I have a feeling that this decadent uniform is something the soldiers would be wearing at the beginning of the war when resources and moral is at its highest. Then years into the war when things become more cynical and jaded, the kitschiness would slowly fade away and become more minimalist and stripped down.
If you're looking for ammo pouches, you could look into the powder slings 17th century spanish arqebusiers wore. A single sash/belt strapped across the chest with multiple pre-measured cylinders of black powder hanging from strings of linen or cord (could be fancy silk for Verus ;) ). It could help make the silhouette of the soldier a bit smaller and dial back the timeframe into a period of warfare under represented in pop culture. Anyways, I'd love to wear that soldiers pants. Lovin it.
Hell yeah long video for Monster Garden LETS GO Really interesting view of this duality between fantasy-military you have. Its something I consider heavily in my work as well, although I would have probably called it historicity and instead of seeking a balance I try to lean heavily on it. I think your approach is wonderful however and your design sensibilities are strong af, even though you seem too hard on yourself at times, I liked the designs you seemed to hate as well haha Anyway, cheers man! and thanks for another banger of worldbuilding and art! *takes notes
Monstergarden, your work here has inspired me greatly. Not in the actual lore or design of your setting, but rather in your process and creation evolution. I also realize that projects with worldbuilding are rather incomplete without images to help flesh them out, similar to how it is hard to draw without having concrete ideas or concepts to draw upon. Thank you so much for this!
Sometimes other countries will borrow or copy designs from neighbouring or more influential counties as such ram and verus might have some common feature but not be identical
I know you probably already have something in mind for it, but I love the detail of the extra armour on the right shoulder being a cooking utensil of some kind hanging on playing double duty as portable cook wear and armour, it mainly resembles a wok or thin pan, perhaps Versusians pride themselves on rich fried foods or the food in the trenches needs to be made quickly with little to no flair.
I would like to add, the mages need to be heavily defended as EVERYONE is going to want to kill them. So maybe being heavily armoured or have shields/ body guards that mostly just hold big ass Pavise shields to protect the Wizard makes sense.
This feels like 4 seconds very cool. The scale metaphor with fantasy and military is really interesting. You honestly make such a sick mix of trench war and fantasy. It feels like your world is warm but miserable. You can get chocolate there but youll die of diaria at the rip old age of 23. People laugh around campfires some places and others scream as they die in the cold mud of the trenches. Very cool vibes
3:49 The depicted doublet WAS a type of military clothing, to be worn under armour. The 'dotted line pattern' is actually small slashes of the outer fabric (called 'pinks', I think?). I think they were made with a special chisel and mallet.
The design that you threw away before descending into military madness would be so good in a more appropriate setting. It might not work for this world, but it was still really cool looking.
Haven't been able to catch many streams lately, been busy with end-of-the-term stuff but I just wanted to pop in here and show my support. Amazing art as always and I love that you included your thought process for the entire process of making the concept art. The fantasy to military scale was a neat way to quantify your feelings about the art as well.
This was AWESOME. I never get tired of hearing your thought process as you work through designs and world building elements! It’s just so peaceful yet engaging!
I'm sure someone suggested that before by now. But consider looking at references of fashion for soldiers in the 16th-17th century Renaissance era. Puffy sleeves and puffy legs were very prevalent there especially for Italian and roman/German soldiers and mercenaries like Landsknecht. A lot of ridiculous colorful and over the top clothing back then that is used both in real life and fantasy depictions of soldiers originates from that time period. A common thing at the time to display how rich you are especially in the 17th century, was to wear very expensive but highly impractical and silly looking clothes like for example a neck ruffle. It served no purpose other than to showcase your wealth because it was very expensive to make. So a lot of what can be considered fantasy can actually be historical (just not time period apropriate haha)
I love seeing your process, its so good to see that talented artists don't just draw everything just right on the first draft and that even people you think are already amazing always have things too learn as well. As for adding metal onto the straps; perhaps some kind of broach or pin to denote rank or accomplishments? I'm picturing Viking cloak pins or buckle like structures, something that could easily be slid on when the belt is off but wouldn't fall off when the belt is done up
i have a lot of ideas and reference images that could help, as a designer i really love the world building and how you put so much efford and details on the "why?" of everything in your projects! great work!
Don't know if someone said already but the shoulder loop things at @12:05 are called epaulettes. They keep the straps of a backpack in place when marching. Each and every one of your videos is an absolute pleasure to watch, thank you for your content!
