Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 05, 2008 1:39:36	Since I'm doing so much art work, maybe best if I keep it in one thread, so as not to litter on everyone else's posts? ------------------------------------------------------------------- VICTORY! A Man-O-War sends two pirate ships down in flames! Nebula courtesy of NASA. I know SJ ships don't fire lasers, but best way Ican show the weapon fire ;) Fireball-tipped +1 ballista bolts. Maybe with a Helmseeker-spell. the Tenguar text spells out "Elven Man-O-War" ;) VICTORY! 1024x 768 size render http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/battles/victory1024.jpg
#2 littlejohn333 Feb 05, 2008 12:16:08	Silverblade I love your art! I keep putting different ones as my desktop can't decide what I like best this one is up there now. Do you take suggestions? I am trying to write a story loosely based on Spelljammer where the lead finds a wrecked Nightwolf (in the story its a more realistic 5-6 ton craft though) They cut the wings off, make much smaller wings with a ball joint so their movable solid sails then and build a new nose for it. The nose is similar to a stealth bomber craft except rounded (your windshield for your Man of War might work though) and a small solid sail on the tail(looks like a normal mast and sail). The deck is made different it runs the length of it but only 10 feet wide. The weapons are mounted on the hull against the deck on either side with access from the deck and are rounded covered turrets for large weapons. Basically its in the shape of a sting ray and thats what they name it. Something like this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Himantura_kittipongi.jpg Not having a clue how to design such a thing on the computer I was hoping you might be interested. Of course I know your busy with your own projects so I certainly understand just hoping to catch your interest.
#3 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 05, 2008 13:15:52	Littlejohn, alas, it takes me long time to model and texture a ship :/ professional modellers could build that in a day, but I'm not a pro, and I build ships with and from deckplans etc. Much harder to model a "real" ship, than just an exterior. I want ot model all the major SJ ships, and that's going to take time as it is! ;) Sorry mate but you could always learn to do it yourself ;) That's what I did. Several free 3d modellign apps out there: moment of Inspiration; Wings3D, Blender. ALso "personal use" versions of Lightwave, MAX etc, iirc? And thanks to you too, no use making art, if no one enjoys it
#4 jaid Feb 05, 2008 14:17:06	[edit] oops, responded to the wrong post =S was just gonna suggest 2 possibilities for the 'lasers' 1) elves are supposed to have lots of wizards. that could be some kind of spell (scorching ray, massively boosted?) certainly, those ships can't be very far apart, or else the air envelopes wouldn't allow for a burning anything to travel the distance between them. 2) there is a monster, can't recall it's name, but it's basically 3 lenses in a row, and it has a special ability to focus light into a coherent beam which it fires at enemies. could be that that ship has somehow obtained one of those creatures, or something that works on the same principle (would have to be independantly owned, the IEN would *never* allow someone to use gnomish technology for example... they don't even allow captains to modify their ships in reasonable ways, although sometimes if it goes over well you just get a slap on the hand according to the fluff )
#5 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 06, 2008 13:20:09	Hm, Scorching Ray is interesting, a magical ballista that fires that spell..?
#6 littlejohn333 Feb 06, 2008 18:34:10	Did you see the idea for a magic missile gun? supposedly an adaptation of the weapon on the Hummingbird. http://www.spelljammer.org/ships/Sparrow.html Change the spell to Scorching Ray and that should work. really love the idea wonder if its over powered but its certainly nothing worse than a wand.
#7 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 08, 2008 19:30:39	hm, interesting idea!
#8 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 09, 2008 22:43:55	Latest work: NEBULA VIEW, with a Squidship Nebula View The crew of the Mindful Cutlass relax, enjoying the beauty of the jewels of space... Ok, so, I'm a romantic! :p NEBULA VIEW 1 series cartoon1 cartoon2 NEBULA VIEW 2 SERIES Cartoon2 version Cartoon1 version "Paint" version
#9 littlejohn333 Feb 09, 2008 23:29:14	Cool! Can't wait to see what you do with the Elven Arrowing I think its the coolest looking ship in the original illustrations. The only bone I have with it is it looks 100+ ton but is listed as 44 lol Of course armadas look 300+ ton
#10 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 10, 2008 8:07:46	Cheers! :0 Arrowing? hm, dont' recall that one off hand, I recall Shrikeship, and Elven Flitter oh scale of the ships is often way off, as we debate about on the SJ mailing list ;) Nautiloid *IS* an enormous battleship for example, not a medium sized ship, my 3d recreation is almsot ot exact scale, but you end up with lots of extra space so I threw in an extra deck. Deckplans, vs illustration and listed sizes dont' always add up.
