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Might be a bit premature...

M

michaelws

HoO Team Member
2D Artist
I am primarily an illustrator/painter. For the last 20 years I have painted exclusively underwater scenes for a gallery here in Hawaii. You can see some of my work on this old website I no longer update...and the email address on it is not good...this one being current.

www.michaelsheeler.com

I have been an illustrator for 45 years. I have done animation, traditional and digital. I stopped my subscription to 3ds max a few years ago and have not used it since. I might be able to dig up some of my work from those times. I do not even know if my last registered version will work with windows 8.1 which is all I have on my machines now.

The topic header says premature because I am not sure I can commit for what you guys want..and maybe I am no longer able to relearn max or blender or whatever you are creating your models in.

I have had a passion for the age of sail...in literature and in PC games. I love looking at your development videos. Looks like you are wanting to create what I have been wanting to create or play for many years.

Maybe, if I saw sample of some of your models in their early development stages...to see how your modellers are creating them I might be able jump in and be of some help. I might also need a little guidance in the beginning if my modeling is too rough or contain too many or too few polys etc. Also to be able to see what reference material you have to provide for the reference templates, etc to go by. Any of this information can help me decide if I am able to make a commitment to your project.

As you can garner, I am probably older than most here, 65, and I do not take this lightly. I do not want to make a commitment unless I feel I can give you guaranteed hours per week. They might not be much but maybe still enough to help. I have a wife and a house and yard to maintain and a commitment to the gallery I paint for...and also I have the unknown prospect of an aquarium opening in the state of Delaware that has approached me to represent my underwater paintings in that area of the states. So I do not have a lot of spare time...but I would love to fit in some hours of contribution to a genre of gaming and history that I hold dear. It might take a bit of time but I could, if you have an interest I dealing with someone like me, show you more of my work that broadens the range of what I draw and paint.

Anyhow, I won't take up more of your time here on this introduction to myself and my situation. But I am interested to see more of your base operation to see if I can contribute either 2d or 3d work. I also own zbrush 4 r6 but I seldom use it. I have been painting on canvas 10 hours a day for the last four years and have not done any digital work except for concept sketching for future canvases...using mostly Corel Painter x3 and a little Photoshop CC. I also just bought a wacom Cintiq companion and that is my only computer right now.

If you cannot use me...I will still be looking forward to purchasing and playing your game. Keep up the good work.

Michael Sheeler
 
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welcome aboard mate im sure some of the higher up's are gonna find ye some work around ifnot now then soon ,and for the shoting part if yer wife dosent shoot ya then call me im just in the mood and lack a live target xD
 
Welcome! Your work is excellent. Would you be willing to work on UI elements? It might not be as time intensive as doing models. Plus, I could really use some help getting the UI sorted out and rolling along. It will be something of a learning curve if you are not familiar with it but I can give you as much help as you need.
 
welcome aboard mate! Here's some work in progress pics of Bava's panthere of 1744, the last 6pdr armed light french frigate built. It's a fine example of some of the ship modeling that is being done for this project. However, speaking from experience, learning ship modeling properly can take quite a bit of time, but it depends upon your time management and how fast you learn etc. But you can definitely be useful much sooner by giving Captain Murphy a hand :)
http://www.moddb.com/members/bava101/images/some-wip-shots-of-the-panthre-for-hearts-of-oak5
 
I have no idea of how I would fit into working on UI elements. Would this be 2d work?

Funny that I thought I subscribed to receive email notifications of replies to this thread but haven't received any. Was surprised to find three replies when I came in to browse the threads.

How do I subscribe? I clicked the button before that said "Watch Thread" above and to the right of "Thread Tools." But I do not see any other place to subscribe. When I click on "Watched Threads" at the very top of the page it tells me I am NOT watching any threads.

Could use some help with this. Thanks.
 
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I tried to see the list of ships but the page was empty. Is there are list anywhere? I do have some questions regarding the modeling but not sure if this is the place to post them. I would be glad to find out more about the UI but would also like to have a ship to work on...if I find I can do this.

Would Blender work? What format do the models need to be saved in? I also own the program Speedtree but have to admit I have never yet used it. I was going to do some foliage modeling for my paintings...just haven't yet.

Blender because it is free...and am not sure my old version on 3dsmax will run on win 8.1

Are the models being built to real world scale? 1:1? And will it make a difference if I use feet and inches or centimeters etc?
 
After diving into some of the threads here it seems that you have an abundance of ship modellers.
 
After reading your Bio I am surprised that your skills as a painter and illustrator are not being considered. You could create concept art for characters, weapons, ship illustrations, and obviously sea life. Then these illustrations/concepts could assist the modelling team, for example I have seen concept art of characters that show the front, back and side of a character. other things I can think of are backgrounds, loading screens, scenic art and maybe texture creation.

There is quite a lot of art in computer games so it just a thought.

Regards,
 
Good ideas Sea Norris. After looking through a few of the threads here, especially in the resource areas I see you are quite a contributor. My research pales in comparison. I have gotten a bit rusty in my figurative work...but I might just try my hand at it again.

