Fantasy Longships

Recommended Resource Pack: Conquest

I got bored one afternoon, so I decided to work on a fantasy longship. Fantasy was the key word here, meaning that aesthetics would beat out historical accuracy. Nonetheless, I think that paying attention to real-world constraints can help inspire details in a build. For this reason, I have tried to keep realism in my sheets and halyards- although, as a cutter sailor myself, I am not well versed in square rigged masts. I AM aware that without a forestay and backstay (ropes that attatch the mast to the bow and the stern) that mast would wobble around like crazy in a storm, but, when I tried putting some in, they spoiled the shape of the design. As stated above, looks beat practicallity.

I ended up doing three variants, rigged for war (port), rigged for trade (starboard) and de-rigged (central). I tried to follow traditional (ish) construction methods, laying the keel first and then building in the strakes. It was very tempting for me to give them carved dragon bows, but I felt like that would look too clichéd, so I just had the keel curve up and back over at bow and stern. (Perhaps I'll go back and do a version with carvings one day.) Once I had the strakes in place, the hull looked a little plain, so I went back and added in some ribs and bulwarks in spruce wood, which helped the ship pop a little more. I did wonder about lining up the benches with the ribs, but I was getting a sort of ragged, hastily constructed vibe that I liked so much that I carried it on to the sail.

Feel free to use the project for whatever crazy purposes you like, but please give me credit, because...

People who don't give credit to original content creators MAKE ME A SAD PANDA!