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LemonVampire β Temeraire
Published: 2010-11-17 16:44:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 18104; Favourites: 372; Downloads: 0
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I did this a while ago. Don't know why I never posted it before. This is a rough painting of Naomi Novik's Temeraire.Related content
Comments: 35
Love it! Especially the movement and action, very realistic in many ways!
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I think the red coats should be green, but otherwise good job!
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Errr... he's fighting yachts? Because this is not how the warships of Napoleonic era looked like. Not one bit. This picture looks like if he stumbled into regatta, not an early XIX-century battle.
Plus, the Aerial Corps uniforms are not red and never have been. Nor blue (because I'm not sure who's who) for that matter.
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Keep in mind that, to make a World War 2 analogy...not every ship in the fleet was a Battleship.
I've attached a picture that shows a more typical square-rigged fighting ship from the age of sail, and along-side it a Sloop, one of the smallest vessels in the Royal Navy at the time.Β The sail-configuration which he portrays, which is indeed commonly seen on small private sailing vessels today, is called Bermuda-Rigged, and the Royal Navy made extensive use of the Bermuda Sloop for patrolling against French privateers, slavers, and smugglers, and also for carrying communications, vital persons and materials, and performing reconnaissance duties for the fleets.Β Other nations had similar vessels.
Of course, in a world with dragons, they might no longer be needed for scouting!
1.bp.blogspot.com/-xTdXβ¦
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First of all - I'm sailing since I was two years old. Don't inform me what bermuda-type sloop is, because you might just as well remind me that two plus two is four.
Secondly, history is my hobby and I'm fully aware what kind of ships were used at that time and that sloops, schooners and ketches were on that list. However, sloops, ketches and schooners of that time looked visibly different than contemporary ones. And those on the picture above look way too modern - again, it looks like a regatta, not XIX-century battle. Also, sloops that you are talking about were not operating in flotillas - they were sailing single (nobody thought about convoys until XX century and World War One), and they were not a part of warfleets. Fleet to fleet and ship to ship battles were carried out by ships-of-the-line, frigates and corvettes. So in reality - even the one where dragons do exist - Temeraire would never ever take part in a scene that is portrayed above, with modern-looking ketches/schooners (the top of their masts are not visible, so I can't tell for sure) sailing in flotilla and taking part in open battle, trying to shoot at that pesky dragon instead of running like hell (or at least trying to) like they should. This. Is. Bullshit...
And what annoys me the most is the fact that I do not understand why the author of this picture decided to draw it like this. The vision of square-rigged frigates of that period, battling each other and firing full broadsides, is so common, so omnipresent - even in blockbuster movies like Pirates of the Caribbean series - that one might think it is totally obvious that if you wanna draw Temeraire fighting against enemy fleet, you need to put frigates (or ships-of-the-line) there. Especially that Novik specifically stated, what ships was Temeraire fighting and those were never ketches nor schooners(*). But nooo - the author here drew yachts during a regatta. I mean... why? He tried to be original (not even bothering to check what ships were actually used in battles in that historical period) or what?
(*)However, we're talking about an artwork of a guy who gave red (or blue - I still do not know) uniforms to Aerial Corps while Novik specifically stated that they are green (not that she had any real choice - in reality, red uniforms were worn by British infantry and marines, the blue ones were worn by sailors, so colour green was the best available option), so why do I even bring this up...
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Green was also worn by riflemen in the infantry.Β
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waterloo200.org/200-object/rifβ¦
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I'm sorry, but this isn't the bottle-green colour that fictitious British Aerial Corps members from Novik's books are supposed to be wearing.
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But you were saying that green was an chosen by Naomi Novik because the other services didn't wear it. I'm saying that there were units in the Napoleonic-era British Army that did wear green as their service uniform. The shade of green is irrelevant.Β
Though I will concede that forest green and bottle green are readily distinguishable, and that no one on the battlefield would mistake one of William Laurence's boys for one of Richard Sharpe's.Β
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Really brought it to life. Sometimes the scale of the scenes in these books can be hard to capture on any size canvas, but this does a good job of establishing some kind of reference.Β
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It looks epic. 
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Nice work with the scale of him vs his crew. That's pretty impressive.
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This is a scene from "His Majesties Dragon", isn't it. This is an absolutely amazing painting, you had so much detail you even had the net for the crew.
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His Majesty's Dragon, oops
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One thing I'm loving about Tmeraire, is that the dragons have real personalities. They come off like actual people, people you could really talk to and be friends with. There is a horrendous number of dragon novels out there in which the dragons are just beasts to be fought or ridden, are portrayed as arrogant and annoyingly high and mighty; they're supposed to be better just because they're dragons, and some anre never fleshed out at all.
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Must have read it a few times to get this one out of the book. Havn't read it for a while but this brings me straight back to his madjesty's dragon
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Beautiful! The form of the dragon is wonderful but I love the mid-scene action and the setting over the ocean too.
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I LOVE the Temeraire series! 
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One of your best works bro! Bring on some more Tememeraire and start selling prints!
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This is great! You can just feel the wind in your hair, that's how dynamic it is!
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Awesome picture, awesome perspective, awesome depiction (so long as I overlook that the British air corps wear green), awesome action.
Got to love the way the closer wing was done.
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This reminds me of one of the major battles in the frist book
also if you want a to try painting a ship geting hit by the Divine Wind with Temeraire in the backround hovering over it
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Awesome perspective!
The contrast and technique are quite good. It's a very action packed scene.
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