Inspired by _RK_s 74 gun frigate Ajax, I decided to try my hand at building a ship, in this case, an ocean going Junk. It’s about 130 foot bow to stern and you can tell it’s ocean going because it has stayed masts.
The keel and the ribs are built. Some of the ribs project above deck, which is where the stays are attached.
So you are going to actually build it like you would in real (meaning you are actually going to model the inside too)? What modelling method are you using? Mesh only or are you using skinning?
heh, let’s do this Noah’s way!
Good start man. That structure certainly looks solid and well shaped (although I must admit I know very little about asian crafts). Best luck to you- I’ll surely keep an eye on this one. Hoist the colors ! 
@musk: I’m not sure whether I’ll make an interior or not, if you mean furnished cabins and storage holds and so on. I modeled the ribs partly because they will show in the finished model, partly to work out some of the design details that weren’t clear from the drawings I’m using for references. So far everything is mesh: extruded the ribs from the keel, extruded the strake and moved it to the ribs.
@RK: Thanks. I’m also learning about asian craft as I go. Fascinating.
@pwnage101: Umm. Yeah! right. 
Looks promising, Ill keep an eye on this thread.
/ Mats
Damned compound curves. I thought I’d just duplicate the first hull strake and adjust it to fit. Shortcut wound up taking a lot longer than I thought it would. This may need to be redone.
Finished the hull. Added a tiller well and mast wells. Junks apparently had masts that could be lowered in heavy weather or when going under bridges. Lot of adjustments to the strakes. Hull looks like it’s hand made.
View from ahead. Next step I think will be adding the weather deck.
Looking really nice. Just out of curiosity, are you using blenders internal render?
Thanks. It’s Blender internal and Blender default blue background. I haven’t added any material yet, so it’s default Blender grey, too. The lighting is a simple three lamp set up, with a sun set to cast ray shadows, and two hemis (no shadows) acting as fills. The sun lamp has a very slight yellow tint and the two hemis are set to .300 energy level.
Looks perfect- especially all those planks. You surely have a lot of patience.
Foredeck added. Adjusted the bow.
It appears that the Junk has a daggerboard in between the two masts, normal for a flat bottom boat, but unusual in a ship this size. It’s not very large compared to the length of the ship. I’ll have to add a well for it.
Added weatherdeck back to the aft cabin. Added the centerboard with its well.
I’m not entirely sure how the crew would raise that centerboard, especially under way. According to the plan, it’s over a meter wide, about seven meters long, and probably 15 centimeters thick. It’s a massive piece of wood. Looks like it’s lowered by hauling down on lines attached to the hole in the top, and of course you’d get a gravity assist in that direction, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to pull it back up again. I suppose I could attach an extra block to the top of the two forward masts, and haul it up that way.
Beginning afterdeck and cabin, added gunnels. Still need to adjust the gunnel strake at the bow. The hull is going to need a good going over when all the pieces are in place to smooth things out and get everything to fit together.
This is an interesting ship. Apparently Junks are fairly easy to sail, requiring a small crew for their size, because sail handling is easier. This ship, except for the deck winches to do some of the heavy hauling (raising the tiller, raising the anchor, raising the sails) and the stays on the masts, could easily be the design for a 30 foot sampan junk rather than an 130 foot ocean cargo hauler.
Wow. Superb work. I really like how you individually modelled each plank of wood. It just adds so much to the realism (and poly count 
).
Nice! Bending blended wood planks looks harder than bending real-world wood planks. How’d you approach that?
Extruded the plank so it had a set of verts at each rib. In top view selected a cross section of plank and rib, hid all unselected (Shift+h). In end view, it was simple to select the cross section of the plank and move/rotate it so it lay against the rib.
The biggest problems were when the bend at one rib made the previous rib poke through or when a rib was out of place and had to be moved to get a decent shape to the hull, which wasn’t really visible until the strakes were in place.
Very good from what I can see so far.
Hey- what’s up with your junk ? No updates for week- hope you do not want to drop that one ?
My reference drawing did not show the stern properly 
, as a result I have to make some major fixes. I’ve been pondering starting over with a better set of blueprints, or fixing what I’ve got. I’m leaning toward starting over, since it will go a lot quicker the second time :eyebrowlift: , with what I’ve learned modeling this one so far.
