Sunday, July 24, 2016

Wondrous Women With Swords

Just a quick one today. Yesterday we got a trailer for the Wonder Woman movie:


I've never read any WW comics, I'm not a fan, but it looks surprisingly entertaining.
One thing that caught my eye was the sword she wields.

Now, during her first movie appearance in Batman vs. Superman, WW had a different sword, which I didn't like a lot:


It looks vaguely late-medieval or early renaissance, maybe inspired by the cinquedea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinquedea
Why would Wonder Woman have a sword like that, what historical sense does it make? Of course, the handle is WAY too long and looks pretty stupid.

Her new sword looks like this:

Now, by itself it's not mindblowing, but a few things about it intrigue me. Firstly, the shape of the guard reminds me of this sword from grave Delta in Grave Circle B at Mycenae: 


The handle and pommel are more reminiscent of (mostly fantasy invented) twisted "celtic" hilts, but the general shape isn't too far from some Scytho-Siberian swords. 
Now, Wonder Woman is an Amazon, so some Scythian influence would be appropriate. 
Looking closer at the guard's dragon heads, they really do remind me quite a bit of these Scythian dragons from Central Asia:

 
Here's a close comparison:


If that's intentional, that's quite neat. Good to see Holywood designers take inspiration from historical designs. (Honestly, I wish someone did WW entirely dressed in this style, not the comicbook nonsensical "armour". But I fully understand why they went with the established style.)


Friday, July 8, 2016

Swords and Orcs

It's been a while! Months even. I'm still working on Six Ages, so I don't have anything not under the death spell of an NDA I could show.
That said, two supplements for The One Ring RPG have been released fairly recently (Horse Lords of Rohan and Erebor) and I did a few pieces for them:

 
 
(goblin man and half-orc)

(Angrenithil - "Moon Iron", a sword made by both dwarven and elven smiths)

(a dwarven masked helmet)

(a war horn made of a drake's skull)

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