Red World Shipyard

I spent a long weekend working on some ships for role-playing and wargaming in my red world setting. It began as a thought experiment to create a D&D setting that drew on turn of the century science-fiction set on mars (Princess of Mars, Out of the Silent Planet) instead of fantasy stories (Three Hearts and Three Lions, the Lord of the Rings, etc). 

The ships themselves were designed through input from the players at the beginning of a Dungeon World games. In that game I envisioned them as a cross between Greco-Roman and Renaissance galleys - long ships with rams and bow mounted cannon. Electric engines replaced teams of rowers. The player's decided that there wouldn't be any hand-held firearms in the game and so it was decided the crews would veer more toward Greco-Roman than Renaissance. I imagine ships carry compliments of marines, fighting with tall shield and javelins in Roman style or perhaps with pike and shield after the phalangites. 

Ship Profiles

In the Dungeon World game I made four classes of ships - three different sizes of 'galley' and a small scout ship which was the equivalent of the Star Wars speeder-bike. In the past I've used the game Galleys & Galleons to quickly simulate naval battles. For the galleys I will probably use the Galliot > Galley > Lanterna chain for the three different sizes, but use the Steam Engines special rule for movement. The smaller scout ships will use the 'gun boat' or 'pirate pinnace' stat line depending on if I want them with small bow mounted guns. I'd like to add a new class of merchant ships - represented by steam powered 'Dhows'.

The Shipyard

I began work on the ships by making sketches of various sizes of ships and splitting up the pieces I would need to make them. I intended to build the hulls up with popsicle sticks - a method learned from Kaptain Kobold on The Stronghold Rebuilt. Once I was happy with the concepts, I played around with colour schemes on paint. 

Above are some very simplified paint jobs for different ships. The background colors were intended to represent the colour of the Martian soil (left) and red weed (right). Top two rows show two versions of the solar sails which power the ship - gold and dark blue. The four lower rows are painted to represent different factions. I personally prefer to latter two rows, where the white hull is accented by colour but still largely visible.

 

Here is an image of the initial unshaped hulls, made of popsicle sticks cut to size and glued together. The two small galleys at the top of the photo have begun to have their rams whittled down. At the bottom is a sand serpent. It began its life as a dime-store plastic dragon, whose legs and wings have been removed and belly flattened to better fit on its base. 

Two sand serpents and a fleet of galleys. The galleys have been cut to shape and had their sides sanded smooth. I used a drill to make holes in the bases and bottom of these ships to fit their flight stands.

Card paper after its first coat of blue paint. The solar sails of the ships are cut from this, shaped, and then glue to the top of the hulls. 

The finished ships with sails cut and fitted and hulls painted white. They have yet to have their faction painted added. The bases are covered in fine sand painted a red ochre colour and then dry brushed with a lighter shade of the same. Onto this I added dried and powdered leaves on top as a home-made, wine-red flocking. The dreaded Red Weed of Mars!

Sand serpents scour the dead sea bottoms! I still need to make a 'submerged' version of these - probably a hump of modeling clay covered in sand. The snakes are painted and dry brushed in the same way as the soil, with a paler underbelly and golden yellow eyes.