A question I have is regarding the localities of where the first landscape townships, forts are going to be. Are you focusing on the Caribbean or closer to England and France etc? For character design...are you looking more towards official naval uniforms or more free-form pirates like Treasure Island?

Can you point me towards pictorial references of those types of buildings that the game team has the most interest in?

Sorry I am not more organized here...but there seems to be so much material compiled it might take me too long to go through to find it. I do not just want to develop the things I like. After all, if I am here to contribute then I should place myself where I will be most useful to getting this game produced.

I am having fun getting used to using Painter X3 as a sketching medium. I will show you a very loose sketch for an underwater marlin piece I am working on now for a commissioned piece. The guy caught a striped marlin and wants me to focus on the lure he used to catch it. I know that it is not game related..but will show you looser style.

I hope I can upload the image successfully.
 
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Lane-Marlin-Sketch_002bc.jpg
 
So many questions! :onya

I just subscribed to this thread successfully. What browser are you using?

I just clicked on the link to the ship and it worked fine. :shrug

The ships are built to 1:1 scale. Since it takes 6-18 months to build a ship it may look like there are a lot of modellers, but there can never be enough.

I agree with SN about using your painting skills when the time comes for them.

The focus is on the Caribbean of 1750-1800 or so.

I will find some links to buildings and locations.
Methinks this is the area you would be most interested in, especially architecture and locations.
http://www.piratesahoy.net/forums/game-world-content.135/

That is just a sketch? :8q
 
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Character design will encompass as many as you want to do, from simple townsfolk to pirate captains or anything in between the choice is yours. I found that the Colonial Williamsburg website is useful for research/references on colonial clothing. There is even an interactive section were you can dress a character depending on their social standing, unfortunately I have not yet found anything on clothing styles from the other colonial powers so that still needs looking into.

Your marlin looks amazing, imagine drawing it in a way that could be used as a "plan" for a modeller to recreate, for this I assume would require at least a profile image and a top image to work from for the marlin (I am no character or animal modeller so I could be wrong). You may even want to work on scenery concepts that will be recreated into the game world such as a cave used by smugglers or even a building interior layout for say a tavern.

I am pretty sure many game developers and film makers use concept illustrations so they are important.

Regards,
 
I am using safari on an Ipad mini. I guess I should use my Cintiq companion and the chrome browser. I did see that there is another area to click to get email notifications.

I think I will just play around and sketch characters...to amuse myself. Anything I like and think worthy I will post. I will mostly be shooting for atmospheric (just for the flavor) rather than worry about authenticity. If I sketch a ship in a scene I will not worry about the correctness of it's parts...just to give a feeling of a scene...same with buildings and landscapes and characters. I can always go back, if the folks here like anyarticular one and research the correct flora or architecture or clothing...to get closer to authenticity.

But for me right now as there seems to be so many areas to cover, I will just play with ideas that come to me as I sketch...sort of stream of conscious drawing. Maybe then you all can see where my drawings most fit your needs. I would like to also work on a 3d model of a frigate or something. For me, because I dwarf all day long (or paint at the easel) it was always fun today with polygons because it was different...or I felt I was using a different part of my brain.

Anyhow thanks for the links and suggestions for places to look for research material.

Yes, the sketch of the marlin took about a half hour...but then I am pretty familiar with that anatomy. I will be a bit rusty on my humans..so don't be too critical at first. I am thin skinned.

Looking forward to doodling around with this.
 
Ahoy Michael, thanks for offering your help. Your skills as an artist are most impressive! :keith
I'll add you to the 2D Artists group for now. If you do try your hand at 3D modelling and decide you want to contribute to that, let me know and I'll also add you to 3D Artists.
 
There are going to be plenty of 2d assets that need to be generated that could use a real artists touch, unless you are fine with my stick figures as icons in the UI!
:wp
 
I would be glad to work with you Cpt Murphy. If you could direct me to see some of your stick figures or other icons that you would like rendered that would be a great help. I can't seem to find a list of assets that are being worked on or that need to be worked on or are completed. So I am just flopping around as far as knowing something concrete. And you were one of the first to contact me to ask for help.
 
Wow, really impressive work!:onya The link I posted earlier was only pictures of a single ship, not a list, maybe there are special permissions with it or something like that. anyway, here is such a list if you are interested, you should be able to view it now you are a part of the 2d artists group. http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/ships-seven-years-war-era.21508/ ( go to the 5th post down) it should be useful as a reference for 2d work too. It seems your talents are many, so I'm looking forward to seeing whatever you come up with in concept art or UI or modelling or whatever it may be!
 
Thanks for the link to that list. Would it be asking too much if you could pick one of the green ship types that you would like to see started...and one with enough plans for me to begin modelling?? Thank you again. Gathering together all of the age of sail material I have collected over the years.

Do you know of a thread like yours that shows all of the 2d artwork compiled so far and possible a list of assets still needing to be undertaken?

And/or a list of the other 2D artists?
 
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Members of each group are listed in this thread: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/list-of-development-roles.19797/
Be aware that a number of people, including other 2D artists, have been inactive for some time and may no longer be able to contribute.

As far as 2D artwork goes, we don't yet have a list like the one for ships. It's more of an on-demand system at the moment, especially with UI elements that we'll need quite soon.
 
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