Wedgie - Scarecrow style!

[Scarecrow]

Some of you will be familiar with my Florian scout and my passionate hatred for the wedge-shaped spacecraft upon which it is based. Well the Suleiman class 100 ton scout of 'wedgie' is as much a part of the Traveller RPG universe as the Falcon is a part of Star Wars so I decided that if you can't beat them then join them. I decided to take the wedge shape and make the bloody thing work - at least for me, anyway. I've posted the results so far (several renders and a rotational movie) on my website:

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/scarecrow

You can find it under RPGs/Deckplans (click the little Suleiman picture)

Anyway, here's a preview:

Enjoy,

Crow

 

[Ben W Bell]

Well done, again. I really like what you have done with the front landing gear and exit ramp.

 

[far-trader]

YIPEE, THE WEDGIE SCOUT! THREE CHEERS!

"WED GEE! WED GEE! WED GEE!"

no no no For the Artist!

"oh..." <yank>

What are you doing?!

"Giving Scarecrow a wedgie like you said."

no, not give Scarecrow a wedgie, give him three cheers for making the thing, sheesh, you bots aren't worth the air you breath

Love it Scarecrow, I'm already imagining the interior and can only wait in anxious anticipation to see how close I am. Somebody give this guy a room full of cash so he can do this stuff full time already

 

[mike wightman]

Amazing!!!

It gives a great idea of the size of Traveller ships.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Obscenely good, as usual!

Very interesting landing gear design.

 

[kaladorn]

Scarecrow, I stand in awe.

I mean AWE, not just awe.

Any chance you'd consider granting some permissions to use this stuff (with due attribution) on Trav hobby websites or as 'sidebar illos' in Trav web articles? (Not for profit... on either part)

I mean, SJG, FFE and QLI should be freakin' puttin' you on retainer!

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
Some of you will be familiar with my Florian scout and my passionate hatred for the wedge-shaped spacecraft upon which it is based. Well the Suleiman class 100 ton scout of 'wedgie' is as much a part of the Traveller RPG universe

...

Oh my Gosh you rock!

The Rhino looks sp cool and I really like the Florian Scout.

Very, very good stuff. I like the way the deckplans are rendered and how it is detailed but still possible to make your way around the view.

The backend rendering gives a sense of scale to the Scout that is rare.

Thanks.

 

[Hal]

Scarecrow?

I can only gaze at your work and smile longingly. After watching your animations, I wonder if someday, you might consider making a grav car, have the driver of said vehicle drive into the scout's bay, close the cargo bay ramp/door, and then activate the scout's contra-grav prior to folding up its landing gear. Watching the scout's engines roar into life, blast outwards with a searingly hot heat wave and the scout craft heading for a FAST getaway (as if afraid of pursuit) (although what would force an Imperial scout away like that one can only guess!)

Day yammmmmm!

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
Some of you will be familiar with my Florian scout ...

Crow

Wait a sec do you have stats and straight up deckplan for the Florian Scout?

I think players may have just fallen in love.

I have to smack the slobbering Vargr peering over my shoulder now! <whack! With a TNS printout! whack!>

 

[castlebravo]

All of your work on your site is excellent. It's a wonderful gift you have. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[Scarecrow]

Hal,

Actually, you've just described EXACTLY what I'm planning to do. I need to build the AirRaft first though and a couple of crew members =)

ACK,

The Stats for the Florian are a common garden variety CT Scout/Courier. 100 tons, four staterooms, 3 tons cargo etc.. I'm afraid though that to my annoyance and shame, the fuel volume falls substantially short of the stated 40 tons =( It's more like 25 tons. If that sort of thing doesn't bother you though then it won't be a problem.
As for floorplans. I really should just knock out the deckplans for these ships in black and white just so's people can use them before I finally get round to finishing them =)

Kaladorn

By all means feel free to use any of the images from my site for whatever you want. As long as I get a credit somewhere, I'm a happy bunny. Be careful using anything from my professional gallery as they tend to be owned by the clients.

Thanks for the positive comments all. It's very encouraging.

Crow

 

[Ranger]

Don't beat yourself up too much about the missiing 20 tons of fule. If you use High Guard you can build a scout that only needs 22 tons of fule at TL15.

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
....

ACK,

The Stats for the Florian are a common garden variety CT Scout/Courier. 100 tons, four staterooms, 3 tons cargo etc.. I'm afraid though that to my annoyance and shame, the fuel volume falls substantially short of the stated 40 tons =( It's more like 25 tons. If that sort of thing doesn't bother you though then it won't be a problem.
As for floorplans. I really should just knock out the deckplans for these ships in black and white just so's people can use them before I finally get round to finishing them =)

.. Be careful using anything from my professional gallery as they tend to be owned by the clients.

