2 hand sword mummy Armor Design

Started by
3 comments, last by Ashaman73 7 years, 3 months ago

working on a new enemy type ..the 2 hand sword mummy ..and here i have testet the shading of the armor

Advertisement

Really like this. Did you make the background environment?

Developer with a bit of Kickstarter and business experience.

YouTube Channel: Hostile Viking Studio
Twitter: @Precursors_Dawn

Other than the blasphemy of having him carry a Zweihander with one hand, I think it looks great. :)

The shading/lighting is solid, but if you wanted to show it off on the armor specifically, having the camera be closer would have been better.

Well, I'll start with the points I don't like first...

The arms look way, WAY out of proportion... they seem to be gorilla sized in length compared to the legs. Maybe that is the art style of your game, or the mummy shouldn't be a human mummy... given on the rest looking very human it looks off though.

Other than that, I feel that the mummy looks way too naked. That might be because its in an early stage and the armour/clothing is not there yet, but I would at least expect some bandages or stuff used to preserve the body to this quite high standart, some remnants of the mummification process. If we forgoe that (either because the mummy did get rid of its bandages because, its not really the kind of attire it wore in life, and it kind of outlived its use when the mummy wants to move around freely (and the bandages might have already decayed away in part)... or the mummification was not because of some ritualized way of preserving the human body, but rather because of some environmental effects (like that crypta of some italian (I think) monastary which seems to have a similar effect on the body of the dead like the mumification of the old egyptians (in which the environment, speak low humidity, did play a big part though)... The mummy should still wear some more clothing or armour instead of bandages. A sword has been an expensive weapon in all ages, even in the age of bronze. So a warrior that can afford a sword, or is given one is of high rank, and most probably also can afford a good set of armour covering most of his body, or is given such.

I could go into how the armour looks not exactly egyptian, or how the sword definitely looks more like a renaissance zweihänder, but I guess this is a fantasy mummy, so this mixing might be a-ok.

Only thing I would be wary of is mixing a bronze armour with a steel sword. Steel blade meeting soft bronze plate armour is not going to end well for the guy wearing the armour. Unless the bronze plates would be impossibly thick.

Sure, an undead warrior might stick to the armour he wore in lifetime without thinking about the uselessness of said suit of armour in light of the advancement of metallurgy over the centuries of his slumber. Why he would then pick up a weapon clearly from a different age, if he seems to be oblivious to the power differences between these types of metal compounds is beyond me though.

I would say make sure the weapon and armour match in material at least, if not in style. though it is also true that armour and weapon style is extremly bound to a certain era (which is most probably why combatants wore light and less armour in wars before the advent of fighting in units, and why heavy twohanded swords weren't in big demand before the combatants could use them to break ranks in enemy units, and could be shielded by their own units when their heavy weapon would put them at a disadvantage and they had to switch to shorter weapons).

And yes, I am aware on the preserved treatises on zweihänder sword fighting techniques and the use of the half blade style. But I have also read about while this has most probably been used with lighter one-and-a-half-swords, many think that the use of the zweihänder in combat was quickly abandoned and most of its use was as a ritualized parade weapon to show off. Which was something sword masters loved to do (like breaking chains with their bare hands, not really that useful in sword fighting, but a good show of their raw strength)... hence it is sometimes important to take such old treatises with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to cumbersome and heavy weapons like the zweihänder.

As to the points I do like, everything else. Shading of the bronze armour looks spot on, I really like the look of the mummy besides the arms proportions (you could give it a little bit more "damaged look" as I have never seen a real life mummy where the mumification process worked 100%, there are always spots where the preservation failed a little bit, or just produced differences in skintones and such).

And the background is really nice and atmospheric

I'm unsure of the intention of why you post this video. Do you ask for some advices to improve your art or just showing it off ?

Nevertheless, it looks good.

Still if you like to hear some critics, I would sugguest to isolate the art you want to show off. Do you want critics on your environment, show it without characters. If you want critics on your character, show it without environment. If you want critics on your shader, show it without character. If you want critics on your character topology, show it without textures etc.

Else the qualitity of other stuff will distract from actual art you want to show off.

So, here are some things you could revisit, maybe you like to modify them.

1. The metal parts on the helm and the blade look thin like a piece of paper, you should add some volume.

2. The metal shader does not reflect the environment. You should consider to add some environment map to fake some reflection.

3. The chest muscle are well developed for an undead (watch some Walking Dead episodes for references).

4. The arm proportions are no longer human, as said by Gian-Reto, but this could be ok for a monster type of enemy. Rule of thump for human anatomy: the wrist should be just below the groin.

This topic is closed to new replies.

Advertisement