The Why
Look at this gorgeous blueprint of the SS Artisan tugboat. Boat made to be scrapped. Released just as the Great War ended, it was one of the few tugboats made during that time to have a wooden hull. It was an already obsolete coal burning vessel, but the drawings are amazing! Because of that I had to start model it out!
Also my Demoscene alias/nick is tug, so I had to model a tug!
Techniques:
The ship was modelled in Blender, everything was made for it to be a gameready object with quad topology.
I was in a hurry to make this ready for Assembly 22, so a lot of the textures were added quite roughly and really should be only looked at in the dark and at a distance of 10 nautical miles.
Water simulation was done inside Blender, a freeze-frame was chosen and some details were added, like a 2d-sprite lightning strike and some splashes.
Only Blender was used and no add-ons. Not even lightroom/Photoshop.
The ship is still missing the interior, the textures should be redone and as such it is still a passion-work in progress -project. To be made into a computer animation named... Thalassaphobia.
I calculated the top speed of the ship and by my calculations it was capable of hitting around 12 knots. Much to my surprise I found a news article later confirming my calculations. How and why I would be able to calculate a ships top speed just from some drawings is something you have to ask me.