Jim Martin has returned to do the Corsair. What were some of the original design influences for the Corsair? What did you want to achieve with it visually when we first started?

When we first started, it was a very different vision. We always talk about these difficult births, don't we? And here we go again. Initially we were sort of pushing for, it was pitched more as a sort of big brother to the Cutlass.

It's like a super Cutlass.

Yeah. So that was the direction we were heading in, and we did a lot of designs, and poor Jim, his pencil must have been worn out by the end of it. So we were going for that sort of classic two engines. It was more symmetrical, wide body overall sort of feel. And as we progressed, it became clear that Chris didn't want to go in this direction. In the Drake universe, you kind of have two styles that you can go with. You've got the smaller, like Cutlass style, and then you've got the Caterpillar asymmetrical, and he wanted to go more in that asymmetrical style. And so we started investigating on that. And then there were a couple of additional requirements that Chris wanted to see in terms of essentially nods to a corsair sailing ship. Again, he was sort of spitballing ideas, but there was mention of sails. And so initially I was just like, what?

We went down the whole solar sail route at one point. It's very different to what it looks like now.

Yeah, we did solar sails. I put another artist onto it just to get a different vision. Sometimes if we get a bit stuck, it's nice to get some fresh brains on it. We did a little more exploration with somebody else and then we came back. So we got there in the end, and then eventually got to the point where Jim had moved into 3D and we were sort of working with the kit as well. People will recognize quite a few of the elements that are on this ship. And then it was just a matter of me and Mike really just getting into the nuts and bolts, getting our hands in, and just sort of massaging the craft basically to get it to where it is now.