This blog contains art by me - Jan Pospíšil and all kinds of other things I find interesting and worth writing about.
Here's my portfolio:
http://janpospisil.daportfolio.com/
and my DeviantArt:
http://merlkir.deviantart.com/
It seems my swords and armour posts are somewhat popular, so here's another one. ;) (sorry it's shortish, I has a busy.)
How do you know your design is good? A hint may be seeing it used by other designers. :P
I've mentioned the LOTR movies as examples of very successful fantasy/historical swords and armour designs.
We should all be grateful for their influence, though I'd hope we'd learn the lesson we're being offered - always study what you're designing, know your history, know your competition, know what works, why and how.
So, remember Narsil and the reforged Andúril, Flame of the West?
John Howe talks about the design a lot on the LOTR DVDs and he's quite pleased about the fact the pommel is hollow. (A unique feature for a movie sword according to him. I'm sure he's right.) Notice that the ends of the crossguard mimic this design) Also note the specific way only the upper half of the handle is wrapped in leather.
Notice anything similar about the iron sword from the first Witcher game? :)
By the way, I'm super excited about the Witcher sequel - the armour, clothes and weapons look super nice!
(notice the very historical looking longsword here!)
Michael Komarck's Dragnipúr has a curved guard, but the shape of the pommel and the guard ends also suggests an Andúril inspiration.
Here's his previous take on the subject:
(I'd say the new one is definitely an improvement sword-wise. He's a great painter btw, be sure to check out his Game of Thrones stuff and also the paintings he did for Steven Erikson's books.)
EDIT: This image seems to be an earlier version, maybe a WIP. Here's the final image and the sword is much much much better!
I'm sure we've all seen the rather numerous spinoffs of the curved elven swords, right? Do you have any favourite ones? Or just favourite sword designs you really like (and/or take inspiration from)?
If you're a Tolkien fan, you've probably watched the Production Vlog 1 that Peter Jackson posted today on his Facebook page.
Here's a little analysis of the video shot by shot, picking out things that interest me.
I've focused on costume, armour and weapon design.
Comment: This is a snapshot from the hatmaker's room, behind Gandalf's hat (and a funny "peasant" hat) you can see a bunch of photos pinned possibly for reference. The men in them appear to be Asian. Any experts on Asian clothing here? They look Siberian to me, but I know very little about this. Who could they be reference for? I doubt we'll get to see any Easterlings. Will the dwarven hats be this interestingly inspired?!
Comment: Weapons. Oh boy.
1. Axes. Look very axe like. And large. But hey, it's dwarves.
2. I was afraid this might happen. *sigh* Somehow dwarves must always use mauls.
3. Bow looks nice. I wonder if it's the "bow of horn" Thorin uses in the book.
4. What this thing is I don't even...I call it the "cleaver" for now. Looking at the blocky angular design, it's probably dwarven. Like an axe sword, maybe a "fun" play on the curved elven two handed swords from LOTR. The handle is long, so it's almost like a polearm. Eh, not a big fan of it yet.
Could I have some nice shorter swords for my dwarves, please?! :(
Comment: Beards. Hair. Curly! Braided! I like the variety.
Comment: This is interesting! Is it a goblin? A troll? It seems more beastlike than the LOTR orcs. And it has an animatronic face! O_O Weird stuff. Any ideas?
Comment: A dwarven shirt I presume. Nice design.
Comment: What I like about the dwarves (what we've seen so far) is that they're colourful (as described in the book) and I'm getting the vague jewish vibe Tolkien hinted at. (also check out Donato Giancola's painting of the dwarves, they're quite similar) Notice the earring!
The only concern is the hair! What?! I like braids on my dwarves, but why so...knotted? Remember the hairdo Elrond had in his hair tests, that they had to change, because it looked incredibly girly? This is a lot like that! I hope it's just put up to allow for quick costume changes. :/
Comment: Here we can see Fili walking around with two swords during the "scene blocking". Yup, dualwielding weeaboos will be pleased I guess. -_-
Quick evening post - first two loading screen race busts for The Last Days.
(an orc and a knight of Rohan, both in ArtRage from start to rather quick finish)
A critical post again. Feel free to call me an ass in the comments. I hear blogs are mostly written by arrogant self-obsessed arseholes anyway. ;P
Watching the newest video released as Behind the Scenes of the new HBO series - Game of Thrones, I was again faced with a couple of issues I have with fantasy armour design.
I'll try to explain them here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Watch the video if you haven't already.
What is it I don't like?
1) Mixing of stuff.
There's nothing wrong with it. If it works as a design, if it's visually appealing, if it does what you want it to, ok. The costume designer is proud of how much the mixed and that it's not immediately obvious that some culture is this "Earth" culture and some other culture is another. That's nice, I like that. However, I think if you're doing a realistic tv show based on a book set in a very medieval-Europe-like world, you probably shouldn't go too crazy.
Yes, you want variety and especially with soldiers in armour, you need to be able to tell immediately who's who. It's a pity they chose to make these factions so incredibly different. Yes, it's unbelievable, it doesn't seem likely to happen at a small continent where all these big families fight each other for centuries, to have armour designs this strangely different.
