This is my newest update as for July 14 2016.
I am trying to build an old ship. Although I am not new in Blender or CGI, building a ship is entirely new to me. I also have no experience in real world model ships, which all in all, is why I come here to get as much help as possible. This is the base mesh of my ship.
looks good so far, but the wires are a little dense in some areas and has a lot of polys for a base mesh - I’d recommend removing some of the edge loops you don’t need to keep the polycount manageable
My problem is, with the edge loops, I was forced to insert them because of the UV-map creates artifacts at the edges because of the Subsurf modifier. What other options do I have to avoid this, instead of inserting edge loop after edge loop?
have you tried bleeding the texture some more around the seams?
For the mid part of the hull, it would help if the planking texture followed the curve of the ship better. I.e. similar to the upper part.
The prow is a little too heavy, but otherwise the shape looks reasonable.
I think you do have some problems with mesh due to the way you work with the theoretical lines. The most problematic part is the bow- if you will take a look at historical examples, all ships have it more or less round- not at all “spiky”. Not sure if this one will help you https://youtu.be/2zzTmAozWBU - but if you will have any questions feel free to ping me- ships are my hobby and I’ll be happy to help
Thank you. I have had a lot of trouble with the bow lately. This is my newest update, I have a big trouble with the end part of the ship. I really would like to know how to make this the right way:
Just remember that ships were built out of a variety of pieces. Trying to do it all in one mesh is not realistic, in terms of construction, and is making things more difficult for you. I think you should split it down into separate meshes for each major component. To do that it would be useful if you had some idea of how ships of this era were built, which you obviously don’t at the moment (not being snarky, it’s just true).
If you want to get off to a good start, check out the free downloads of Chapman’s Architectura Navalis Mercatoria. This is a classic book from the mid-18th century that includes plans (real ones) and construction details for a range of ships.
http://www.finemodelships.com/ship-plans/Chapman_Architectura_eng.htm
Also: http://www.sjohistoriska.se/en/Collections/Archives/ChapmanNet/ChapmanNet/Drawings/?pressimagepage=1
You can also find various drawings for older ships if you dig around a bit, although the older they get the more speculative they tend to be. Examples are:
A mid-17th century Dutch ship: http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/3/4/3/3/8/2/a4013371-189-Fluyt2.jpg
And a mid-16th century English ship: http://andruha.stormway.ru/model_tools/gh_1.jpg
You can have a look at this lot too: https://fatboxsoftware.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/264/
My advice would be to leave the UVs until you are happy with the base mesh… Texturing should come after modelling in my opinion. Focus on getting a nice clean base mesh to work from. You don’t even necessarily need the holes in the wood at this current time, And removing them would give you more freedom to easily edit the shape of you hull without having tons of edge loops. Save extra details like that for when you have your base mesh ready to go 
And also, remember to model the ship in pieces… it does not have to be one continuous mesh, splitting the mesh into seperate parts usually lowers your poly count, and allows easier modifications to your design, as you can edit the seperate pieces individually
Thank you for your advice. I believed my base mesh to be finished, therefore I cut the holes. It is part of the base mesh. I needed to know if my approach to make the hull and cannon holes gave me the expected result, and it did.
The reason I cut the holes at this stage, is because it was the second most difficult part. I had to do it with boolean, and then clean it up to get smooth shading.
However, I need to know if there is more to do on the base mesh, before I move on to making other stuff.
I am not doing the entire ship as one mesh. I do this as seperate pieces, but the hull needs to be one mesh.
a wireframe of your current hull might be easier to critique
Wouldn’t it be easier to get the lumps out of the base mesh before adding detail?
What lumps? Could you elaborate?
I think he meant those two edges on the hull near the bow.
Did you change from using a boolean to make the cannon ports? The geometry is way better than mine! I made the mistake of bisecting faces and creating a bunch of ngons before I realized what a mess I was making for the subsurf modifier to have to deal with. But that’s how you learn, I guess.
On the very front of the boat there is a dent. To fix it take a look at blenders 3D sculpting tools, I think there are some tools for leveling out or flattening surfaces.
You have a lot of surfaces. In the future try to get the basic shape before you add fine details like ports in the sides. The only way i know of to deal with lots of surfaces like this is te sculpt tools, or maybe relax, or smoothing.
I like the basic design. Looking forward to the complete model.
Well no, I pretty much meant the whole hull. It is so lumpy that I didn’t know how to answer “What lumps?”. But as long as he’s happy with it, that’s all that matters.
