Thanqol Learns To Draw!

[Thanqol]

You know what I was thinking about? If only we could gather all the tips and tricks and advises people give to thanqol in this thread. That would make an awesome 'GITP Art advice' collection or something in that line.

I think that advice boils down to 'practise every day. You can get specifics later, but the most important thing is to practise every day.'

Day 304: When Worlds Collide

I've gone a bit off the rails in terms of my drawing schedule lately. Workload is increasing; I'm on top of it, but concessions have to be made. I'm also aware I've got a few incomplete pictures sitting on my desktop; they're going to stay sitting there until I finish them. Everything will have it's moment.

Anyway, new priority; this is the sketch layer for Raz' birthday picture. It's hella beyond my abilities but that's never stopped me before. Perspective and architecture, clashing thematics and emotion; the composition worked out well and now it's the challenge for my clumsy fingers to see it through.

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Time: 30 m
Music: Animate Their Dreams

[Thanqol]

Day 305: London's burning, Istanbul's fire

Flats of the previous sketch. All is working out so far, but building perspective is hard. Hopefully I'll get this done by tomorrow, but it's not a sure bet.

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Time: 45m
Music: Fluttershy Inc.

[Story Time]

Day 304: When Worlds Collide

This gave me a very much much, "What am I looking at?"

Day 305: London's burning, Istanbul's fire

And this was helpful in answering my question.

Good job, Thanqol. Drawing one thing every day is a very satisfying feat. You're...what? Sixty days away from one year? Not long.

[Sean Mirrsen]

This gave me a very much much, "What am I looking at?"

Same here, although the colored version wasn't much help in clearing it up for me. It looks like a cheerily colored flying city-something about to crash into a much saner-looking city-something with either ridiculously wide highways or disturbingly small buildings. And something burning in the middle of the road. So all in all, a little background on the scene could be nice.

[Fri]

I think that advice boils down to 'practise every day. You can get specifics later, but the most important thing is to practise every day.'

Oh, so you're at that point already eh? Basically you're saying, pfft, what domo explained about how to shade this and that or to perspective this and that? Inconsequential. I just practised by myself everyday, that's all that important.
I'm just joking please please please don't take this seriously.

[Thanqol]

This gave me a very much much, "What am I looking at?"




And this was helpful in answering my question.

Good job, Thanqol. Drawing one thing every day is a very satisfying feat. You're...what? Sixty days away from one year? Not long.

Huzza! The first milestone is in sight!

Same here, although the colored version wasn't much help in clearing it up for me. It looks like a cheerily colored flying city-something about to crash into a much saner-looking city-something with either ridiculously wide highways or disturbingly small buildings. And something burning in the middle of the road. So all in all, a little background on the scene could be nice.

Based around an old idea of Raz_Fox's mindscape being a middle eastern city and mine being London; sometimes the two collide. Inception-y worldbending. Those buildings are still in construction linery phase, you're right they should be much larger.

Oh, so you're at that point already eh? Basically you're saying, pfft, what domo explained about how to shade this and that or to perspective this and that? Inconsequential. I just practised by myself everyday, that's all that important.
I'm just joking please please please don't take this seriously.

*Starts on a counter speech, gets tripped up by the disclaimer*

[Domochevsky]

Put that soap box away then.

But yes, a compilation of information of sorts could be a good idea. Like "Things Thanqol got informed about today", with a list of day by day stuff.

[Thanqol]

Day 306: Through The Hedge

And complete. I decided not to overdetail. Primarily texture experiments; the watery London compared to the sandy Istanbul.

Fun project, it's back to technical stuff for the next few days. I really want to focus on precision whenever I can.

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Time: 1 hour
Music: Crimson Rose

[Sean Mirrsen]

Now it looks like a portal, which is perfectly fine and finally makes the scene make sense. Neat texturing and shading, and the buildings on the other side look nice, with just a few perspective mixups.

Now if only I could get a good idea into my head and draw it, I'm failing this thing completely lately.

[Thanqol]

Now it looks like a portal, which is perfectly fine and finally makes the scene make sense. Neat texturing and shading, and the buildings on the other side look nice, with just a few perspective mixups.

