Fernweh

Clumsily translated from German, it's "farsickness," which is homesickness for a place you've never been to.

Dredged up my old, never-finished model of Nebula to get some details/blocking of a scene correct, and... Yeah. Fernweh.

Comments

[protator]

Needs moar sails.
I really liked the illustrations

[Sir Mediocre]

‘Tis a lovely ship.

[iisaw]

5774356
I agree... 9 more to be exact... and lots more lines, and throughhulls, and... which is why it's unfinished. Maybe someday.

I'll try to do some more for this story.

5774357
Thank you!

[Gyro Pony]

Now that's a fine Sparkle Ship.
I love this world of airships you've made

Make sure you have that mizzenmast secured and all your lines in place

[FanOfMostEverything]

I appreciate words that convey useful ideas and have no English equivalent. And yeah, that's the very model of fernweh, no pun intended.

[Gastredner]

I can't remember: does Twilight do anything to hide Nebula's identity when going on a stunt as Blackmane? Otherwise, one can only wonder why noone so far has asked how a notorious pirate privateer happens to use a ship certain royalty is often seen in possession of.

[iisaw]

5774430
I don't know that I've ever directly said it, but there are a couple of places in the stories where I allude to what's going on there.

Nebula is definitely Captain Blackmane's ship, and Twilight wears that disguise whenever she is aboard. So, even though Princess Twilight (and Queen Twilight) have been seen aboard on a couple of occasions, It's a pirate privateer vessel as far as most people know.

When Twilight first had Nebula built, she openly owned the airship, but when she developed her pirate privateer persona, Nebula underwent a complete refit and make-over, so she appears as a very different vessel. The shipwright Gudgeon who built her knows about the deception, because you can't fool a master of his craft with cosmetic changes, but he knows and likes both the Princess and the Captain, so he minds his own business and takes repair fees from either of them without comment.

With that said, Nebula does have disguise spells on her envelope and hull, but that's more for fooling—uh—victims might be the best word? Or to allow her to sneak into places where seeing Blackmane's ship would cause a general panic.

[Gastredner]

5774454
So, does that mean that Captain Blackmane's ship openly docks at the Canterlot airship docks? Actually, what country is Blackmane a privateer of?

[Kflash2814]

5774455
To answer your second question: It's stated at one point that she has several Letters of Marquee

[Gyro Pony]

5774454
I just noticed - Nebula has that gold star you mentioned in one of your shorts !

[iisaw]

5774455 5774461
Yes, Nebula docks at Canterlot and at Ponyville fairly often. Blackmane has several Letters of Marque and Reprisal from various nations, and she does have one from Equestria (signed by Princess Twilight Sparkle) but that one is only for insurance. As far as Equestria is concerned, Nebula is just another independent trading vessel. (Nopony believes all those weird rumors.)

5774471
Yep! Thank Rarity for that one!

5774356
So, it's a rainy Sunday here and I decided... Why not add more sails to the model? I added the top jib and realized that the lines for the topsail were just stand-ins, so I put in the correct braces, halyards, and sheets... oh, and a proper backstay... and now it's time for dinner, and I kind of remember why I never finished this thing!
i.ibb.co/xzPm5xC/Topsail-02.jpg
(I need to add textures to the sails, too!)

[Latrans]

So I'm re-reading The Skyla Pseudonym, and I'm a little curious about what they're using for lift gas. The two obvious possibilities are Helium and Hydrogen. It is described as something that's extracted from suitable minerals that may be prospected from the surface. Unfortunately, this doesn't tell me much. The majority of Helium we have in the real world is found in natural gas deposits which are about as far from "minerals" as mine-able things can get (it is also not even remotely close to being on the surface). Alternatively, Hydrogen is most likely to be produced via the electrolysis of water, not extracted.

A third possibility is that "lift gas" is something specific to the Equestrian universes with no direct equivalent in our world. And that's fine too.

[protator]

5774474
ah, yeah that's more like it^^
maybe you should look into cloth simulation
I'm assuming you're using Blender, haven't used the add-on myself yet, but I've watched tutorials and it seemed quite straight forward
as for textures, I'd look for procedurally generated tileable fabric textures, plop one in as hight map and let the shader do the rest
in my exp cloth textures always come out a bit grainy and grimy so weathering everything manually might not even be necessary
makes me want to launch the app and finish my Alicorn Twiggles Blender rig

[iisaw]

5774495
Yep, it's number three. With the size and weight of Nebula's hull, she'd need a lift volume of an order of magnitude larger to get off the ground if she was using hydrogen. Magic "lift gas" to the rescue! (at least where esthetic proportions of airships are concerned.)

5774497
You should do that thing!

[protator]

5774501
Working on it, kinda
book horse
da mess
rigging her flappers and sculpting the morph for tall Twiggy 2.0 is going to be total pita tho
I want at least all her primaries and secondaries actually modeled and rigged so I can pose and print her without having to sculpt wing details every time
kinda wussed out once I reached that stage ^^

btw, as a german connoisseur of horse words, I appreciate the post's title and proper explanation

[iisaw]

5774504
Looking good!

[Reese]

Nice. :)

Though sorry about the Fernweh, if it was overall unpleasant.

[iisaw]

5776590
Only bittersweet, and it got me off my rump to out for a traditional sail this weekend, so all to the good!

[Reese]

5776606
Ah, good. :)