" - oh yes!
Flotsam, yes, is stuff that has floated off a ship. The other common one is Jetsam, which has been thrown (from french "jeter") off a ship. ( The other legal terms are "lagan",which is stuff on the sea bed expecting retrieval, and "derelict" which isn't!). Sorry, got carried away there !
If the place is a mess then you can also add rotting hulks - or at this scale, perhaps the remains of a rowing boat or something? Old pilings from previous jetties? Pretty much anything goes for mess on a dockside.

There is a lot of generalisation in the following so, there will be exceptions...
The Junk sailing ship is an ideal ship to add given the longevity of the design. Its sail design is unique and not surprisingly is called a junk rig. It's a simple design and even today is used on new yachts where I think it looks silly but... Anyhoo, look at wikipedia under "junk rig" and there's a piccy there showing the various angles to the wind it can use. This diagram is true for pretty much any rig that can sail into the wind - bermuda, gaff and so forth being two of those as well.
The square rig can't generally sail into the wind, but can handle "quartering" winds, ie winds coming over the stern. However, if you mix-n-match square with jibs and stuff, well, it gets complicated!
Very generally, a square rigger may often have oars, which is something to consider, which would make your boats "galleys" basically, and these were extremely common.
A whole load depends on your "world technology" and who the local cultures are if it's a rpg setting.
As I said, in a "snap shot" of port activity, you can pretty much expect anything to be going on so I doubt you'll have any sailing faux pas to worry about. Just so long as the boats are on the wet bit!

Your furled sails on the docked ship are good but the chances are that the sails would be bundled underneath the cross beams (called "yards"). One practical reason for this is to protect the sails from sunlight. Also, let's face it, those sails are gonna be heavy!

[mearrin69]

Profession (sailing) -2 (0 ranks -2 Wis) = D20 (1) -2 = -1. Ah. The sails *are* supposed to be hanging from the horizontal things (spars?) aren't they. For some reason I had envisioned them being somehow lopped over them (like a curtain on a rod). This is why you shouldn't draw what you don't know...or should at least make a token effort to look them up. LOL. Oh well, bit of revision in order I guess.

Thanks for all of the help!
M

[mearrin69]

Okay, fixed the ships a bit. Couldn't really rotate the sails as suggested without redrawing from scratch because I've already flattened those layers (silly, I know, but I thought they were done!). I did, however, go back in and put the "yards" on top of the sails. Probably could use some more suggestion of rope and such in there but I don't really know where to put it and, at this scale, it might not be that important.

I also added some posts and their shadows to the docks. It makes the whole thing look better...but the docks look even more repetitive. So, I've tried my hand at replacing one of the docks with some sort of stone pier thingie...Chinese style, complete with little tiled roofs on the pillars. I frankly can't find a lot of reference photos/drawings of older style docks. The oldest I can find is a bunch of stuff from Industrial Revolution England...usually featuring some sort of tramway. I did find a ref for a manual cargo loading crane, however, which is very cool.

There are a couple of other, misc. items upgraded in this version. Note that there's some overlap on shadows on the water that won't be in the final.
M

Edit: I was thinking there weren't many significant changes since my last post but I opened both images in new tabs and switched back and forth a few times. Wow. It's kind of amazing what little changes will do for a map's quality.