Sailing Frigate WIP Build Log

[Rosehaven11]

Hello everyone,
I am new to the forum, just recently joined. I don’t really have any prior experience building model ships and am looking to expand on my current knowledge. I have always loved the age of sail and I wanted to make a fantasy ship design but still create something that would be functional. I am currently working on a pirate ship model in Blender and I wanted to make sort of a progress or build log for that. As for this project I wanted to make a Pirate ship model and am still working on modeling part of the deck fittings. If anyone has any feedback or thoughts, I greatly welcome and appreciate it. I will be posting more updates as i finish more of the build soon.

This build is going to be a fantasy inspired pirate ship set in the golden age of piracy around the early 18th century. I am going for something is not 100% accurate to a single reference image, but I wanted something that still had all of the working elements of a real ship. For this build I think I am just going to stick to the exterior for now. This also is an exercise for me in expanding my own knowledge in how these ships were built and constructed.

I have posted more of a completed works in progress on a few other forums so I am kind of ahead in terms of modeling for this I think to truly be a build log from scratch. Aside from that, I appreciate any feedback or questions anyone has and am more than happy to clarify my thought process and design decisions on this build. I can also only post a few images at a time but, I can post more images if anyone would like to see more details and that would probably help with feedback as well. The next couple of images I will post are of the current state of the model ship and I can post more close up images as needed. Thank you everyone for your time and feedback I really appreciate it!

[Okidoki]

Har har, this is really nice, i wanna see more… i wish there is a possibility to give a bottle of rum instead of hearts, there aren’t even bottles, chest or coins in the Emojiis… so i give you:

[Mark06GT]

Looks pretty good so far.

[Rosehaven11]

Hello Okidoki and Mark06GT,

Thank you both for replying, I really appreciate it. sorry I was not able to post more pictures due to the forum only allowing me to post one image, I think now though I should be able to post more. This post will be more of an in depth look into more of my thought process for this build and what I have done up to this point and am still working on.

This is an overall image of the ship in its current state. I hope to add rigging to the ships as well but I am still working on more deck details.

This image is the door to the captains cabin as well as windows and decorations. I still have to fix the doors and windows and plan to put more decorative details in time.

This is the stern of the ship that I am also fixing doors and windows and hope to put a lot more decorative detail here as well. I also still have to put metal bands around the rudder to hold it in place.

These are the ships boats in the waist of the ship. I still have a little bit of decorative and detail work I would like to do on these as well. I am modeling a lot of the functional parts of the ships first and then when I have that right I will go in and model a lot of the decorative detail work around the ship and the after I will do the rigging as well.

The next image is the belfry on the quarterdeck, normally this would be on the forecastle behind the foremast, but due to the layout of the stairs in that area I had to move it to this location. It is not completely historically accurate in location but I liked the way it looked and was willing to forgo a bit of accuracy.

The next image is of the ships anchor, I still need to model the anchor cable and accompanying ropes as well. I am also going to add wrinkles and creases to the sails. I know they are very flat looking right now, that was just a placeholder to figure out a sail plan for the ship.

This is the bow of the ship. I also plan on adding a few decorative pieces here as well. The next step for me is finishing off the doors and larger decorations on the stern and to block that out and then get the belay pins in on the racks and put in a few more on the sides of the ship. So that it for this post for right now, sorry everyone I know this was a long post, I apologize, but hopefully this helps a little to see more of the details. I should also mention that I am not really using any one set of blueprints for this build. I used one set for the hull model of the ship and to approximate the height of the decks and then everything else is kind of from looking at different models and ships from the same time period and finding various blueprints to put the details together, so it is not accurate to any one specific model. Thanks everyone for all your comments and feedback, sorry again for the lengthy post, but I hope this helps give some idea of the build and my thought process and where I am going with it.