#11 littlejohn333 Feb 10, 2008 20:22:07	Arrowing is in the Shadow of the Spider Moon extra stuff. Along with another cool armada that looks even bigger than the others. http://lost.spelljammer.org/SpiderMoon/ Here's a picture some one else made of it. Would like to see something closer up myself but this one is neat. http://www.metascapemedia.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=9&pos=10
#12 jaid Feb 10, 2008 20:48:00	and on a side note, the shrike is actually a human-built ship, not elven (and is also used by halflings often enough to have halfling crew listings). the elves have only started using them (according to WCC) because of a shortage of man-o-wars. the only non-grown ship made by elves that i know of is the radiant ship.
#13 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 11, 2008 5:34:09	Ah! sorry I hated that Spider Moon stuff, yeeech! Artwise etc, it sucked pants compared to originals :p
#14 jaid Feb 11, 2008 22:33:39	actually, the arrowing is pretty decent iirc. and their dreadnought is way more illithid-y than the original one (which looks like two seashells glued together with a pathetic excuse for a shack built on that as a foundation, if you'll forgive me for being blunt... let's face it, improving on the original dreadnought was probably not a very difficult task...)
#15 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 22, 2008 0:48:57	Latest work: "LUNCH ON THE BRIDGE" It has minor nudity and violence, but I hope it's ok? As it's pretty subtle LUNCH ON THE BRIDGE CARTOON VERSION "Fantasy" 3D VERSION
#16 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 27, 2008 21:57:02	A Mind Flayer captain sits upon the throne of some unfortunate minor lord, who's remote keep, and people, have been captured.... If you want to see larger originals, at 2000x2000 size: http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/various/ilithid_captain.jpg http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/various/ilithid_captain4cartoon1.jpg Illithid Captain pics, 800x800 size Cartoon version
#17 havard Feb 28, 2008 8:45:41	Wow, this illithid captain looks really nice! Well done! Havard
#18 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 28, 2008 14:49:49	Thank you! to be honest all I made was the head, rest are stock parts I bought (standard male human body, robes are oriental etc), though assembling, lighting fixing materials etc takes time..sorry if that breaks the "Fourth Wall" ;)
#19 verikwolf_dup Mar 01, 2008 12:35:16	Looking good!
#20 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 02, 2008 7:19:58	VerikWolf, well, illithids always look BAD, but I get yer drift ;) Latest piece, just a simple fly around animation showing a series helm with it's mind flayer user ;) quicktime movie about 1.5 megs http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/various/helm%20animation.mov
#21 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 06, 2008 15:08:20	Started work on a Hammership, using Rhino3D It's not "fine art", but it shows how the ship's gradually take shape, as I build and tweak. The "alt" text explains some things on each thumbnail. http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/rhino/rhino3d.htm
#22 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 14, 2008 18:35:34	Some more Hammership piccies, and an "Onager" (catapult)..lolstopped work on hamemrship for a week as I wanted a new catapult! ;) HAMMERSHIPS & CATAPULTS FOR EVERYONE!
#23 bigmac Mar 15, 2008 17:35:37	DO folk like my version of a "series helm"? Thought sort of organic look would be good. I'd never thought of series helms as organic before, but this actually looks great. It reminds me, in some ways, of the eggs from the film Alien. The organic look adds a creepy nature to the helm. Maybe you should go further and have some sort of tentdrils or roots joining the different helms together. This could help make the suggestion that all of the helms are connected. Alternatively, how about physically joining all the helms in a circle (probably with the seat of the "boss" illithid at the front of the circle) and having the seats on the outside. That alternative would, of course take away the space where your centrepiece is, so it would ruin your picture. But you could run riot with your organic idea and design some sort of wierd illithid brain plant with multiple pods that function as seats. BTW: I love the detail on Silverblade's knife. Is it supposed to be some sort of special metal?
#24 bigmac Mar 15, 2008 17:57:27	Littlejohn, alas, it takes me long time to model and texture a ship :/ professional modellers could build that in a day, but I'm not a pro, and I build ships with and from deckplans etc. Much harder to model a "real" ship, than just an exterior. I want ot model all the major SJ ships, and that's going to take time as it is! ;) Sorry mate I hope you are saving unfinished models of your ships, so that you can put different weapons onto the same hull (later on) without needing to delete the standard weapons first. A lot of the standard SJ ships have several variants, and it would be nice if you could go back and build the rest of the family when you finish the core versions. I've got a feeling I'll eventually be forced to learn how you make these ships, so that I can grab one of your models and add something like hull plating or weapon turrets. I did a training course that had an element of 3D artwork in it about 8 years ago, but lost all of my image files when the computer I was using died and haven't done anything since I lost them. At the moment you are mostly designing ship hulls, but if a few more of us were able to play with your toys, we would be designing specific ships. I'd love to be able to look at a hundred pictures of hammerships, that take your model and do different things with it. Your pictures really have a wow factor to them, but I'm looking forward to the day when there are so many of them that it takes ages to see all of the Spelljammer artwork. Keep up the good work!
