herask

hi all! my name is Denis and I'm a 3D modeler from Croatia. I stumbled upon this forum while searching for some plans of a 17th/18th century sail ship, for that has been on my to-do list for quite some time now. it is little to say I was floored to see such craftsmanship on display in various build logs. some works border on magic and witchcraft, and I've seen a lot of those in CG community. seeing it be done for real I was stunned! what made the strongest impact are POF scratch builds. after I saw that, there was no way in hell to go back to initial idea of modeling a simple hull shell, sticking a wood texture onto it, putting some rods to act as masts and calling it done. no, now I have to do something alike. after searching for some good scanned plans I found HMS Pandora ones to be good enough for a first try (yeah, I hope there'll be more ships after this one. if I don't burn out in process, that is). and yes, I'm aware that there are a few more Pandora 3D builds, something I found out while searching for some pictures and references. my initial idea was to start with a 74 gun ship (really impressive piece of work). but thankfully I came to my senses soon enough and decided to start with something smaller for starters. "smaller" being used very loosely as Pandora also has tons of details, only less cannons to rig... :-D and those other Pandora 3D builds are going to be used as a good references until I get my bearings in shipbuilding, as this is a whole new world for me. I've already spent more than a month looking through various topics and posts every day collecting informations, getting to know terms and techniques. as if that wasn't enough I also had to learn how to draft plans, something I never thought I'll need while doing 3d modeling. and I haven't even started doing modeling at that point yet... :-)) I've never been so invested in a single model before, even before actual modeling. as a kid I had built several airplane scale models and enjoyed it very much. sadly, I don't have space, tools nor funds to start this shipbuilding endeavor for real. but I do have kids who would trip over it, I'm sure :-)). so the next best thing for me is doing modeling on a computer… my tool of choice when modeling is concerned is Blender 3D, free open source software that is really powerful and more than capable contending with big guys like 3DS Max, Maya, Cinema 4D and such… I hope I didn't bother you much with this long intro, in the next few posts I'm going to show what I've done so far. considering this is a 3D model, and my first build, I guess there'll be a lot of errors due to inexperience and I'll be probably cutting some corners here and there due to nature of the medium, but I'll try to be as precise as possible. fingers crossed I follow this through the end… let's get started!

when I thought I saw it all, I came upon your build log. pure wizardry!! here I go wiping saliva off my desk once again. it was pure pleasure to sift through all the pictures. thank you, and keep 'em coming! Denis

on the picture with the tilted table there's a huuuge plan on the wall. is that going to be the size of the beast?! you could put a kid in there!! already drooling here... the last picture, that's an older project or did you put all those pieces together already? Denis

incredible work! love the details! congrats!!

I'm a 3D modeler and all I can say is: WOW! ..... <15 minutes of silence>.....WOW!! I've seen all kinds of wizardry by 3d artists, the modelling, attention to details, patience required... but then I stumbled upon MSW while searching for ship plans and was struck away by the craftsmanship of the people doing scratchbuilds. pure perfection!! for the last 3 weeks I'm literally wiping saliva off my desk while looking at various build logs... and then this again!! great, more saliva... ;-)

you people doing these are all insane!! this is incredible!!! that little thing on your finger... O.o kudos, and good luck with final parts!

I only registered to say... I don't know. this is... this is,... oh man! I was just searching the web for some 17th or 18th century ship plans to make a 3d model (it's been on my ToDo list for a while), and I stumbled upon this forum and this... this... I'm completely and honestly speechless. INCREDIBLE WORK!!!!