Soviet Dekabrist Class / D-2 Submarine

[Idunevenknow]

Soviet submarine; Dekabrist Class, one of the first soviet submarine designs, maybe I'll do other series later as well, if i can find good blueprints
Feel free to correct me on the naming, I'm a little uncertain, I could only find little and haven't done any in-depth russian research.

Depicted with torpedo 53-27

Any feedback is welcome

[eswube]

To be honest, I think You've went over the top with amount of shades.
http://shipbucket.com/styleguide
Secondly, in regards to "serie-I" (or not) and overall configuration - maybe You should rather clarify, in what period it's supposed to be depicted, because that does make a difference.

[Idunevenknow]

To be honest, I think You've went over the top with amount of shades.
http://shipbucket.com/styleguide
Secondly, in regards to "serie-I" (or not) and overall configuration - maybe You should rather clarify, in what period it's supposed to be depicted, because that does make a difference.

Hm well as to the shades, it's essentially 5 basic shades, but on a few places I stepped it up/down by just half a shade, but this was used solely for details (so they wouldn't be too pronounced), not for the actual hull shape, tower, etc. I will do some more research into proper naming

[heuhen]

we usually use only 2-3 shades

(basic)
for overhang: 1 px, very dark shade + 2px lighter shade underneath. (nowadays, we adjust how big the shade is, after shape and size of overhang.

http://shipbucket.com/styleguide#5

[Idunevenknow]

we usually use only 2-3 shades

(basic)
for overhang: 1 px, very dark shade + 2px lighter shade underneath. (nowadays, we adjust how big the shade is, after shape and size of overhang.

http://shipbucket.com/styleguide#5

But in the style guide under colors, there's 5 shades shown, one basic shade, one highlight shade and 3 shadow shades

[heuhen]

we usually use only 2-3 shades

(basic)
for overhang: 1 px, very dark shade + 2px lighter shade underneath. (nowadays, we adjust how big the shade is, after shape and size of overhang.

http://shipbucket.com/styleguide#5

But in the style guide under colors, there's 5 shades shown, one basic shade, one highlight shade and 3 shadow shades

basically yes

[eswube]

Indeed, in the style guide there are 5 shades, but if You want to count them, then there's ONE highlight, and You have TWO highlight shades on the sail.
In any case, That there are 5 shades available doesn't mean that You have to use them all every time on every larger part of the vessel. In fact, the "dark shadow shade" and "darkest shadow shade" are practically only to show the shade under overhangs or on the parts that are facing "backwards" (relative to the source of light, which, by convention, is in the general direction of upper-right corner of the template.

(in the false-color sample provided in the 4th chapter of Style Guide the "dark shadow shade" and "darkest shadow shade" are also used for railings, ladders etc. as well as to "demarcate angular breaks in the superstructure less than 90 degrees in angle", but in fact number of SB Artists, myself including, use separate shades/colors for these - but that's not the issue discussed here, and now we're talking only about shades of the "basic form" of the hull and sail/superstructure)



Btw. I'd say that the "shadow shade" on the aft part of the sail is unnecessarily wide - although this is one of the things left to Artists' individual choice, in practice, because of the limited amount of shades we use for simplicity, parts that are technically "facing backwards", but just slightly (and are nearly parallel to the general axis of symmetry of the vessel) are not shaded until their "facing backwards" exceeds approx. 45 degrees.

As for the "series I" thing - as far as I know, there was no "Dekabrist series II" (or more) - simply because there were just 6 submarines of the class. Term "Series II" indeed exists in literature, but refers to the follow-on class of submarines, the "Leninets" class, while "Shchuka" class is "Series III" and so forth - but they are not really made to common design, and the term is of rather administrative origin.
And also, emphasis on "series I" could imply that the drawing shows the boat in some sort of "early configuration", whereas You've depicted it in the "modified" configuration".

[acelanceloet]

Eswube, there are quite a few artists who use 30-60 degree angles for their hull shading, garlicdesign for example. While some thought should go into the application of these shades on this drawing (I think the shape of the hull is not represented correctly) I wouldn't be so harsh on people from using more shades, or better said don't reserve it for new users

(P.S. the bow on your submarine example is shaded completely wrong, if the highlight and the shade meet there is an hard angle there which was not what you intended with that bow . The vertical tailfin is also very strange and mixing shading styles with the top one being base shade and the bottom one which is also perfectly vertical suddenly being shadow. )

[eswube]

Acelanceloet
Well, You're right to an extent with the 30-60 issue, though I'd say that there's still a slight difference between Garlicdesign and a new member who's still learning the style (and does it in inconsistent manner because there's extra highlight shade on the fore side of the sail, but not extra darker shade on the aft side of it, while there is extra darker shade on the bottom side of the hull without corresponding second highlight shade on the upper parts of hull).
(as for the bottom tailfin - in this case it's meant to be entirely within the shade cast by hull - and to an extent also by planes)

Not sure about what's wrong with shade on the bow of "my submarine" - I'm shading airplane noses (and submarine bows) that way since 2012, and You haven't complained about it for the last 10 years.

[acelanceloet]

Oh I am definitely not saying the shading on this drawing is correctly. But this guy posted in the discord after your message, "Am I only allowed to use 3 shades huh I don't get it" so my comment about that was more in the line that it might be better to recommend someone to use less shades then the wording which came across a bit harsh

as for the noses, I have never spotted those to be honest, mostly because it was just a single pixel thick line on these examples where the hastily shaded submarine has far thicker shading borders all the way to the bow that immediately attracted my attention.

The issue is similar to that of a ships bow: if there is shading all the way to the edge, that means there is thickness there (for example the flight deck edge on a carrier can have shading all the way to the front as there is width there even if the ship ends) A round nose, approaching the very front, at the very edge has zero width so no shading should be there. going aft from that point, the shading appears as there is enough width that the 45 degree angle becomes more then a pixel thick (and thus visible in our scale)

quick, 20 second edit to show what I mean:


The shadow and highlight DO approach the bow at these round cross sections, but they never fully meet. (Yes there are some strange bends in the curves in the bow it was only a 20 second edit)