Thank you

Now if only I could get a good idea into my head and draw it, I'm failing this thing completely lately.

I do composition in my head while walking or driving, and then compare it to an increasingly large images folder + google image search. I've already described a bunch of scenes for you in detail but I'm more than happy to continue to suggest things if you're likely to draw them at all. I could even give you the word descriptions I gave to other artists for pieces I've had commissioned, those tend to be quite long and detailed?

I'm fortunate in that I don't see a future where I don't know what to draw. I come up with ideas way faster than I can use.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Heh, if I could hook my brain up to a camera I'd be making movies. I've got trouble akin to a PEBCAK error, except it's more of a PEBBAP error (i.e. Problem Exists Between Brain And Pencil). I'm spending inordinate amounts of time just trying to get the image on the screen or paper match up to the one in my head. Spent three hours today making a sketch of a scene, which I'm still not sure I like, and which is still sketchy as heck.

Brb, gotta go raid a secret military lab for some direct brain interface components.

[Thanqol]

Heh, if I could hook my brain up to a camera I'd be making movies. I've got trouble akin to a PEBCAK error, except it's more of a PEBBAP error (i.e. Problem Exists Between Brain And Pencil). I'm spending inordinate amounts of time just trying to get the image on the screen or paper match up to the one in my head. Spent three hours today making a sketch of a scene, which I'm still not sure I like, and which is still sketchy as heck.

Brb, gotta go raid a secret military lab for some direct brain interface components.

Day 307: Secret Military Lab Guy

"Ve can supply you with ze implants you require. There are, however, some small side effects, such as enhanced strength, enhanced respect for authority, and enhanced loyalty to ze Fourth Reich. You could say it is an enhancement party! You like parties, ja?"

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Time: 30 mins
Music: She Loved Me

[Thanqol]

Day 308: Chufty

Time for drawing went abruptly from a matter of hours to a matter of minutes, so I slammed this out as fast as I could. Part of a broader attempt at the human body; there's a litany of mistakes that are clear as day but compared to the disaster it could have been it worked out all right. Successful applications of a bunch of rote memories and studied concepts; net win.

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Time: 20 mins
Music: Brothers In Arms

[Story Time]

Recognizing errors is an excellent step in correcting them!

Interesting name. Chufty. Try to say that, it sounds funny.

The face in the image reminds me of the King of The Hill show. I hated that show. I stopped watching it very early. I really don't mean any offense, but that's what the lines remind me of.

Still, it looks good for a rush-rush. The lines are neat, even where Thanqol said, "I did it wrong; I know I did." And the guy actually does kind of look like a sumo. Net win is accurate. ( would have used a nod-nod emote, but it does not exist )

[Thanqol]

Recognizing errors is an excellent step in correcting them!

Darn skippy.

Interesting name. Chufty. Try to say that, it sounds funny.

In my cultural sphere, 'chufty' is a descriptive phrase that refers to someone who's hard to move around/chunky.

The face in the image reminds me of the King of The Hill show. I hated that show. I stopped watching it very early. I really don't mean any offense, but that's what the lines remind me of.

I never watched that show myself.

Still, it looks good for a rush-rush. The lines are neat, even where Thanqol said, "I did it wrong; I know I did." And the guy actually does kind of look like a sumo. Net win is accurate. ( would have used a nod-nod emote, but it does not exist )

Thanks!

Day 309: Panopticon

Everyone should be watched and everyone should be afraid of being watched.

Another massive rush; got called into work today and such went all my drawtime. Minor errors, all stuff that could be corrected with another 20 minutes work.

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Time: 20 mins
Music: Sunspots

[Tectonic Robot]

Right, Thanqol, would it be OK if I requested a fiend-ized version of my current avatar for what's left of fiend week?

With like maybe a fiendish little goatee? And an evil fiendish plan brewing in my head? And probably a little redder fiendish skin?

[Thanqol]

Right, Thanqol, would it be OK if I requested a fiend-ized version of my current avatar for what's left of fiend week?

