NationStates Jolt Archive

I have been wondering about one thing about the pictures that people put up for their NS stuff. I would very much like to know where, what, or how to draw a good view of naval assets. I have seen Praetonia, Sarzonia, Freethinkers, Phoenix Militia, etc. ship pictures, and I would like to know how they drew those ships.

Is there a computer program that draws ships or has a palette of stuff? I am aware of DOGA, but I'm looking to construct a 2-D blueprint schematic of my naval ships and possibly Army and Airforce stuff, not 3-D stuff like DOGA. Is there a palette program or site that I could use or download stuff from to make my customized stuff? Or do I have to do everything in MS Paint? I am terrible at drawing in MS Paint.

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly welcomed. :)

i use real tanks and shit(mostly russian and former soviet union because i am a terrible drawer LOL).....but i heard MS paint is not the best?

i use real tanks and shit(mostly russian and former soviet union because i am a terrible drawer LOL).....but i heard MS paint is not the best?

Using pictures of real stuff is usually a good idea. The soviets made so many ships and stuff that you can almost always find what you need, assuming its modern time. Just use Google or Altavista image searching.

Contrary to Morvonia though MS Paint is well worth learning how to use. I use it almost exclusively for art and such. Its a much more user-friendly and powerful program then people give it credit for. I have seen some people do some crazy things with Paint. Just try things out and work small...that always helps, you can always make it bigger later

Using pictures of real stuff is usually a good idea. The soviets made so many ships and stuff that you can almost always find what you need, assuming its modern time. Just use Google or Altavista image searching.

Contrary to Morvonia though MS Paint is well worth learning how to use. I use it almost exclusively for art and such. Its a much more user-friendly and powerful program then people give it credit for. I have seen some people do some crazy things with Paint. Just try things out and work small...that always helps, you can always make it bigger later

He speaks the truth.

Example:

http://www.ocmob.com/b-art/uploader2/uploads/G-36%20girl%20color.JPG

MSPaint, all the way.

I have been wondering about one thing about the pictures that people put up for their NS stuff. I would very much like to know where, what, or how to draw a good view of naval assets. I have seen Praetonia, Sarzonia, Freethinkers, Phoenix Militia, etc. ship pictures, and I would like to know how they drew those ships.

Is there a computer program that draws ships or has a palette of stuff? I am aware of DOGA, but I'm looking to construct a 2-D blueprint schematic of my naval ships and possibly Army and Airforce stuff, not 3-D stuff like DOGA. Is there a palette program or site that I could use or download stuff from to make my customized stuff? Or do I have to do everything in MS Paint? I am terrible at drawing in MS Paint.

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly welcomed. :)

If you want a free program you can use CADkey 19. It's meant for drafting, but when you do 3-d designs you can get some really nice looking engines and planes. I did a custom ship for my drafting class and it took approx 10 hour to design, model and finish. More advanced stuff will be harder, but things like F/A-22's can be done pretty quickly. (To cheap-o it free you need to change you computers clock ahead, then install, it will be 30 days after set date, trial is a full version.)

Adobe Photoshop if you have cash. Adobe can be very useful at getting textures and nice designs, even alter existing pictures to your needs. Though this is a major investment for drawing a few pictures. I'd stick to free programs.

If you have some real-life equipment you want to copy features of, and you have good photos from the proper angle(s), you can trace the photos in a color very different from anything in the pictures, and then flood-fill everything that's not of that color, leaving you with the outline. After that you can make the outline black and merge the different outlines if you've drawn different ones using different pictures.

If you don't have photos to trace...You spend a lot of time doing it by hand until it's perfect, I guess.

I was going for more like these 2-D schematic / blueprints like in this thread...

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=395472

I have some pretty neat ship designs and ideas I'd love to draw, but unfortunately I don't know how to draw them that well (like the pictures in that thread). I might try that CAD thing, I used to work with CAD in high school in the late 90's.

However, is there any palette site or any site with good pictures or schematics I could mix n' match to create my ships? For example, gun turrets, ship chassis, radar towers, etc?

Using pictures of real stuff is usually a good idea.

No, it's usually a fantastically bad idea. Modern technology is designed for modern battlefields; modern-day warships in particular are useless in NS-scale warfare where large fleet actions are likely and you need significant armour. Not to mention many of the images of modern combat equipment are used so often they become boring [yay, another tank with a 165mm ETC gun that happens to look just like an Abrams] or have annoying insignia-that-don't-belong-to-your-country.

Generally I go with pen / pencil and paper, or a cute lil' 3D prog called Shade 7.

No, it's usually a fantastically bad idea. Modern technology is designed for modern battlefields; modern-day warships in particular are useless in NS-scale warfare where large fleet actions are likely and you need significant armour. Not to mention many of the images of modern combat equipment are used so often they become boring [yay, another tank with a 165mm ETC gun that happens to look just like an Abrams] or have annoying insignia-that-don't-belong-to-your-country.