#25 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 15, 2008 22:20:55	Yeah, as they are created by or for mind flayers, I thought giving it a more organic feel would make it...ickier :p I was actually thinking of putting tendrils on 'em! great minds think alike ;) The knife blade looks like that due to a mix of factors: it has a steel material I applied to it; it glows softly; and the potion in his hand also glows, adding to the look. Oh alternate version of Lunch on the Bridge! Alternate version of Lunch on the Bridge
#26 nerik Mar 17, 2008 6:40:56	That Onager looks brilliant! very nice. And the hammership is coming along nicely as well. You were right, the shorter tail does look better. Charles
#27 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 17, 2008 8:27:42	Charles, ta! yeah, the curve of the decking, does not fit with an extended tail. It's a nice oval, but, if the tail is extended, it would have to be split, and wouldn't match with that same curvature.
#28 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 18, 2008 0:47:54	Lot more work done on the Hammership The turret work showed that if there's a capstan below the turret to rotate it, as indicated inthe deckplans. area #13, "crew galley and turret control", then it HAS to be offset, as there's not neough room if it's direclty central below the turret! ;) ie, move it back 5'+, drive a gear in area above, and that gear drives turret gear Page with more piccies and comments, sort of liek a construction mini-blog, lol: http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/rhino/rhino3d.htm hammership mostly done
#29 jaid Mar 18, 2008 14:04:12	out of curiosity, couldn't you just have it driven by a vertical gear with a hand crank? and wouldn't that be much simpler than adding 2 gears?
#30 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 19, 2008 0:52:29	Jaid, think of the tech...what tech is well known and understood in medieval times? Windmill and water mills .... ;) System I'm on about is well known from windmills and is simple & robust. Imagine the top of the capstan shaft poking through roof, into base of turret....a gear fixed to this shaft on the sterncastle deck, the turret centre has a large gear, capstan gear meshes with this and turns the turret. Qute simple, the turret itself runs on rollers fitted aorund the edge. Vertical gear's require bracing..best brace is the wall, but that then doens't leave much room etc and is more...gnomish! lol And the Hammership is now mostly done Just finished making a Hammership 3d model, and an onager (catapult), so hope to have these in art works soon Hammership Hammership, made in RHino3D, rendered in Maxwell, these are NOT final textures. That process takes a while!
#31 jaid Mar 19, 2008 18:15:40	actually, it was a misunderstanding... i thought you were adding in two gears, your system still just uses 1 added gear, it's just horizontal instead of vertical =S my bad ;)
#32 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 19, 2008 20:30:33	No worries, mate!
#33 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 23, 2008 2:42:12	Finally finished the Hammership! A hammership sails brazenly through space, it's crew confident in their battlewagon's ability to deal with any threats! HAMMERSHIP!
#34 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 24, 2008 10:36:53	I had this scene waiting for my hammership once completed, so I could slip it in ;) A Hammership sails though the asteroids that make up the ring surrounding a planet...the ship headed into the sunrise Asteroid Sunrise
#35 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Mar 26, 2008 3:32:51	And now...deckplans, layouts, stat card and transparencies of the Hammership! On this page http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/htm/hammership.htm The layouts plans should help with your Spelljammer gaming, nice way to show players what it really looks like inside etc. Stat card is based of my modelling form original deckplans, so it's very accurate, but shows the original stats are well out, the Hammerhsip's a 38 ton ship. (lot of SJ ships' tonnage is wrong but my modelling app can calcuate exact volumes, which original creators could not do, alas) Transparencies..cause I like using 'em on web pages lol: Stat card and layout
#36 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Apr 03, 2008 5:05:17	Work in progress: Accelerator ship weapon! Note, it's work in progress..so, I'm designing it bit by bit, and materials are not final ones Accelerator Man is a Poser figure just to show scale Made a Chinese style combo lock for it's loading cup, safety feature! (historicla locks like that did exist) Note the Dethek Runes ;)
#37 jaid Apr 03, 2008 19:43:03	was considering posting this comment to the SJ list, where the issue was brought up: i could've swore i read somewhere that the accelerator only fires 2/turn when it has a 2 man crew. anyone got a reference for that, or am i just crazy? (not that it's a huge issue... with the right crewman and a good , a light catapult is the most terrifying weapon in the game anyways =P
#38 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Apr 06, 2008 12:58:13	Re-isntalled Mojoworld and used it to make these pics, rather than Vue, as Mojoworld is good at making weird, alien worlds ;) A Tradesman flies in to land in a crater lake... Tradesman's Lake
#39 true_atlantean Apr 08, 2008 8:43:27	Silverblade, I'm going to be starting an ezine dedicated ot old school D&D within the next few months and was hoping that you might like to contribute art-wise? I'll send a post out this weekend to solidify the publications goals and content guidelines as I'd like to see some other contributors from the boards - so if anyone else reads this an wants in - just wait for the post. Thanks.
