Pirates of the Coal Sack #19

Aug 01, 2022

Welcome back, Ms. Jordan.

I ended up spending a lot of time figuring out ground warfare in the setting before launching the invasion, a lot of it to answer the question, “Do tanks exist?” Having figured it out, Jordan was able to figure her plan out, and we’re off.

I think the scenes in the Atlasova tavern are some of the best I’ve done. It’s a great set from Daz 3D, but I had to rip out a lot of it to convert it from medieval to rustic futuristic, and somehow I got a lighting setup that I really like.

And people have been asking for a while about the Putti – here one is. Or at least, the avatar it presents. I wanted to show a Putti starship too, but it would have just been a gratuitous effects shot because I wanted to show the starship; it wouldn’t really have added anything to the story, and probably would’ve taken a week to set up. So I’ll save the halo ship for another time.

Once I had Jordan’s plan, the image of Athena and Merran sneaking through the dark snowy woods was stuck in my mind. Figuring out the winter uniforms occupied way too much of my time though.

And then the boats. For some reason, I felt compelled to build not one but two complete new boats instead of reusing the existing longboats. I do like them better, so Athena’s gig and the multi-role cutters will be a permanent part of Phoenix’s inventory, even though Butcher is going to have to sell off most of them due to lack of hangar space to park them.