Will McCammon's SFU Art

[Neon]

I'll push things back on track

On the other BBS, someone was asking about ship sizes. That brought me to post the following image that I had worked up about a year ago.

Click to get full size image

[djdood]

Saw this over there. Excellent models and image.
I love size-comparison images like this.

What software did you use?

[Neon]

Thank you!

I used Blender for the modelling and the rendering, then GIMP for the post-processing. I've developed a small cadre of nearly 20 hulls, most of which are Hydran.

I've done a little bit with them, such as a commercial for my latest campaign and a couple shots of "miniatures".

I created this image so that I could compare hull sizes and then standardize the fighter tubes and weapon mounts. As you can see, I haven't yet gotten past this "rough" image for the fleet. Part of that is because I didn't stop doing hulls when I started that image: I have both the Pegasus and the Grenadier hulls still in the works. Neither of those caused me to recreate this image because there is no data on how large those ships are (particularly the early-years ships.)

[Sgt_G]

So, the sizes of these ... you say they came form discussions with Will, yes? How "official" are they? Has SVC commented on them at all?

Any way to see the top view of the Ranger next to the Enterprise, in scale?


Garth L. Getgen

[Bolo_MK_XL]

So far with mini's the Ranger has been longer than the Paladin,
what discussion brought about it being longer all of a sudden.

[Neon]

I found on the internet a document created by Will, dated 24APR12, where the Hydran ships were drawn out for measurement. It appears the relative sizes were gathered from 2400 line of minis. My Google-Fu skills fail me on finding the original document (I made a personal copy, but am loathe to post that without permission.)

This image, and the sizes derived therein, have not yet had a personal vetting from any SFB Gurus yet. It's just cobbled together from references found in Section-R and what's been gleaned from the "main" BBS.

I don't have a Fed CA on hand. But I do have a Burke class Fed FF. My source (which is, in this case, Garth and Will measuring minis for Mongoose and Nick) says the FF is ~95 meters wide.

To answer the question before it's asked, the models were created from the reference drawings made for the 2400 minis. In the case of the Fed ships (of which I only have the FF, ATM) the same technique was used but from the images put out by Vanguard.

(I apologize for the shoddy texturing on the Ranger's port side. That will get fixed when the fighter tubes get fixed.)


(Click for larger image)

[djdood]

That document was posted indeed prepared by me and posted by SVC to the ADB legacy bbs, during the development of Starline 2500.

Please do not repost it, as SVC has chosen not to have it continued to be online after the development finished. Things never progressed very far on the Hydrans (nor the Lyrans). Maybe they'll return to development, some day. Folks need to buy a lot of minis to spur that.

What I can share is the reference photo I used to generate that drawing.


One thing to note, during the discussions the drawing generated, some came to agree with me that the Paladin dreadnought needed to be scaled-up, especially in-lieu of the Overlord BCH. Also increased in size in my drawing (made-wider, actually) was the Buffalo Hunter DW.

[Neon]

Thanks for that photo, Will! Great stuff.

You might note that the "Gold Standard" of ship lengths is the Fed CA, at 289m long. Additionally, you'll notice that I have the Ranger marked at 306m. Per (R9.N1), Hydran ships tended towards being about 10% longer than the other empires' ships. That's important, because section-R is able to give some good relative measurements for the rest of the hulls derived from the cruiser (e.g. the CC, NCA, etc)

[Sgt_G]

Will, I agree the DN mini is too small, but I think the 401-meter version in Neon's post went too far the other direction. I can see it as the same length, maybe a tad longer, as the 322-meter Lord Marshall. Maybe 335-340 meters, but no more than 350 meters.

[Neon]

Do we have a size-comparison for any other fleet? How does the length of another DN stack against that fleet's CA? Here, the DN is "merely" 131% longer than the CA. If the Paladin isn't that much longer than the Ranger, then I can certainly see the Monarch being that long.

[Sgt_G]

It'd be one thing if it was just longer, but it's also fatter (wider and thicker). It needs to go on a diet. The best way to do that is dial it back on all three dimensions.

[Neon]

What kind of length (perhaps as a percentage of the cruiser) do you think the dreadnaught should be?