#40 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Apr 08, 2008 10:06:20	True Atlantean, mate, while I'm happy if folk wish to use my existing art for such uses (providing they ask , as you did), and WOTC doesn't object (Spelljammer is their copyrighted material), but alas I cannot do specific art for folk. My health is bad, stress make sme worse, much worse, so, I've got ot avoid stress at all costs. Doing projects for folk = stress... (I've got M.E. AKA, C.F.I.D.S., as they call it in America, in my case it's causing damage to the brain and pituitary gland, think having the Flu all the time and bit of Alzheimers. Not nice. Art is how I relax/still achieve things.) Let several folk down over such things in the past (stress of doing it made me worse so I coudln't complete), and don't wish to do so again. So if you wish to use some of my art, sure, npb We can discuss that over email. But I am nto going to make custom art, I'm afraid, unelss folk can appreciate I can NEVER guarantee completion.
#41 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Apr 09, 2008 6:35:47	CLOUD HAMMER A Hammership sails over the land... Was tweaking my Accelerator model in Vue, and then...ended up with this, lol. Cloud Hammer Cartoon v1 Cartoon V2
#42 true_atlantean Apr 13, 2008 4:59:39	True Atlantean, mate, while I'm happy if folk wish to use my existing art for such uses (providing they ask , as you did), and WOTC doesn't object (Spelljammer is their copyrighted material), but alas I cannot do specific art for folk. My health is bad, stress make sme worse, much worse, so, I've got ot avoid stress at all costs. Doing projects for folk = stress... (I've got M.E. AKA, C.F.I.D.S., as they call it in America, in my case it's causing damage to the brain and pituitary gland, think having the Flu all the time and bit of Alzheimers. Not nice. Art is how I relax/still achieve things.) Let several folk down over such things in the past (stress of doing it made me worse so I coudln't complete), and don't wish to do so again. So if you wish to use some of my art, sure, npb We can discuss that over email. But I am nto going to make custom art, I'm afraid, unelss folk can appreciate I can NEVER guarantee completion. I understand. The art you've already produced will keep me happy for ages. I'll be in contact in the next month or so. Thanks
#43 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Apr 24, 2008 19:01:42	Started work on the Smalljammer Feeling bit under weather, so sticking to a small, simpler ship to make :p The Smalljammers are actually living vessels, that eventually grow into the gigantic Spelljammer itself. I soon found out from building from the deckplans, that the plans were totally wrong, lol. Ship is too small to have the two decks that were shown, which were only 3' high from extrapolation, jeesh, lol. So, making this one have one deck and totally re-designing central hull area Talking with other SJ email list folks, they've come up with various different ages/stages of Smalljammer "growth", original deckplans, with ONE deck, is smallest ship. One used in the Spelljammer comic, with 2 decks, is one age category up, etc. One day I'll get round to making the Spelljammer itself...one day, lol. I keep a sort of running, er, "noob-3d building, explain as I go along vaguely bloggish thing", on my Rhino modellign page, explaining how I build, why I do things, etc 3d Art: Rhino Current build (well, I added tail flukes after this pic lol) will try to kep it updated Current smalljammer build here
#44 jaid Apr 26, 2008 19:33:44	out of curiosity, what do you consider 2-deck? in particular, do you consider a deck to be an enclosed area, or could a ship be a 2-deck ship if it has both decks use the same floor, with the gravity plane in between, for example? (in this case, not applicable i think since the smalljammer says it's enclosed iirc? and also because it doesn't mention anything about reversed gravity decks, which you'd think would be important enough to mention... still, you could have one 6 foot deck inside and a deck on top if you don't require that a deck be enclosed, i suppose?) mostly just asking for my personal reference so i understand where you're coming from really... though i do accept that the ship dimensions are a little screwy, i'm just curious if they might be slightly less screw if they count an open area as a deck and you don't...
#45 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Apr 27, 2008 4:58:40	In this case, I mean "enclosed decks", not top decks or such Simply not possible for the Smalljammer to have 2 enclosed decks, each being mimimum of 7' high THis pic, based off the actual deckplans, when I started building, proves this point, it's to exact scale http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/rhino/2008/smalljammer2.jpg that's two enclosed decks, as per original deckplans...and not possible ;) The top open deck surface with the Observation Cabin, would go on top, so the observation cabin would maybe be higher than the tail....
#46 Silverblade_The_Enchanter May 01, 2008 18:49:27	A Neogi Deathspider chases a Smalljammer, but the Smalljammer captain runs for cover in an tight, dangerous asteroid field... Smalljammer Pursuit