Generally I go with pen / pencil and paper, or a cute lil' 3D prog called Shade 7.

Any suggestions for me, GMC? I have all those ideas and concepts floating around in my head, but I can't seem to find the right program, software, or whatever to transfer my ideas into pictures and designs for you NS guys to see.

I'd say either practice with a pen and paper, line art in paint / photoshop or a 3D proggy and see what works for you. Try to avoid looking for shortcuts; people will respect you far more if it's all your own work rather than generic parts copy-pasted from a library [though this is not meant as an insult to our good DOGA users, the ones who put in enough work to make something non-generic rather than the classic tank-with-ill-advised missile launching components!]. With a library-based proggy you still have to put in a lot of effort, since otherwise your stuff will look generic.

Reference images; globalsecurity.org has stacks of images of modern weapons ['countries' for non-US equipment, 'systems' for US]. I personally also have a big stack of model kits, and would recommend that to anyone who wants to design something in detail; it's often hard to see how parts go together in a photograph.

I'd say either practice with a pen and paper, line art in paint / photoshop or a 3D proggy and see what works for you. Try to avoid looking for shortcuts; people will respect you far more if it's all your own work rather than generic parts copy-pasted from a library [though this is not meant as an insult to our good DOGA users, the ones who put in enough work to make something non-generic rather than the classic tank-with-ill-advised missile launching components!]. With a library-based proggy you still have to put in a lot of effort, since otherwise your stuff will look generic.

Reference images; globalsecurity.org has stacks of images of modern weapons ['countries' for non-US equipment, 'systems' for US]. I personally also have a big stack of model kits, and would recommend that to anyone who wants to design something in detail; it's often hard to see how parts go together in a photograph.

(OOC: How would you say I am with DoGA? If I had a Scanner, I'd most likely be using pencil and paper instead. DoGA is great to use, but TBH, I still had a cringe of disappointment when I first realized that it was a library of parts. I think I hinted to that somewhere in the other thread filled with my "work".)

most of us just use MS paint.

Yes, a lot of people use MS Paint. Some folks use other drawing applications (perhaps Adobe Illustrator) and some people just use the old fashioned pen and paper method.

Since my drawing skills are limited to hand drawing of wooden sailing frigates, I usually either ask someone who has the skills I lack or I get a photo that's reminiscent of what I'm looking for. Then I add a disclaimer since my design is usually noticeably different from the photo I've used.

I use Photoshop, but I dont peticularly need to (I just happen to be more comfortable with the program) but as others have added you can do soem amazing stuff in MSpaint.

mostly its trail an error Ive found to get the right style you like.

Sharina,
I am sure you have seen some of my ships (not so popular since they were made off site) somewhere. They are high-detailed, simular to most of Hamptonshire and Praetonia (the schematic-like pictures at least).

I wouldn't mind in my free time making them for you, just name what you need, and I even include SNS-45 Freewind on the aft hull (as an example, Sharinian Naval Ship - 45 "Freewind", which can be changed if you want one on there). Hell, I have so much time offline now, just give me a list and see how you like it.

(Old School all the way: MS Paint)

I WAS going to write a guide for linearting modern naval ships in MS Paint..but I can't be bothered because noone would read it anyway because noone cares if Hoggie designs something, because it's sub-par and the three hours + effort i put into drawing it in some crappy Microsoft paint program designed for four year olds is pointless because it's not a OMG SHIP OF DOOM with 900 VLS and four dual 8" cannons and supercavitating torpedoes that could sink the Iowa in ONE TORP.
Anyway,
here's a few tips for you. (http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b245/ComradeMatt/HELPHA.png)
Not that anyone would want to follow them, that is.
if you really wanted I could compile a bunch of my weapons , hulls, systems, etc for palleting
in fact i may do that anyway
hmmmmm.......

-snip-

Very nice. At least its better then the last image I viewed with 'big breasts.avi' being in the download bar for the screenshot! MIRC fan huh. Ya, the MS paint is really horrible for high-quality nice graphics, but this is a very nice flat model for ships. They are in profile, but that's how they are best shown really.

-
LMAO.. and yes, i'm on the NS IRC. Anyway, thanks.

I WAS going to write a guide for linearting modern naval ships in MS Paint..but I can't be bothered because noone would read it anyway because noone cares if Hoggie designs somethingI beg to differ on both counts.

I like your design work; if I didn't, why would I have asked you to linedraw my Vigilant?

I beg to differ on both counts.

I like your design work; if I didn't, why would I have asked you to linedraw my Vigilant?

Well, I was stating that my lineart is ignored in comparison with others, for example TPM. I tend to go OTT sometimes <.< >.> and I'll start work on vigilant when iv'e done warspite.

