3D modeling a Viking Longship

I have been working on a viking long ship in my 3D class and are now getting to a point where there is mostly details left to do. I have been working to get the boats shape and then started to add the important parts. Every time I look at my reference pictures I always find something new about it. For one thing I thought the mast was in two parts, because in the schematic underneath you can see on the top part that it’s broken off like it was supposed to have something resting on it in the middle.

So I created this at first that kinda looked like the image above. But I thought this can’t be right because how would it be kept up, so I looked more and realised it was just the mast broken of really badly shown in the picture it was actually supposed to be one big log the whole way.

So remade it and the rest shown in the image is one of the pieces that hold the log I place, my plan is to texture a dark hole or something on it later to show where it goes.

So it was actually like what I noticed in my last blog post about 3D that it is just put in place in a hole and then it can move freely without falling over. I made it so it can be taken out and then placed on the supporting beams that holds the mast and “sail stick?”. But I didn’t model the part underneath that help hold it in place because it will never be seen.

Also the supporting beam next to the mast was a struggle I had to remake or edit it several times because I discovered a new detail about it almost every time I looked at my references but i think it turned out all right. So now im really starting to understand the longship a lot more. Also I have changed it a little from the concept art as I thought it would be better with the details of how they stored the mast and sails if they weren’t in use at the moment. So I added the support beams and the way to take it down.

This is the boat as it is right now, I have started added beams on the insides where I will also place a floor between. So I will be able to remove some unseen faces later to save the polygon. I have added a metal piece on the front of the boat, the concept art had it but it had water splashing in front of it so I couldn’t see how it was supposed to look so I made it into something that would be able to crash into other boats and take hits.

What im worried about now is all the details, not that I wont be able to do them in time, bu that they might contain to many polygons. I have made some test travel chests that take very little polygons but might be to low, then I made the shield which I think has to many polygons and I will try to remake it using less edges that form the roundness of the shield. And try to have straight edges across the shield instead of them going from the sides to the middle into one point, and see if that works aswell. Because there will be many and the current one contains 400 which add up when you need 10 or 20 shields, so I will have to be carefull with them. Then I have that dragon head on the front of the boat and then a tail on the back. The the sail with ropes. The ropes will probably not take much but they will add to the total number. If I have to I can make the mast and the other logs in a lower resolution too. Then I have the paddles which probably wont need much polygons.

It has been a hard challenge because of the shapes being kind of hard for me to make but it has been rewarding, it feels awesome every time you are finished with a part and can see the boat starting to be built up and I can see in my mind how it will look in the end. Also I learn a lot while working and this is absolutely the biggest and hardest thing I have been working on so far, but also the most fun. Also it’s something to do with vikings which I love so that is great.