With like maybe a fiendish little goatee? And an evil fiendish plan brewing in my head? And probably a little redder fiendish skin?

Sure, on the list.

Day 310: We Heard You Liek Cathedrals

So we put some cathedrals in your spaceships so you could cathedral while you're flying through space.

40K starships are surprisingly easy to draw. Just keep detailing until you're nauseous.

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Time: 1.5 Hours
Music: The Perfect Stallion

[Story Time]

Now that is a space ship!

It's really neat, Thanqol! The side view is straight forward and nothing strikes out immediately to me as being in error. Does this ship have a name and a class?


Also, I really want to ask...can you add in links instead of spoiler boxes? Maybe in addition to spoiler boxes? It would be much easier to use a new tab or window to look at an image rather than to resize the entire site around a box.

Neat up-date.

[Thanqol]

Now that is a space ship!

It's really neat, Thanqol! The side view is straight forward and nothing strikes out immediately to me as being in error. Does this ship have a name and a class?

Thanks! I've been designing starships all afternoon. Here's the summary...

One Market
Planetary Siege Ship
Repulsive-class Grand Cruiser

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MATH

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Emissary of the Imperator (+15 intimidate, -5 other social skills)
Martial Hubris (+5 BS, -15 to escape combat)

Speed: 5
Detection: +10
Armour: 19
Manouverability: +8
Hull Integrity: 85
Turret Rating: 3

Power: 90/95
Space: 90/90
SP: 90

Essential Components:
Saturnine-pattern Class 5 Drive (+95/18)
Strelov 2 Warp Engine (12/12)
Geller Field (1/0)
Triple Void Shield Array (9/3)
Invasion Bridge (4/3)
Vitae-pattern Life Sustainer (5/3)
Voidsmen Quarters (2/4)
BG-15 Assault Scanners (5/0)

Supplimentary Components:
Barracks x2 (4/8/4)
Drop Pod Launch Bays x2 (2/6/4)
Broadband Hymn-Casters (3/0/1)

Weapons:
Port 2/Starboard 2/Prow 1/Dorsal 1

PORT 1: Mars-Pattern Macrocannon Broadside (4/5/1)
STR 6 Damage 1d10+2 Crit 5 Range 6
PORT 2: Hecutor-Pattern Plasma Broadside (12/5/2)
STR 5 Damage 1d10+2 Crit 4 Range 11

STARBOARD 1: Mars-Pattern Macrocannon Broadside (4/5/1)
STR 6 Damage 1d10+2 Crit 5 Range 6

STARBOARD 2: Hecutor-Pattern Plasma Broadside (12/5/2)
STR 5 Damage 1d10+2 Crit 4 Range 11


DORSAL 1: Stygies-Pattern Bombardment Cannons (5/5/3)
STR 3 Damage 1d10+6 Crit 2 Range 4

PROW 1: Mars-Pattern Nova Cannon (3/7/3)
Damage 2d5+4 Range 6-40

Bonuses
+15 BS against ground-based targets
+350 Military Objectives
+25 Intimidate
+20 Boarding Actions

Role and Notes:
The One Market is designed for planetary takeovers. It’s a siege ship above all and is entirely focused on burning planets to the ground.

In space combat it’s effective at all ranges, typically opening with nova cannon fire while closing to broadside range. There it uses it’s mars-pattern shots to overwhelm the shields and clear the way for the much more devastating Hecutors.

The One Market’s arrival in a system sends the message “We intend to wipe out your entire civilisation”. The ship itself keeps tally of every alien, species and planet it kills and smugly tries to work that number into casual conversation. “Here’s your rations for the day, and by the way, did you know that my total body count is 198.5 billion?”

The One Market’s hymn-caster is actually it’s own voice, talking about itself and the cool stuff it’s blown up. It’s not particularly shouty; intimidation comes from just how much it loves it’s job.

I'll include the rest of the ships for posterity; maybe someone will find something interesting in this fleet of mine.

