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RobCaswell β Beowulf Class Profiles (updated)
Published: 2013-05-30 21:57:52 +0000 UTC; Views: 28975; Favourites: 280; Downloads: 773
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Description
This is sort of a reprint... but more a re-execution of some of the technical art found in the centerfold of DGP's "Starship Operator's Manual" (circa 1988). I'd created the original art on a synthetic velum sheet. It's help up OK, being essentially plastic and all, but as a piece of art it's nasty in it's utilitarian aspect. It got the job done, back in the day, with pasted up text and all
Anyway, this version drops the alternate views on the Type A and just offers a profile presentation. Those Traveller geeks among you will notice the reference to the ship's fusion drive. Mwaahaaahaa - vengeance is mine!!!!!! Tom Peters, Karl Martin, and myself were strong believers in the idea that the typical drive arrangement in Traveller ships was anti-grav for landings, fusion drives for relativistic travel, and jump drives for star travel. But we were told to go stand in the corner and not make any more noise.... 'TIL NOW! It's my art and them's fusion drives, love it or leave it!
Anyway, I hope the Traveller fans out there will enjoy the updated past blastage, and the SF starship fans will groove on it for its SF shippiness. Of note, the look of the Beowulf was originally created by William H. Keith, and later tweaked by Tom Peters and myself. For some juicy 3D scenes of this ship in action, check out the Traveller gallery of Drell-7: [link]
UPDATE INFO: Corrected a few graphics glitches, added a few more key technical callouts, adjusted layout, added scale air raft.
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Comments: 144
The Beowulf class always gives me a warm feeling inside...
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I'm glad you tracked me down!
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Thanks! I tried to be definitive with this one.
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And you got it spot on.
I am still looking for deck plans for it.....got any to post?
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Eventually, maybe. I'd really need to clean up the old art.
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Would really love seeing them.
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One of my favorite ships, and I remember this from one of the supplements you illustrated. The fusion drive is a nice addition.
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Heh... don't get me going on Traveller sublight drives. It's an old wound
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Glad ya like! It was nice to bring this one outta the shadows and update it.
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This reminds me of a lot of sketches and technical drawings I saw in my youth in some magazines. Really nice
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Depending on how old you are, this MIGHT have been some of those drawings?! 
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Might be possible, in 88 I was 22
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Yes I always wondered why the artwork contracted the rules.
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Hm?? Not sure I understood you comment? Did you mean "contradicted"? If so, in what details?
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artwork showing reaction drives verses rules stating reaction-less drives... I like your ideas better.Β
In reality if ships where correct to rules they would have looked very much different. I also like the industrial pragmatism of the designs and are not specificity over stylised like some space / star ships ships would likely in reality be designed to be fit for purpose... the are industrial objects not stylised consumer goods.
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FYI, "reactionless drives" in Traveller didn't come into print until around 1988. By that point there were many, many ship designs that were built assuming some kind of reaction drive ("fusion" was the common agreement). So when DGP determined these were reactionless drives we had to figure out a way to retrofit all the existing ships to explain that without totally changing them. I'm sure the game has assumed reactionless drives from the start, the ships probably would have looked rather different.
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Yes I agree, I believe that was the when MegaTraveller came into play, CT had Fusion and TNE had also fusion. In my humble option DGP created arguably the best material and by far the most consistent quality of artwork throughout, my favourite was βStarship Operator's Manual"Β and "The Flaming Eye" and I was sold hook line and sinker, loved the artwork andΒ line artΒ allows your brain to fill in the blanks and not as prescriptive as photorealism...
Was it DGP or GDW that decidedΒ reactionless drives? I thought it came from DGW?
Regards Steven.
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It came from DGP, but with GDW's blessing. However before that I don't think it was the GDW consensus.
FYI, this was a very thorny issue, internally. It led to some heated meetings....
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Hi Rob,
I bet it did, oh to be a fly on the wall...
Kind Regards,
Steven.
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we had one of those in the Traveller campaign I played in back in the day...it was called the "Margin of Profit"...
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a real blast...literally...at the end of the campaign...the old girl blew up...
