Bismarck

[JT Fox]

Design: Battleship Bismarck

I have set down a few rules to help keep me on track.

1) This ship design will be in the region off 400mm in length, around 1:600 scale.

2) Detail will be kept to a minimum. Main guns and secondary armament to be modeled. Other items to be flat packed or textured to model.

3) No modeling below water line.

4) Colours and textures to be fairly simple for the standard build option.

5) Deluxe build option to include improved colour and textures to show weathering etc. Also some additional detail to be added for those who like small parts.

Creating The Hull.

Firstly I created the shape of the deck from a plan view of the ship, this was aligned with the deck height. The deck was mirrored, creating the hull base. This was aligned with the ships water line, (my estimate of the water line that is).

The hull base was scaled down by a few percent and reshaped at the front and after area. I then created the hull sided by creating new faces between the deck and the hull base. The deck is then removed to leave the hull base and two sides. These objects are merged and vertices joined.

Hull formers have also been added to help during the build process.

Hull Texture.

As the drawings I am using for this design are copyright I have decided to to make my own. I have done this using Photoshop.

I first load the original drawing and then create a new layer above. On this new layer I trace out the outline and major feature in black. I then created new layers for the colours. Finally the original drawing is removed and my layers are merged and saved as bmp for use in Meta as a texture.



Main Deck

The main deck was created at the start and used to help form the hull sides. It is simple brought back into view and is ready for it's texture.


Main Deck Texture

The main deck texture was created using the same method as the hull. The main change is the area not draw as that will indicate where the ships superstructure and gun mounts will go. The red line is a cut lines to allow the superstructure to sit level even though the deck slopes upward.




Cheers JTF

[eibwarrior]

Sweet! I don't get much into the design threads, but this will be excellent for a ship nut like myself. I'm planning to watch your progress closely and hopefully pick up few tricks along the way.

Thanks!

[JT Fox]

Hi eibwarrior. I'm a beginner/intermediate user of Meta but if you have any question please ask and I'll do my best to help.

Cheers JTF

[JT Fox]

A bit slow but I have now started on the Forward Superstructure.

The shape of the "Upper Deck" was simple to get. I think the next deck levels will be harder due to overlapping.

Cheers JTF

[JT Fox]

Two more decks added to the forward superstructure.

I have to say I'm pleased with the progress to date. No complicated parts which keeps to the design target.

What's the view on test building, start test building during design or wait to the end?

Cheers JTF

[Barry]

very impressive

[eibwarrior]

Very nice JTF. You may want to start test building some of the superstructure, just as a fit up check. The hull and decks should be pretty straight forward.

What do you think?

Looks excellent though.

[JT Fox]

I'm thinking of building the hull first. They may give me the most issues at the moment. The formers will need to be trimmed to size as I haven't model the paper width dimensions.

I'm thinking the decks will be straight forward as they will just stack on top of each other.

Cheers JTF

[JT Fox]

The forward superstructure design has been completed. The textures need to be completed before I move to the after structure.

As things are going well with the design I put the test build back until the forward superstructure is complete. Hope that dosen't come back to bite me.:(

Cheers JTF

[papiro]

Very interesting job my friend.
Those class of models are very useful (I mean with no complicated details).
Saludazos