Halo picts......

I find that MS powerpoint and The GIMP is a match made in heaven.

Hey Sharina if you'd like I could whip you up something before i go on holiday.

Well, I was stating that my lineart is ignored in comparison with others, for example TPM. I tend to go OTT sometimes <.< >.> and I'll start work on vigilant when iv'e done warspite.Ah. I thought you were getting down on yourself. Don't worry, I wasn't posting that to bother you about the Vigilant. I knew you were working on Warspite. In fact, I was doing that to indicate that I had confidence enough in your linedraw skills to entrust you with the task of drawing Vigilant. ^_^

Pencil and Paper (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/Gizeh/FB-1A.gif) owns all.

But if you don't think you're good at drawing, you have two options:

1) Get better - Practice like crazy.

2) Get good with programs - Be it photoshop or MS paint. I prefer paint for lineart, photoshop for detailwork. But generally I ain't great with computers.

You can never make a good image of anything without a basic understanding of it's operation, that's why I don't draw boats.

Okay, guys. I appreciate all your posts, feedback, suggestions, offers, etc. Right now I'm looking for a few things to get me started.

1. I'd like a palette or "list of parts" so that I can copy / paste or manipulate in MS paint or JASC PaintShop 4.0. Examples include gun turrets (two barrel and three barrel ones), radar dishes, antennae, heliocopters, etc.

2. I'd like to try to create both a top view and side view of a few of the ships I've been working on (designing).

3. Towards these ends, I'd like a drawing / schematic of a few ship classes. Aircraft Carrier, Battleship, Cruiser, and Destroyer.


These would help me immensely with starting to draw my naval ideas and stuff. That'll be an important step for me to finally be able to post my naval projects on NS after a year - I've been here at NS for a year, and still no good navy pictures. :(

Thanks so much for everything, guys. :D

Tag

1. I'd like a palette or "list of parts" so that I can copy / paste or manipulate in MS paint or JASC PaintShop 4.0. Examples include gun turrets (two barrel and three barrel ones), radar dishes, antennae, heliocopters, etc.

Well, glancing across my battleship kits [Yamato, Bismarck, KGtV, Missouri] the first thing that strikes me is that all those are different depending on nation of origin...Much like you might say all tanks have a 'turret' but a quick look at a T-72 against, say, a Challenger will tell you it's really not that simple at all.

So really the first point is deciding what you want your gun turrets to look like and then asking someone to sketch them out for you, if you want to go down that route.

And as I say, personally I like Shade. Takes a little work, but you can make stuffs like this: [unfinished, hee]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/GMC/King%20Cobra/KingCobra_image39.jpg

Well, glancing across my battleship kits [Yamato, Bismarck, KGtV, Missouri] the first thing that strikes me is that all those are different depending on nation of origin...Much like you might say all tanks have a 'turret' but a quick look at a T-72 against, say, a Challenger will tell you it's really not that simple at all.

So really the first point is deciding what you want your gun turrets to look like and then asking someone to sketch them out for you, if you want to go down that route.

And as I say, personally I like Shade. Takes a little work, but you can make stuffs like this: [unfinished, hee]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/GMC/King%20Cobra/KingCobra_image39.jpg

Sigh. It's just not fair...

What version of Shade are you running?

What would be a good free 3-D modeling program?

What would be a good free 3-D modeling program?I don't do any 3D modeling ('though I'd like to do some), but you might want to look at Blender (http://www.blender.org/cms/Home.2.0.html).

What version of Shade are you running?

That's Shade 7 Standard.

Well i don't have much advice on ships seeing as most of my work has been black and white profiles of tanks (good place to start learning).

By a library of bits i assume you mean the sort of standard bits that the likes of Freethinkers and Kitsume use on thier pictures. I honestly don't know how they store thier bits (although i assume it's in one big pic file with a layer for each bit, muhc like that gun toolkit that did the rounds a while back). If you really wanted to use thier stuff there is nothing (bar Intelectual property rights) stopping you just cutting and pasting the bit shtat you want.

As for tools i personally use Paint Shop Pro but for free stuff The GIMP is hard to beat it does pretty much everything you would want including layers IIRC (layers are good for covering up a multitude of sins).

I could make do with using parts from various NS ship designs. However there is a problem.

1. I can't find any good top-view sketches or schematics of carriers and other naval vessels.

2. The various NS ship designs are mainly side-views, which doesn't let me create top-views of my ship designs (I can't use the stuff from side view in a top view sketch).

3. The other NS sketches that aren't side view are in 3-D, either DOGA, CAD, Shade, or other 3-D programs.


I'm still struggling to find top view schematics / sketches for naval ships. :(

I could make do with using parts from various NS ship designs. However there is a problem.

1. I can't find any good top-view sketches or schematics of carriers and other naval vessels.

2. The various NS ship designs are mainly side-views, which doesn't let me create top-views of my ship designs (I can't use the stuff from side view in a top view sketch).