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The One Percent
Money Factory
Conquest-class Star Galleon

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Role and Notes:
The One Percent makes money. Imagine a fat rich man with a shiv. It’s slow, plodding, and stupendously wealthy and well designed. It’s designed purely for it’s recreational potential; a floating university where the greatest minds of the galaxy can come together and discuss the deeper questions of the Imperium in peace, comfort and plenty.

Every other ship in the fleet hates the One Percent, not least because it constantly gets itself into trouble. It likes to think of itself as a warship and likes the sound of it’s own macrobatteries firing so it constantly gets itself in the line of fire. It’s such a high value target, too, that this often ends badly for the One Percent. Moreover, due to it’s partially Xeno construction (no points in it’s favour from that either) it’s difficult to repair, sucking in valuable resources to recover the damage it takes.

The One Percent’s most useful function is to use it’s mimic drive to make itself seem like an additional battlecruiser in the fleet’s arsenal, or reducing itself to the profile of a raider when it can be convinced to keep a low profile.

Full Disclosure
Grizzled Bodyguard
Defiant-class Light Cruiser

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Role and notes:

The Full Disclosure does not have time for your ****. It’s a ridiculously wary ship, always watching the warp lanes and constantly scanning for threats. It’s said that the ship was ambushed by Dark Eldar slavers because it’s former Master of Auspex was asleep at his post, and his ghost dedicated himself to eternal service to make up for the slaughter that ensued.

In combat, the Full Disclosure’s role is primarily battlefield control. It’s a canny hunter, using minefields, fighter raids and torpedoes to control the battlefield and keep enemy ships away from the high value targets. The Full Disclosure suffers something akin to a PTSD episode during boarding actions and deploys armies of screaming murder-servitors made from it’s slaughtered former crew. No one authorised the inclusion of the murder-servitors and tenebro maze; as far as anyone can tell, the ship built those components itself.

Death and Gravity
Mechanicus Research Vessel
Jericho Class Pilgrim Vessel

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Role and Notes:
The Adapteus Mechanicus had proper laboratories back in the day; space station sized research and innovation centres. Sometimes terrible, terrible things happen in these research laboratories.

The Death and Gravity is one sixth of a much, much larger Adapteus Mechanicus Space Station, and one sixth of an enormous and spectacular temple to knowledge and research. Some terrible explosion ripped it off the core station and sent it spiralling out into space. The reason it's so cramped and stuffy inside is because the crew quarters, bridge, and warp drive weren't attached to it when it left it's home; these were all retrofitted onto the broken fragment of science vessel.

Visually, the Death and Gravity is a long, dark red spike, like a talon in space, slender and sleek, painted an ominous dark red and of beautiful appearance. At the rear it has had large amounts of external retrofitting done, cities and structures built onto the exterior of the claw. Bulky, external engines have been clumsily attached to the exterior. The interior is clean and crisp, environment controlled with all kinds of advanced research tech, smooth elevators and silver bulkheads. Huge vats of chemicals and advanced hololithic record archives line the Spike. The walls hum, emitting a faintly warm glow; the engine network is distributed across every wall panel and interior area in a network of gleaming silver wires. While these areas are spacious, high tech and beautiful, this is of marked contrast to the cramped and dismal living conditions of the crew quarters, bridge, and engineering decks.

The Mechanicus would, above all, like to see the space station the ship was broken from reassembled. It would be the most spectacular thing, they think, to recover the knowledge for which that station was built. The ship, for it's part, is morosely resigned to being what it is. It has an extremely depressing attitude, knowing that it's slow and unarmed, and has a tendency to try and commit suicide by drifting into asteroid belts. Piloting the Death and Gravity is as much a case of giving inspiring speeches and you-can-do-it!'s as it is of mechanical control. Even then it plods slowly and reluctantly, hoping that someone will just finish it off.

Greed
Rapid Response
Meritech-class Strike Raider

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Role and Notes:
The Greed is a sprint fighter which makes up for it’s weaknesses with it’s strengths. In combat it closes rapidly, firing a single volley from it’s missile battery to overwhelm the shields of a ship to open it up to an assault from it’s allies. Following this, the Greed fires it’s grapple cannon and begins close combat.