No, nobody's going to notice, only a few armour enthusiasts. But just as boring slow stage fighting, it's going to make them dislike the show.
TL;DR: If you're mixing stuff, make sure if makes sense for the world's history.
2) A specific example - Lannistersand King's Guard
Most armours are quite the medievalesque/dark ages standard. These two however are a complete fantasy and in my eyes - a close (but disappointing) fail.
Photo from Winter-Is-Coming, click for full view. In the foreground you can see the King's Guard, behind them the Lannister soldiers.
King's Guard:
Like: - the slightly archaic combination of cuirass and scale sleeves is a change from the book, but I quite enjoy it. Dislike: - the shoulders have a weird shape that would more likely catch a blow rather than let it slide away.
- the ornaments are poorly done, someone has downloaded a set of "tribal" Photoshop brushes and used them all in a horrible mess. Very disappointing.
- the helmets. Oh boy. A case of what I call "the fantasy bucket". Why is it that the barbutta-type helmet is SO popular with fantasy designers? I know it's a simple design, but it takes more to make an attractive helmet, surely! Buckets with cutouts for mouth and eyes, I simply despise them. Anyway, this one is a bit bolder, with the almost dragon-like ridges at the top - I like those. But then it's all ruined by the bottom - why is it soooo very wide? I realize they probably made them without the actors' measurements, but they don't seem to fit them. (notice how the guy to the left can't see through the eyeholes)
The width of the bottom rim doesn't work both for practical and aesthetic reasons - it would wobble terribly on anyone's head, it allows plenty of space for a thrust to the neck or lower face and it would obstruct movement of the head quite a bit. Also it makes the head look way too big thus making the whole figure comical.
Lannisters:
Like: - I quite like the armour itself. I'm not sure why they thought a Japanese influence made sense, but whatevs. It works - it's slick and close fitting. There are gaps in it which I can't quite explain, but it does look ok in general.
- I really like that the visor of the helmet looks a bit like lion's face. (not sure if that's intentional, but it works for Lannisters)
Dislike: - The helmets don't work. The combination of a Japanese bowl shape (wide near the bottom again), yet of dark age construction with the connecting ridge in the middle. A weird horizontal crest (Roman influence?Why?) and a rather anglosaxon/viking visor?
It could pass for a strange sallet, but those usually had a neck guard like this:
- this helmet leaves the neck completely exposed. Again, this is both a practical and visual mistake - both the neck and cheeks/face are endangered and it makes the helm look unbalanced, dangling on a thin neck.
3) The myths about armour and its properties
- the lady argues that the Northerners don't use metal armour, because it's unfit for the cold climate. Why? That it would rust? You just oil the thing. Your tongue would stick to it if you licked it? I don't think the cold climate stopped the Scandinavians from wearing metal armour if they could.
- the actor playing Jaime says that "to imagine people fought in this...it's not that comfortable". I wonder if it's just the spoiled softness of the modern human, or the fact the armour wasn't made to fit. Real armour is actually surprisingly comfortable.
"...*grins* but it looks fantastic!" yeah, not that great if you ask me.
- metal shields. *sigh* For some reason the Stark guards have full metal round shields. I wonder if they're aluminium. If they were iron, I'd like to see them try and fight with them.
Not to be a complete nitpicky nerd, here's a couple of things I really like about the costumes and designs:
1) The architecture. I like how King's Landing is very southern and different to Winterfell. Well done. Or maybe I don't know as much about architecture as about armour. :)
2) The Dothraki. Nice nomadic look. I only wish they made them ride without stirrups, that'd be so cool!
3) The swords aren't bad. Have a few impractical bits and they're not quite LOTR swords, but still very nice for a TV show.
4) The normal clothes - Jaime's leather coat looks a bit eastern, but great. Rest of the dresses, tunics and all that look nicely worn and simple.
That's all. Feel free to leave hate posts in the comments. ;) I'm ready for you, GoT fans!
I've been showing stuff I'm quite proud of mostly. It might be fair to show the rest - the doodles, the scraps, the crappy drawings in my school notebooks.
And thumbnails. :) I actually do them once in a while, especially when I'm trying to come up with a good pose for a character, or an interesting composition in an awkward format. Like these DrD illustrations - all so lean and tall, my characters start to fall into similar positions.
I'm sketching for the next one and these are the thumbs I came up with yesterday. (if you can't tell, it's a girl...ehm..witcher (yes, like that game) slaughtering some zombies or other undead.)
The other one is a compilation of notebook drawings I did at school, concepts for TLD.
From left to right:
1) wicker frame covered in rawhide, raven wing on top - raven raider helmet for the Dunnish.
2) ornate helmet for the Gold-Blood Dragons - a Harad troop.
3) another raven raider helmet, this time leather with a bronze animal plate.
That's all you can take for now, I'm sure. ;) Byeee. \o
Wild animals and beasts can be difficult to deal with. Both classes I've painted for DrD2 handle animals differently - a Ranger prefers to shoot anything moving with his bow, skewer it with a spear, or catch it in a trap. Large beasts and monsters like basilisks and wyverns are his specialty.
A Shaman prefers to be friendly and talk to animals. Or fly with them in his dreams. After he smokes a bowl or drinks some shroom brew. Yes.