I really hope at some point a TTRPG game gets made for this setting. Not like a DnD or PF homebrew but like a fully fledged system made specifically for your world. Fantastic work as always.
i love how mad at yourself you are for some of these designs, a true artist i looooooove hearing other designers going through their process, its so helpful
Love to see the design process and considerations. You beautifully demonstrate how important the worldbuilding is for every little detail. How the characters base their actions, outfits and way of life and around their beliefs. Amazing stuff. Also love the lore at the end.
I feel that some of the past ‘scrapped’ designs could be used for higher ranks or different branches of Veruse’s military and/or government. The design at 5:31 honestly was very cool in my opinion, and I think it (or perhaps a version that’s a bit more watered down) could be used for extremely high ranking officers. Anyways, I’ve been loving this so far and I can’t wait to see where you go with this worldbuilding!
There's nothing more to say from your kick ass character design so I'll say this. Your writer is *really* good, they were able to match your grim moody world perfectly ❤
redesign elves? fairies? giants?? create new creatures. (watching delicious in dungeon, the anime would really help for inspiration it has an amazing world and incredibly world building.
i gotta say, this is whole channel has been super inspiring. I have started to get into art, and now im at a point where thinking about world creation is amazing
The Soldier is some kind of a mix with the w´Wehrmacht Color combined with puffy pants from 1600 Spain Army and a UK WW2 Helmet and Boots and Kneerabs out of WW1.
There are two types of character designers: There is the "let's slap whatever is cool on the character" designers and then there is designers like "monstergarden".
Loved the longer video! Was extremely cool watching the long process that went into the design of the soldiers and what you ultimately ended up keeping or scrapping, looking forward to whatever you show off next!
I feel like Germano-slavic influences for ram would be neat, and southern European and Indian for verus would be nice. thats sort of the vibe im getting from them maybe you can give them a Common Slavic influence to their culture. oh and you should make national anthems and folk music from both sides.
I wonder what monsters in this world would be like? Seems like an interesting idea since magic exists in this world, too. In my opinion, no fantasy world is complete without monsters.
So if you’re thinking about maybe how to add more metal to the chest area for decoration and things like that, you could look into the mini gorgets worn by some army officers in the 18th century.
I always go logistical instead of cultural when designing fantasy stuff. So, for instance, does this world have cotton (Or another plant that can produce cloth at scale- this is *extremely* important for fashion) If so, where is this cotton grown- by another country, or in slave plantations? How are these uniforms manufactured at scale? What sort of government could effectively administrate that? Is the whole process ran by the government, or outsourced to tradesmen/ companies. When you read about historical empires and nations, it's often these aspects that reveal the most about their society. That Roman armor was manufactured in pseudo factories and artisans, that they soldiers would stamp their names into their helmets- and often use second, third, or even fourth hand, helmets. Contrast that with medieval Europe, where a soldier would be lucky to be given a weapon, and was not paid for their work as a professional soldier, but as a raised hand.
he has answered a lot of lore questions in the live-streams where he does a lot of collaborative brainstorming and designs speculation with his viewers, I think he said something along the lines of; anything that early modern period Europe had access to, except a direct horse equivalent, exists in some form in this universe. Either through the normal realistic method produced as in real life, or an analouge can be made out of resources harvested from some monstrous magical creature, or hand crafted by a Mage. Also that both the Empires mentioned; Rum and Verus are rather large empires with huge populations employed in manufacturing to feed the many years running war effort.
The blue mage with the tentacle wizard hat is easily my favorite design, if it feels too fantasy just add some more military looking shit to it. Try looking at some Andrius Matijosius designs, he blends fantasy with more modern military elements decorated in some really dope iconography. What I would do is slap some WW2 looking flamethrower tanks on their backs, and have the hoses connect to the rifle staff, and use it as some sorta amplifier for their magic system. Some kinda alchemical fuel used for kindling, similar to the way they use the gunpowder but way more volatile.
This was very informative, and I'm not only talking about the lore. It's interesting as a non-artist to see an artists process. p.s. the outakes at the end are amazing
voy a comentar en español porque ando muy dormido para pensar en ingles, pero me gusto ver otro video mas, soy DM de dnd y empecé a crear un mundo original con el sentimiento que yo también quiero crear algo como lo que me describen, básicamente te tome como inspiración, y ahora justo cuando no tenia ni tiempo ni ganas veo tus videos y me emociono poco a poco para seguir escribiendo y construyendo el mundo en el que juegan mis amigos. gracias