The Greed is tooth-achingly fast, more like a missile filled with a boarding action than a ship. It’s crew are intense people, determined to be the first ones aboard the enemy to load up as much plunder as they can. It’s the sister ship of the Fear, and the two ships have a long and bloody vendetta against each other.

Bulls are a sacred animal on the Greed, and wander the halls freely.

Fear
Ambush Raider
Havoc-Class Merchant Raider

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Notes and Role:
The Fear is the opposite to the Greed in role and attitude. It’s designed to activate silent running and drift invisibly into position, where it then opens up at close range on an unprepared ship with a devastating volley before retreating. The Fear has a long history of treachery and betrayal. When surprised, it responds disproportionately.

The crew aboard the Fear tend to always wear their voidsuits, a custom adopted from long periods of silent running. The crew are morose and sleepy a lot of the time, but after achieving a victory or being allowed to turn the lights on the entire ship enters a euphoric celebration.

Involuntary Bankrupcy
Fabricator Ship
Goliath-class Factory Ship

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Role and Notes:
The Involuntary Bankruptcy is a penal ship, where the worst of the worst go to serve out their sentences. The ship was designed to take these scum and make them profitable scum, with access to a variety of mining and manufacturing positions available. Designed with mutiny in mind, the Involuntary Bankruptcy is armed only with a non-damaging ion cannon and a plodding speed, making it easy to recapture should a crew revolution ever occur.

Conditions aboard the Involuntary Bankrupcy are hellish and the captain maintains authority with an iron fist. The guards regard the inmates as their own personal slaves, and to be born to the Bankruptcy is to be born into the worst of all worlds. The guards resist allowing prisoners off their ship, regarding them as their property, while prisoners will do literally anything to escape.

Trade Surplus
Main Line Fighter
Turbulent-class Heavy Frigate

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Role and Notes:
The Trade Surplus is a ship of the line. It’s combat tactics are simple: Proceed to the target in a leisurly fashion and then set it on fire. It’s never had to do anything else. It has a tendency to meander, wandering almost cluelessly, making enemies look elsewhere until they’re almost staring down the melta batteries.

The Trade Surplus, designed for this combat role and nothing else, is only partially complete; there is a lot of room for potential expansion within it to make it suitable for transporting cargo. It would be surprised at the idea of doing something that wasn’t mass immolation, but after thinking about it, enthusiastic about trying something new.

The Trade Surplus is amazingly reasonable as a ship; direct and to the point, but open to new ideas and fair. It has a bit of a history of changing hands, blowing up things that not everyone was happy to see blow up, and eventually it just kind of deafened to the idea of pleasing everyone at once. It accepts making enemies with a philosophical shrug.

Also, I really want to ask...can you add in links instead of spoiler boxes? Maybe in addition to spoiler boxes? It would be much easier to use a new tab or window to look at an image rather than to resize the entire site around a box.

Neat up-date.

Will do in the future. I forget other people don't have the resolution I have.

[Lix Lorn]

I spent a happy several minutes reading that fleet. xD

[Thanqol]

I spent a happy several minutes reading that fleet. xD

Just for you, then, I ponified the One Market.

Day 311: But what does it ship with?

Was gonna do something more complex but ran out of effort. All from imagination. Rear legs were a problem. Haven't drawn pony in ages.

Link

Time: 45 mins
Music: Two Shoes

[Lix Lorn]

Aaaawesoooome
Are these ships for anything, or just for funzies?

[Thanqol]

Aaaawesoooome
Are these ships for anything, or just for funzies?

Rogue Trader. It's like Warhammer 40K's East India Company. You're given a document which gives you immunity to prosecution of any kind, so long as you do all your heresy outside Imperial space. Outside of Imperial space, you are literally the Voice of the Emperor and it is your divine mandate to do whatever the flip you want. Usually this involves making ridiculous amounts of money.

It's one point of colour in the bleak 40K landscape; the guys who look at all the grim and dark and say "Christ we're tossers". And then go on to have a ridiculous gonzo space pirate adventure and run away from the Necron homeworld with their pockets full of diamonds.