[RickyBlender]

did these ships had one mast or made up with multiple poles?

not certain you can add all the riggings
that is a lot of ropes and pulleys ect.

looking nice

happy bl

[Rosehaven11]

Hi RickyBlender,
Thanks for your comment and question, Most ships during this time period had masts made up of multiple poles, the general rule of thumb I think is that for every sail on the mast there is another pole added to the mast. for example if a ship has 4 sails per mast then there are 4 mast sections if you will. The ships masts could not be made out of one single solid pole, it would be far too heavy and unstable. Yes it is a lot of ropes, pulleys and blocks, but I think with curves it could work. I appreciate the comment, if you have any other questions feel free to ask!

[Vibhukishan_Ravichan (Butterchicken5)]

Love it where did u go about getting some solid reference and blueprints?

[Rosehaven11]

Hello Vibhukishan_Ravichan,
Thank you for your comment I appreciate it, I googled a couple of references that were around the proportions of the ship that I wanted to build mainly the length of the ship is the big number you probably want to look for. I used that reference to give me a general idea of the size of the hull that I needed and the height of the decks that was also very important. From there I could extrapolate the rest of the proportions just from looking at other models as well as finding actual built ships from this time period that I could look at and use as additional reference. A great number of the design of this ship is from my own imagination as well as looking at different architectural styles to get some inspiration for some of the other details. If you can google the national maritime museum as well and input the time period you are looking for that can help you to find blueprints for the general hull shape that you can build off of. I hope that helps, Best of luck.

[sizzler]

Looks really nice so far. I look forward to seeing more updates as details are added.

I suspect another reason for masts being made up of multiple pieces instead of one solid pole is availability. It’d be hard to find straight trees that tall for every ship. Much easier to use smaller trunks. It’s also much easier to repair.

One hazard with any project of historical pieces is finding too much reference. You can totally get lost down a rabbit hole, spending hours and hours finding pictures of every little bit you can!

it’s on my infinite to-do list to tackle a ship like this…someday.

[Rosehaven11]

Hi Sizzler,

Thank you for your comment, Yes i agree with you on the masts, it would also be very heavy and pit too much strain on the decks below I think as well. Yeah you know, I haven’t had that problem as much with this project, I tend to look up references for smaller issues as the come up during the build, such as the placement of certain elements or their design to some degree.I have spend several hours and looked at dozens of models and ships and blueprints, but I find it helps to learn a little bit about the background of some of these elements and the evolution of ship design and that way you can sift through references a little easier especially with a specific time period in mind, eventually you can accumulate enough knowledge of ship design that you can tell on certain models when things are wrong/ off at least to some degree and you can be aware of that and alter things accordingly or find another reference. I am sure there is a massive amount wrong with my model, if someone with a lot of experience with this subject looked at it, but a lot of it is also artistic license and my own aesthetic. I can only hope I have by and large the right pieces in roughly the right places and they look plausible for the time period. I highly recommend doing a ship like this when you have some experience at modeling, it can be rather complicated to get the initial shape right and the hull proportions starting out are the most important part, I had to start over on this build a few times after messing some things up and realizing my proportions were off and longer than what I wanted and the rest of the model ended up being off as a result, it was a good learning experience lol.

[Okidoki]

Beau-ty-full.

[Mark06GT]

Are you using group instances for many of the repeating items? (cannons, blocks, deadeyes, balusters, …) That will save you a lot of memory.

How do you plan on texturing the model? (texture paint, procedural, a mix of procedural/texture paint…)

[Rosehaven11]

Hi Okidoki, thanks for the comment I appreciate it

[Rosehaven11]

Hi Mark06GT,
Thanks for the comment, using instances for some of the repeating elements is definitely a good idea, I haven’t thought about that initially but, its something I should look into. For texturing I was thinking if I could using image textures to try and practice UV unwrapping and seeing If I could find some good high res images. If that fails i will probably fall back to procedural as I have the most practice with that method. Thank you for your thoughts and comments, it gave me a lot to think about.