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Introducing: The Red Seal Ship
This is one of my absolute favorite things I’ve ever made. A red seal ship from the early 1600s, used as armed merchants by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Similar to the atakebune, I designed this one in full – shapes, artwork, game pieces, etc. There were a few iterations of the 3D printed prototype. However, since it was my second ship design (atakebune being the first), the initial draft was pretty close to the final model.
There are two red seal ships in my Seas of Japan mini-release. The artwork took quite a while to finish, as I wanted them to look quite accurate to the various depictions of red seal ships.
Yamagawa (the ship pictured) flies the naval ensign of the Tokugawa Shogunate from her stern. Atop her foremast is the flag of the Ryukyu Kingdom, a key trading partner of Japan and China from the early Age of Sail period.