Thanks for the positive comments all. It's very encouraging.

Crow

Ok, that helps a lot Crow.

I am not a gearhead, and most of my players are ex-D&D'ers who do not have the rules or care about the fuel tonnage breakdown.

Thank you very much.

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
Kaladorn

By all means feel free to use any of the images from my site for whatever you want. As long as I get a credit somewhere, I'm a happy bunny.

Noted and appreciated. I'll also reference your website root in the notation so people can see and sample your work.

Be careful using anything from my professional gallery as they tend to be owned by the clients.
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />

No worries pilgrim, I worked for a MMORPG company and I know all about that stuff. I was a back end server guy (sockets/IP/multiprocessing/scaleability) but I know how the various clients treat their IP (and how lawyerese some can get at infringement).

And it was there that I gained an appreciation for the tasks of the artists and animators. They do phenomenal amounts of work and produce incredible results which make what us server guys do look good. (OTOH, the models on their own don't do much... *grin*)

Thanks for the positive comments all. It's very encouraging.
</font>[/QUOTE]You deserve it.

One thing:

I'd love overhead 2D 25mm or 15mm (or some scaleable format that could be blown up) deckplans for your ships too. The pic is great, and the interior shots are PRICELESS for visualizing the environment the PCs have to operate in (I liked this most of all in MT's SOM Vol 1 and really wish they'd continued the series... you've kinda picked up, without knowing it, where this left off - if you don't have this product, you really should take a look as your work is the spiritual descendant).

And keep it up. I know your real life schedule is probably demanding (heh), but your games contributions are truly breathtaking.

 

[Scarecrow]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
I'd love overhead 2D 25mm or 15mm (or some scaleable format that could be blown up) deckplans for your ships too.

It is and has been my intention from the beginning to do fully rendered plans - like the ones for the Rhino dropship - in 15 and 28mm. However I wasn't going to do them until the model was complete so that they'd match the model as closely as possible. This is still my intention but given that the models are taking a lot longer to finish than I'd hoped, I may very well prioritise some black and white line-art plans for the near future. After all these are intended for use in Traveller and pretty pictures are all very well but without the plans you can't really use the ships at all.

Why 28mm? Well it is my experience that most "25mm" figures tend to vary from anything between 25mm and 32mm so I figured doing the plans at 28mm scale (or 1/64) is a nice compromise. genuine 25mm figures don't look too small and 32mm figures don't look too big.

(I liked this most of all in MT's SOM Vol 1 and really wish they'd continued the series...

I've no idea what this is. What is it?

Crow

 

[Ben W Bell]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by kaladorn:

[qb](I liked this most of all in MT's SOM Vol 1 and really wish they'd continued the series...

I've no idea what this is. What is it?

</font>

The Megatraveller Starship Operators Manual Volume 1 as published by DGP. Great book.

 

[Scarecrow]

Ah you beat me to it.

Yeah, I just googled it.

So what it it? Is it a deckplans book? A detailed ship-creation book? A book that super-details that old workhorse the Beowulf?

Crow

 

[vutpakdi]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
So what it it? Is it a deckplans book? A detailed ship-creation book? A book that super-details that old workhorse the Beowulf?

The Starship Operator's Manual appears to be a book that details (mostly in text) various things about how starships work, how to use them, and the various things that the crew does. There is a set of deckplans for the Beowulf free trader along with a few set views (like looking down a corridor and looking into a stateroom).

I just picked up a decent copy at Owlcon for $10, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Ron

 

[kaladorn]

It gives a technology overview of various ships systems, talks a bit about starship operations procedures, gives nice deckplans for the Beowulf, talks about what the crew does, discusses different things like weapons, life support, various drives, power plants, etc, and it also has (as noted) some views of the cockpit, a stateroom, some other ship areas - which was why it reminded me of your interior renderings, though - for the record - theirs are B/W line art, and yours are kick butt 3D colour renders....

It 'fleshes out' a lot of the nature of the Beowulf and casts some glances into the nature of ships in general, a la DGP/MT.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by kaladorn:


<snip>

...gives nice deckplans for the Beowulf...

...except that as is they are poorly scaled and badly proportioned, sadly, though I've been told if you change the scale from the listed 1.5m per square to 1.0m per square it works (or at least is closer).

Other than that it is in this old trader's opinion probably the single coolest Traveller book and the rest of what you said is excellently done. It is sad that the series never took off but I think the company was in trouble by then already. I too would love to see an artwork by Scarecrow version of a SOM for any Traveller ship.