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 Sketching an Airship      Continuing from my last post, now we are ready to sketch an airship. I'm partially doing this to push outside my comfort zone as an artist.      Airships should be drawn in perspective like buildings. Drawing curvy, complex shapes in perspective is hard. Fortunately we can break it down into simple shapes. Here's the planning for sketching the ship's hull in a shape that curves up to a point in the front:     Next I added more shapes in perspective including fins and the bridge. The squares on the side will become cannons.     Finally I round out the corners, add details and cannons. Not bad for my first airship. Be sure to join me for more projects like this in the future.   

 Designing a Fictional Airship      I'm at a point in my book where an airship is needed but at a loss for how it will appear. It's my intent to browse through other fictional airships for inspiration and design my own.      Apparently real life airships are lighter than air crafts filled with lifting gas. Helium is preferred as it is nonflammable. We're going to deviate to more fantasy designs which give the freedom to be whimsical and not worry about practicality. When searching on the internet I had to add "fictional" to find what I was after.     There are many styles I could go for. From a steam punk machine with gears and smoke to an elegant, colorful machine like the ship used in Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy games frequently feature airships and are a great place to go for inspiration. There are many factors to consider. Is it a grungy weapon of war? Appealing commercial flight? Does it use propellers, balloons or rock...