Emperador Carlos V armored cruiser

[Kaiser]

Displacing 9000 tons, Emperador Carlos V was, at the time, the largest warship ever built in a Spanish yard. She was laid down in 1892, launched in 1895 and finally completed on June 2 1898. Her boilers and machinery were of Spanish construction, her armor German, her stern and stern post British, and the turrets French.

She was weakly armored, relying mostly on her armored deck for protection. The 11-inch (280mm) main guns were mounted fore and aft in center-line hooded barbettes. Her main strength was considered to be her 9600nm range, something vital given how far away from Spain were Cuba and the Philippines (which were lost to the US just 1 month after the ship was finished).

She spent her last years serving as a training ship and a pontoon, before being retired and scrapped in 1933.

Criticism is more than welcome, whenever I have a little more time I'll add more info and maybe draw her in 1920.

Carlos V circa 1898


Carlos V in 1910


Carlos V in 1920

[Charguizard]

Commendable effort! Congratulations on a good looking ship and a real design for starters, superb.
I'd like to point out some stylistical issues, mainly that as it is right now you're depicting the ship as if it was illuminated from the viewer. In SB, we shade ships as if they're being illuminated from in front and above the bow, that is, from the top right corner. This means that the left side of barbettes, funnels and fighting tops should be shaded, and if you want, the opposite sides highlighted. Appart from that I would reduce shading of the stern to 1 or 2 px in width and possibly paint the bilge keels on a highlight colour.
Appart from that, great work on that handsome cruiser, hopefully we will see more work from you soon.

[Kaiser]

Thanks Charguizard for your feedback. I had read all that about the sun position in the style guide before starting the Carlos V, but I somehow managed not to realize I had been shading it incorrectly all the time...

Update!!
- Fixed shading according to the style guide.
- Reduced stern shading.
- Highlited bilge keels.
- Added 1898 version.

[Hood]

This looks very good.
I have a couple of minor points but otherwise this is a very good drawing.
You might have overdone the shading a little, the lighter yellow on the funnels could be made a little thinner perhaps.
The other thing is the non-standard SB railings.

[Kaiser]

This looks very good.
I have a couple of minor points but otherwise this is a very good drawing.
You might have overdone the shading a little, the lighter yellow on the funnels could be made a little thinner perhaps.
The other thing is the non-standard SB railings.

The drawings and photos I have seen so far show that railings were placed just like in my drawing or at leas in an almost identical way, so I decided to draw them as close to reality as I could. Should historical accuracy prevail in this case or should I re-draw them to the SB-style standard?


Carlos V in Barcelona, with visible railings (postcard)

The color is indeed wrong and I'll change it according to the SB-style whenever I have a moment.

[Hood]

We have had a few discussions on this point in the past.
Concessions have been made for smaller boats where the standard railing doesn't work very well.
Personally, I have no issues if the original railing has been used and looks better, but generally the use of standard railing tends to hold for consistency.

[Kaiser]

Finally, I decided to keep the original railings which are very similar to the SB ones but changing the color to the standard grey. The first dark grey I used was indeed too dark.

Update!!
- Corrected railing color
- Corrected minor issues
- Added 1920 version

[eswube]

Good work!

[Yqueleden]

Excellent, I like this.

[emperor_andreas]

Very nice work!