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A heroic death - perfect!
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nope...drunken engineer falling asleep... he slid under the table during a session...and every time we jumped...the GM rolled to see if there was some kind of critical failure...damn snake eyes...
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LOL! That'll teach ya to skimp on the cola reserves!!!
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well he kept using the stuff as mix for his Johnny Walker Red...
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Wow, this brings back so many memories. What a thing of beauty. And of course the original (and others you did at the same time) was a huge inspiration for how I drew spaceships for the rest of my career ; )
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I'm glad it's been so well received... and flattered it had such an impact on you!! I'm always a bit conflicted about posting this old stuff as it feels a bit like I'm making people sit through my old home movies, y'know?
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Old home movie may be painful to you but keep them coming!!!!!
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Ha! That's how I felt about starting a gallery here at all... but I've since learned the error of my ways ; )
They may be old, but your Traveller drawings were magnificent. I loved all the original little black game books, but with the Traveller's Digest / MegaTraveller era, it felt like the art for the game universe finally matched the quality of the hard-SF ideas that had always been there.
That said, most of my art from the time is too embarassing to post, so I can hardly complain. I was fresh out of high school and never used models or references, and it showed : P
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And someone else who's work made my buy tons of supplements I'd most likely never use in an actual gameβ¦ anyway it was easier to find people to play Shadowrun and Cyberpunk than Traveller. Β
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Well your work improved dramatically over the course of your work with DGP. It was great to see! But even your early work has an appeal. If we ever manage to meet up, I'd love to hand off your DPG artists file to you. It's probably a nice bit of retrospective in itself. I kept everything
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WOW, really? I'm kind of stunned at the thought! That is something I'd both love, and be embarassed to see!
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It'd be nuthin' but fun, I'm sure
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Sadly I haven't been able to do much travelling the last few years. I sure would like to change that though.
Do you ever get out to the wet coast at all?
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No travel due to finances?
Nope - I haven't been out West in over a decade. I'd love to get to Seattle.... and to San Fran, again.
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Well, the trouble with freelancing is if I have money, I'm too busy to go anywhere, and if I have free time then I'm probably broke.
Seattle's only a 3 hour drive from here. I also have a few friends down in Frisco, been thinking it might be cool to take the train down there...
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Arcas, thanks for that piece. My model of the ship was essentially carved out of the Operator's Manual (with a little modeler's license) and waits for a decent paint scheme and some detail work... [link]
Great to see you revive some more of your classics.
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I'm glad you're enjoying the nostalgia trip as much as I am!
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I really do.
And I must admit - though when modelling the Free Trader I was quite unhappy with the various non-matching Deckplans I found back then (including the Starship Operator's Manual) - I like the ones from the latter best for their consistency. The scale doesn't excatly match in the publication, but thats easy to come by with todays computers.
Do you still have the original drawings?
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The deckplans? I think I might... somewhere in the heap.
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Just now I'm looking at the centerfold blueprint of the book and it seems quite a bit of detail that the originals possibly have was lost during the reproduction process at that time (e.g. fine lines melting together forming near solid areas of colour (er... white)).
I guess I'm just curious how much detail the originals would show when scanned with today's technology?
Anyway. Yes, the arrival of the T5 Big Black Book has refueled my interest in Traveller stuff. Especially Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller. Just so much cool stuff...
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Oh yeah, the reproduction here is far more accurate. It benefits from a number of things.... most importantly, no analog conversions! That's true for a lot of my art. When shot, reduced, and printed, the image detail usually got put through the wringer. You'll probably see that if you compare many of the old print pics to what I've posted here on DA. I used to draw pretty fine detail, even when I knew it's be going down 50% in print.
So is there any image in particular that you're wondering about "missing detail"?
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It's more the graphical detail than the informational detail of course. The deckplan "centerfold" of the Starship Operators Manual was white lines on blue background and the are details like seats or panels or the engineering section where the fine lines "melt" together - for lack of a better description. An example could be the bridge, where small details are visible on top of the panel-boards but one can't possibly see whether you opted for a coffeemaker or a compass being located there.
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