BB 35 More on this Behemoth

   So - as promised here are a couple more images I recently created of the inside of the Battleship Texas. I am re-posting a piece I drew a few months ago of the ship in dock as it is right now. The current restoration work is supposed to be finished in Jan. of 2018. What made these types of battle ships stand out were their Waist Guns. Above you can barely make out the rounded armor ports just below the top edge of the ship. They were on individual swivel mounts, not turrets. The Turrets were the big guns on the top of the deck.

From the blueprints I can see a total of 9 of these on each side of the ship. At full combat that must have been very noisy and smoky since those wide open ports would allow the blow back into the deck. Would have loved those wood floors in my home though LOL.

   About halfway up the superstructure is the Bridge. In comparison to other Battleships this one is tiny. Now from this view you can't see the back of the Bridge with the large plotting table. Again you can barely make out the spot on the first drawing where this Bridge is. Hint, look for the round port holes.

BB 35 - One of the oldest Battleships still in existence

  So - to indulge my fascination with things full of detail and old and of the military I have started a series of interior illustrations of the Battleship Texas. Its Keel was laid in 1910 - so it is older then the Titanic. It is the last existing Dreadnaught class American Battleships and it fought in 3 wars - WW1, WW2 and Korea. It also has the distinction of being one of the first Navy ships decommissioned to be a museum.
   I have picked this ship - not because of all that said above, but because I have been on that ship. It is fascinating ship to tour. Definately built for the human stature of that time period(shorter then me lol). Yet it is still massive. The one time that I toured it I was on a time crunch so I kind of ran through it and did not get a chance to really see it all. But, even what I did see was a wonder.
   For this series I wanted to show you here the process I go through to bring theses images to life. Well, at least the last 3 steps since I did not think to scan it in during the first two steps. So, to recap it - I chose the image to work on then did a pencil sketch of it with as much detail as I can get it. This starts with the general shapes to fit all the elements in in the correct locations and perspective. The next step is to go over the entire drawing with my smallest pen tip (005) and then erase all the pencil work. The next step you can see here below. It is the Ink wash stage. I go over the entire image with two shades of ink wash - medium and dark. I lay it in several layers to create dimension.

   After I am satisfied with this step I move to the water color pencils and lay down the color. This is also done in several layers to mix the colors up a bit to match the actual scene.

   The final stage is going back over the entire image with the pen (same one) to build up the texture and add more dimension. after that I use a white pen to outline some foreground objects   and to add some highlights to it.

    One final little step was I went over the image with a few colored pencils (not water color) to touch up the colors. I will be sharing the other images I have shortly