What Should This Game Look Like?
While I began kicking around the concepts for the rules and I started to put together a Leviathans Crew to start crafting the universe beyond the initial pitch, I immediately began thinking of what the universe would look like. More importantly I began thinking about who I’d want to be the primary artist to take this new universe and breath it into visual existence.
I’m blessed to have great relationships with a host of fantastic artists, but for this particular project there was one artist right at the top of my list: Doug Chaffee. Doug’s worked in our industry for 20 years. However, he goes far beyond our industry, having done a load of conceptual art work and paintings for NASA, as well as a new Marine One painting in 2005 that’s now hanging in the White House. Not to mention a rich history of naval ship work.
Obviously my original contact with Doug came through BattleTech. His first illustrations appeared on covers in 1994 and his gritty, realistic style immediately made him one of my favorite artists as a fan. As I began work on the line our personal relationship developed and I came to respect him for his attention to detail and for how much he’d let me push him to get my vision onto paper. We’ve since done a huge amount of work together over the years, most of it aerospace oriented as I love his naval stylings.
With all of that in mind he was the perfect choice to help me tackle Leviathans. The very first illustration he generated based upon our initial discussions let me know my decision was correctly and it only got better.
Now obviously this is a first sketch and we went through numerous iterations, with Doug always willing to listen to our endless ramblings and then attempting to create our vision while ensuring he remained true to his own vision and aesthetic senses.
Anyways, I’ll leave it to another blog to discuss the changes that occurred, why they occurred and to show some additional sketches that showcase the transformation of the French signature battleship from this initial concept to its final form.
See ya next duty shift!
Randall
of course, now Randall tweeted about it, the peoples will be arriving shortly.
moar piccies!
Well, it’s still light, but the site’s now populated enough to start letting it ‘leak’.
Randall
Nice to see that there’s a website for this game. I await to see this game on the shelves.
A good concept sketch, what a difference from the one you showed in the TGN video.
At least now I know I can safely comment. -haha-
It’s nice to see the beginning of things, graphically. Thanks for sharing!
This looks like a wonderful imagining. I’m brought to be curious about a couple tangents this might bring about. The first is the thought of what the heavy airship technology would mean for the transportation of people and goods; I mean civil heavy airships, merchant air, whatever. If you can pack hundreds of tons of weapons and armor on an airframe, you could pack as much weight in cargo. I imagine the cost would limit the technology’s use in civil aplications, but there would be a few rich folks and their air yaghts at least, and a much earlier AirForceOne.
The second tangent is the effect of the technology on airfoil aircraft. Would the Leviathans carry scouts and fighter planes? Would the development of the heavy airship stymie the research on airfoil craft, so the Wrights go back to building bikes?
Mike, great points. A couple of points – firstly, electroid is not simple to make – it’s the ultimate strategic material of the turn of the century, coming from “dark, satanic mills” called elefactuaries. As such, this imposes limits on use of electrical flight. Secondly, in the Lev timeline the Wright Brothers lift off on schedule – but imagine the impact of a 5,000 ton aerial cruiser in the background of the famous photo. The two issues are related – with electrical flight limited more or less to government-backed organisations or similar, there’s a pressure to seek alternatives.
Now, consider the ‘state of the art’ of airplanes in Real World (aka Mundane) 1910. Their offensive capabilities against Leviathans carrying armour measured in inches are … ? Whether heavier-than-air craft experience the same intense evolutionary pressures that Mundane aircraft experienced 1914-1918 remains to be seen in the world of Leviathans.
Looks very cool and I’ve been a long time fan of Victorian Sci-fi so definitely attracted to this.
One question though, what’s to make these rules stand out so it’s just not historical naval rules disguised as a set of vic-scifi rules?
Hi Guys,
Just been admiring the (few, please remedy) pictures on this website and noticed that although this mean’t to be played in the air “his thinking is clearly 2d” in that there are no weapons (visible) that can shoot down.
If thats the case then all you’ve done is create a game with no hieght where everyone is on the same level…might as well be a battle on the sea then.
Or will there be weapons on the lower part of the hull? maybe the ships ‘roll’ to the side to bring the big guns to bear? Exactly how do you intend to adress the 3d aspect?
Sorry to be pushy here but Milton raises an important question…
Rgds
Madan
I hope that any minis you guys make for this will be metal or hard plastic… rather than the soft PPP stuff.
I’ll be fighting to be first in line if the minis for it are decent.
I wouls like to add my comments about the game.
a) Need to address 3d, as might as well produce standard naval game, could use stands as used by Wings of War (these work really well)
b)The miniatures need to be a decent size (resin bodies with metal parts) standard ships being 15 to 20 cms long, I belong to the Lead Adventure Forum and all comments seem to re-iterate this we dont want tiny 4 cm ships.
Good luck with an interesting project. I will contact you re Playtesting.
Hello, This concept is really overdue. As for size of ships – it seem nowadays small is better. With the lost of Wizkids – those factories and molds are idle. Having these factories canking out painted ready to play minis is the way to go. If the ships rangein size from 4 cm to 8 cm long, they will be in high demand. Not just for this game system but it will cause other games to retool in this scale. Like “Space 1889″ and “Aeronauf”these are are few of the known games being played in the same fantasy era. This could give rise to Laser-Clads and the Pacific Alliance from atlandis.
another thought — is the whole fleet the same design just small for smaller craft?
Cool site. Check out this freebie from the past I ran across. Netrek, can’t believe it is still around and maintained.
One of the first strategic points about air battles is that elevation is everything. To win an air battle, height over your enemy would be paramount. All shells from guns fall down, and explosives can be simply dropped down from above. But add a moving target below your ship, and there is the chase. So if elevation is paramount, as in always have the high ground, then where are the guns that shoot straight down? And the defense would be guns that shoot straight up?
Or gun turrets on the ends of the ship that traverse up and down 180 degrees, and also 180 degrees (or more) on the horizontal plane? That would be like a hemispherical turret. Those existed on WWII bombers. So would the leviathan become like a steampunk bomber?
And around the mid-ships of the leviathan, a set of guns could run on rails that encircle the heavy skyship.
I’ll bet the Germans come up with that design first.
Do the skyships have to land in water?
Elevation is currently scheduled for inclusion in the base game. However, it’s part of the “enhanced game play rules” found in the Captain’s Manual, as opposed to the “standard game play rules” found in the Commander’s Rules (i.e. elevation adds significantly to the difficulty of play, so I didn’t want it to bog down the standard play, but also new it had to be in the box for all those that did wish to play that route).
And yes, they can land on water…no specific rules for that at this time, however.
It looks like a shark. This post is pretty old-did you get the final draft on your blog? I would love to see the first and final draft differences.
If you go to the gallery section, http://monstersinthesky.com/gallery/, you can see the progression of the art to the final illustration.
Randall, you said:
You’re blessed to have a great relationships with a host of fantastic artists, esp. with this project one artist right on the top of your list: Doug Chaffee…I can tell your right he’s great artist but honestly your blessed too to have a very smart idea for all of this concept..This project came out it’s because of you for sure…right Randall?
David Brown