Jack of Harts

We’ve established that I’m a visual writer. I like to keep pictures (renders actually) of the various designs and characters open when I’m writing about them. Some I’ve contracted other artists to do for me. Others I’ve done myself with some excellent 3D rendering software. I try not to reference my drawings much, beyond to bask in just how much better the final product is than what my sketchings started as. 😉

The Liberator/Privateer was an early idea I had for a starship. A small transport/warship designed to haul cargo or fighters like the old jeep carriers did in World War II. Something built specifically for the Cowboys so they could go anywhere they needed to without devoting large warships to ferry them around. It would become a standard small transport, marketed to everybody, after I continued writing its backstory. Something seen throughout Terran space, operated by just about anybody, which would allow the Cowboys to slip into systems without anybody realizing who they were. That was entirely coincidental, I assure you.

As with the Avenger, it was named after World War II military aircraft. And it was modeled by Kirk Alderfer. He did some fun mods for this design, with everything from extra carrier pods to a gunboat mod that has been depicted in Wolfenheim Emergent. And Stephen Huda did a more detailed model for use as a cover of one of my stories. Here it is, with and without the standard cargo pods it is most often seen throughout Terran space. I will note that even the Cowboys with their carrier pods tend to look like this as well. Holoemitters can do an amazing job making them look just as harmless as all the other ships around them.