3. The other NS sketches that aren't side view are in 3-D, either DOGA, CAD, Shade, or other 3-D programs.


I'm still struggling to find top view schematics / sketches for naval ships. :(

Are you sure you couldn't just use DoGA or something to design the inside of a ship any way? It doesn't sound that easy, but it's possible.

Are you sure you couldn't just use DoGA or something to design the inside of a ship any way? It doesn't sound that easy, but it's possible.

I'm going for a blueprint type of picture, or at the very least, a 2-D top view like these various 2-D side views of NS ships.

That way, I can modify and edit the top views into a palette of sorts. Then I'd be able to draw various top views of various ship classes much easier. With DOGA, it'd be more complex, as I'd have to start from scratch every time, and DOGA doesn't have the parts that I need (I've actually experimented with DOGA).

I'm going for a blueprint type of picture, or at the very least, a 2-D top view like these various 2-D side views of NS ships.

That way, I can modify and edit the top views into a palette of sorts. Then I'd be able to draw various top views of various ship classes much easier. With DOGA, it'd be more complex, as I'd have to start from scratch every time, and DOGA doesn't have the parts that I need (I've actually experimented with DOGA).

Start from scratch every time... I'm not too sure what you mean. Decks of the ship or something?

I could make do with using parts from various NS ship designs. However there is a problem.

1. I can't find any good top-view sketches or schematics of carriers and other naval vessels.

2. The various NS ship designs are mainly side-views, which doesn't let me create top-views of my ship designs (I can't use the stuff from side view in a top view sketch).

3. The other NS sketches that aren't side view are in 3-D, either DOGA, CAD, Shade, or other 3-D programs.


I'm still struggling to find top view schematics / sketches for naval ships. :(

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/cvn-68-schem.htm

Global security has tons of this type of stuff. Those pics are a good guide to what you might see on a ship, but please don't copy them down completly, since a Nimitz would die on NS in a matter of minutes.


Here's a question to the 3Ders: what programs do you use, and how do you get them? I've noticed programs mentioned (like Shader, which looks awesome) but seen no links.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/cvn-68-schem.htm

Global security has tons of this type of stuff. Those pics are a good guide to what you might see on a ship, but please don't copy them down completly, since a Nimitz would die on NS in a matter of minutes.


Here's a question to the 3Ders: what programs do you use, and how do you get them? I've noticed programs mentioned (like Shader, which looks awesome) but seen no links.

Google?

Here's a question to the 3Ders: what programs do you use, and how do you get them? I've noticed programs mentioned (like Shader, which looks awesome) but seen no links.

I got my copy of Shade from the developer's online store, their website is at:

http://www.e-frontier.com/

If you want something free, DOGA is downloadable from
http://www.doga.co.jp/english/
Go for L2 or L3 since I don't think the L1 download works anymore.

Guide to that here: http://rpstudios.ian-justman.com/junk/dogaFAQ.html

Sharina, you still have AIM? If so, IM HailJewitt, I got a few tips that are hard to say without explaining it in a long-bl33p post on here. I could also draw up some turrets, superstructures, and hull bases for MSpaint if you would like. I am planning on doing this anyways as I get back into naval design (been doing mostly aircraft and its get boring after a while).

I got my copy of Shade from the developer's online store, their website is at:

http://www.e-frontier.com/

If you want something free, DOGA is downloadable from
http://www.doga.co.jp/english/
Go for L2 or L3 since I don't think the L1 download works anymore.

Guide to that here: http://rpstudios.ian-justman.com/junk/dogaFAQ.html

If the L1 doesn't work anymore than it isn't free. DOGA L2 and L3 dont appear to be free.

If the L1 doesn't work anymore than it isn't free. DOGA L2 and L3 dont appear to be free.

They are free. The features that they disable until you pay/register aren't even hindrances when using the programs for what people want here in II. That is, just make models, and display them.

If the L1 doesn't work anymore than it isn't free. DOGA L2 and L3 dont appear to be free.

The part you have to pay for is being able to do animations; the static rendering part is free.

i used my ancient Smartdraw3 :( until hogsweat told me that he uses Mspaint (those pictures are too good to be drawn on it)

sometimes i just draw them with pen and paper and a handy book of ideas
and a couple of times i've made them out of lego

I'm still struggling to find top view schematics / sketches for naval ships. :(One of my naval reference books at home that I bought for NS purposes has some drawings of different systems such as radars, guns, and the like for RL ships. The only thing I can think of is perhaps sketching those out and then trying your hand at drawing them for a design.

I can manipulate photos decently well even though it's been a while since I used PhotoShop, but using a computer to draw? Nigh on impossible for me.

I'm the other way around. I can't draw well, but I can edit like crazy.