(commercial) Airships

[Papierschnitzel]

For quite a while I wanted to do some airships. I had my Pirate Fleet Builder ships from way back so I wanted to create some addons so I can turn those (or with some simple kitbashing basically any boat/ship) into airships.

I started with some research and found that a couple of horizontal and vertical sail wing addons should do the trick.

Here are a couple of my sketches ...






As my ships are waterline models it would just require to make a 2D horizontal wing base (and maybe some stands to raise them up from the ground) and if wanted some clip on vertical sail wings (esp for a rudder in the stern).

Sail wings would go great with my Pirate type ships. For more hitech wing addons I will probably consider making a new metal skin for the ships although I have also seen wooden ships with propellors and turbines during research.

I'll start with the easy ones and then see where the creative rivers takes me

[Papierschnitzel]

Here's my rowing boat with an air-wing addon...


Put 'em together and place it on a stand for raised flying level and you got an airship!


That's the basic idea. Now on to create a library of addons to combine my ships with different flying instruments

[Pattus Magnus]

That is a brilliant idea!

[RSDean]

As soon as my new printer arrives, I’ll have to get a bunch of your stuff!

[Papierschnitzel]

Thank you very much!

It will take a little bit of time until the airship addons are release ready so you have time for your printer to arrive 

[Papierschnitzel]

Here are some first testbuilds with the "fan" sail/wing option. In addition to plain white sails I have added some color customization. Here I tried to match the colors of the ship hull.

The jollyboat update...


... and the gunboat update.


Working on more sail types (both "horizontal" winglike and "vertical" side and rear sails)!

[Papierschnitzel]

How do you like this pure-paper solution for airship stands? I have often seen clear plastic stands which work well for that but I always want to offer a pure paper version being a papercrafting nut 



I have also added more sail wing options. Here's the current overview.


In addition to the "fan" wings I have added what I call "plane" wings. Both come with loads of color customization options and I have chosen only one here.

Although they are separate on the pages you could cut and mix from both options for even more variety. I wanted one tail version where one would be able to add a "vertical" rudder sail coming soon so that's why I made the second alternate tail end.

That's it for today ... gotta build some more testbuilds with the plane wings!

[Daeothar]

The airships should be usable in a variety of settings; great work!

Also; the stands remind me very much of the ones in the Flip-It Paper Combat game, which I built a force for many years ago. My Hammer Gunships looked pretty spiffy on top of those... 

[Papierschnitzel]

The airships should be usable in a variety of settings; great work!

Also; the stands remind me very much of the ones in the Flip-It Paper Combat game, which I built a force for many years ago. My Hammer Gunships looked pretty spiffy on top of those... 

Thanks! I am really excited how with the many options you could build so many different looking ships!

[fred]

These look great - not what I was expecting, but really interesting idea

The coloured wings work very well

[Papierschnitzel]

These look great - not what I was expecting, but really interesting idea

The coloured wings work very well

This is just the start. There will be many more options coming!

Next I made this alternate sail wing pattern. I call it the "plane" wing  Again with loads of color options.







If you like to be more creative you can mix and match different sail wing styles. And these are just the "horizontals". Later I will add verticals, like sails on the side and in the rear as a rudder...

Also want to make detail parts with levers hinting at how you would spread and retract the wings. Having a blast now making all these versions 

[Pattus Magnus]

Those look very promising! I’m not sure exactly what I would use them for, but I want some…. Maybe I can fit the wings to your Norse ships and fit them into the “early medieval” theme most of my fantasy collection falls within.

[Papierschnitzel]

Those look very promising! I’m not sure exactly what I would use them for, but I want some…. Maybe I can fit the wings to your Norse ships and fit them into the “early medieval” theme most of my fantasy collection falls within.

I will wrap the "horizonals" up with some Dragon wings and then the next set will have the vertical sails. I think they would be even more appropriate for the Longship. But maybe a mix will be best 

[Papierschnitzel]

I had a little fun with my builds and some photo-gimp-shopping a background in.... I call it "CAUGHT OFF GUARD" 


And here's a look at the final addition I am making to the first set, the "horizonal" sailwing collection: Dragon Wings! One bonus option even has dragon scales skin.


I also made a netherspace/astral plane stand version. Instead of blue sky clouds I went nebula cloud  Will probably also do a neutral stars version too.


Time to start getting the first set ready for release and then I will continue with "vertical" sailwing options. Really looking forward for those to add 3D-feeling to the airships!!

[Papierschnitzel]

For detailing the airships I have created some bits for my Patreon. I am starting with these levers (here assembled into a multi-config suggesting a way to open and close the sail wings), a telescope and a telegraph. The latter would look better if I doubled up some layers for a more 3D look but I didn't have the time for now.



... and then I tried it all out with the dragon sails 
The binnacle is from the pirate fleet builder set and the muskets are scratch built out of toothpick, paper, glue and a black marker. Something like that with a different color should also make a nice looking telescope!