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Feenixx plans to publish a series of posters on sailing ships. This poster, "Tall Ships," shows the large. contemporary sailing ships of the world. If successful, it will be immediately followed up by "America's Tall Ships," showing those that fly the U.S. flag. Then will come "History of the Sailing Ship," "Sailing Warships" and "Sailing Merchant Ships" and one on the parts a sailing ship. There will also be posters on modern ships - 20th Century Ocean Liners, US Navy Warships, etc. There are several ways that a bunch of ships can be shown and it is quite possible that different posters will use different styles. The purpose of this page is to explore the possibilities of our immediate need, "The Tall Ships"
We have defined the content of this posters - that is, which ships are going to be shown. (Probably between 35 and 40. They are listed on the menu at left). However we have not yet decided how to show them and are open to suggestions. This page explores some considerations and possibilities.

Introduction

With all their masts, riggings, sails, and other details, the tall ships seem to be a complex art job. That may not be the case. First, this is a job which lends itself to CAD. There are only seven basic designs and once they are created, they can be easily modified for individual ships, which will vary in size, proportion, paint scheme, deck equipment and rigging. We used this approach on our International Airlines posters (picture 6) shown below.

Click here for ship types. Use back button to return.

Picture 1. Traditional Painting

Figure 1 is a traditional painting that captures the "feel" of a tall ship. It's sails are filled with wind and bow cuts sharply through the water churning up foam. These convey the feeling of movement and thus the true spirit of the subject..

Picture 2 T raditional Profile view.

The Sails behind the mast. This shows the rigging. This is an excellent presentation for people interested in the details, but the technical nature of the drawing fails to capture the excitement of the ship under sail.

Picture 3 Modern Profile view.

The sails are in front of masts. The billowing full sails better convey the "feel" of the ship.

Picture 4 - Merchant Sailing Ship Poster

This is the only sailing ship poster on the market today. It was published by an Italian company. Note that the entire hull is shown, not just from waterline up as are the profiles. This is an excellent approach for historic ships. The artist solved an important problem, that of tonal separation. The sails of historic ship were made of canvas and yellowed with age, which the artist shows. They are enhanced by the tan background.
Unfortunately this will not work with modern tall ships as often their sails are mode of nylon or other synthetic material and they are very white. The exception are the few historic ships that do use traditional canvas sails. . .

Picture 5 - Aerial Photograph

This breaks from the traditional profile and show a more 3-dimensional view.

Picture. 6 International Airlines Poster
One of our posters. Note that the airplanes are shown in profile and the common background.

Picture 7 - USAF Strategic Bombers Poster

This is another of our bomber posters. It was prepared in a CAD program and the CAD models could be rotated, permitting all aircraft to be shown at the same low angle. This revealed the all-important wing shape. The finish work consisted of giving all the same lighting - highlight and shadows are the same location as if they were will all lit from a common light source. The images were on transparent background. In the layout program, they were all sized to the same scale and superimposed over a common sky background. This results in the illusion that they are flying in formation. I consider this the best airplane poster every published.

Picture 8 - Traditional Sailing ship outlined.

This is figure 1 from above, but almost all of the background has been removed. Note that the water around the ship has been retained, especially the foam, which suggests movement. This image was converted to TIF format and the extract feature of Photoshop was used to create a transparent background.

Picture 9 - Mockup - Light Blue Background

A quick mockup was made in InDesign, rubber stamping two copies of the image and superimposing on a light blue background. The water looks very fake, but this can be corrected.

Picture 10 - Mockup - Dark Blue Background

Same as above, but different color background. The dark blue works great with the foam around the ship and certainly provides great tonal separation for the sails. It makes a good color scheme, but is not without is problems. There is no horizon.

Picture 11 - CVN69 - the Eisenhower.

Changing perspective is one way to solve the problem. However, this is much too high an angle.

Picture 12 - Royal Clipper. World's largest sailing ship.

Nice angle. Full sails. lots of foam. Great picture.

Picture 14 (who wants to use No. 13?)

Royal clipper "rubber stamped" on common background. This uses forced perspective, but many other advantages. The picture will be a lot more interesting when many different ships are shown and there is some texture to the water.

These are the considerations. We are open to suggestions