[Lix Lorn]

I want in on this somehow. Can I captain one of your ships?

[Thanqol]

I want in on this somehow. Can I captain one of your ships?

Hm, sure. Any that catch your eye? Or you could design your own and I could stat it up and add it to the fleet.

What you need to know:
Hull types (smallest to largest): Transport, Raider, Frigate, Light Cruiser, Cruiser, Grand Cruiser

Personality: Ships don't have AI, but they do have personalities - real or imagined. The crew might decide that because a ship occasionally vents it's plasma reactor into the crew habitation quarters it's a vindictive bastard. A problem with the retro-thrusters that makes it really hard to turn the ship around could be interpreted as courageous determination to charge the enemy head on. Alternatively, maybe a personality has formed from the networked thousands of targeting, shielding and life support computers going centuries without debugging. No one knows.

It's like a cargo cult where the machine gods might actually be listening.

History: These ships can expect a thousand years or more in active service, and they're regularly salvaged so even death isn't the end. They're also massive, with populations between 100,000 to a million, spanning kilometers in space. There is no end to the type of society that could exist within the underdecks of a Rogue Trader ship. Entire sessions can be spent adventuring into the depths of your own ship, let alone the galaxy.

Go nuts!

Day 312: Contact

Still dreaming of spaceships.

Colour's a bare basics placeholder to be deleted if I decide to detail this. I could do some cool stuff with rust if I wanted to put the hours in.

Link

Time: 1 hour
Music: Luna's Winter Wrap Up

[Story Time]

Good, big chunks. The smaller chunks...appear to be in lines. This makes very little sense with the nature of debris. Try triangles?

Still, the image is neat. Thank you for adding in the links to the images.

[Lix Lorn]

Hm, sure. Any that catch your eye? Or you could design your own and I could stat it up and add it to the fleet.

The Trade Surplus looks shiny. I could easily be a happy-go-lucky, slightly sociopathic captain for a ship that straightforward.

What you need to know:
Hull types (smallest to largest): Transport, Raider, Frigate, Light Cruiser, Cruiser, Grand Cruiser

Personality: Ships don't have AI, but they do have personalities - real or imagined. The crew might decide that because a ship occasionally vents it's plasma reactor into the crew habitation quarters it's a vindictive bastard. A problem with the retro-thrusters that makes it really hard to turn the ship around could be interpreted as courageous determination to charge the enemy head on. Alternatively, maybe a personality has formed from the networked thousands of targeting, shielding and life support computers going centuries without debugging. No one knows.

It's like a cargo cult where the machine gods might actually be listening.

I would definitely want mine to be closer to 'intelligent machine god'. Which in 40k I think tends towards being canon, for large things such as titans and spaceships.

History: These ships can expect a thousand years or more in active service, and they're regularly salvaged so even death isn't the end. They're also massive, with populations between 100,000 to a million, spanning kilometers in space. There is no end to the type of society that could exist within the underdecks of a Rogue Trader ship. Entire sessions can be spent adventuring into the depths of your own ship, let alone the galaxy.

Go nuts!

eeeeh. ♥ How do you play rogue trader? Isn't it OLD now, or have they redone it recently?

Day 312: Contact

Still dreaming of spaceships.

Colour's a bare basics placeholder to be deleted if I decide to detail this. I could do some cool stuff with rust if I wanted to put the hours in.

Link

Time: 1 hour
Music: Luna's Winter Wrap Up

Juuust as awesome as before. <3

[PrinceAquilaDei]

You are thinking of the first edition of warhammer 40000,r also called Rogue Trader.

Thanqol is playing the much more recent Fantasy Flight roleplaying game under the same name.

[Lix Lorn]

Oh, my mistake. Are they unconnected?

[PrinceAquilaDei]

Apart from the setting, yeah.

The original Rogue Trader placed a slightly greater emphasis on their namesakes than subsequent incarnations, and eventually evolved into the many hammers we see today.

FF's Rogue Trader I think is compatible on some levels with their other 40k roleplaying games, Dark heresy and Deathwatch, although it is a standalone product first (I think).