Yes! this is exactly what I've been saying for years. When fantasy armor is treated realistically it's awesomeness factor goes up so much. My goodness that armor at the end looks glorious. Great video Sir Knyght!
Thanks Shad! Glad you liked it, and I totally agree that when armor is treated like a real functional object, it just takes it up an order of magnitude on the awesome scale.
I agree with the both of you, but how much of that boosted awesomeness comes from your understanding and knowledge of armour? Would someone who knows nothing about armour still get that same "awesomeness factor"? I know you mentioned that Ian, but I'm not convinced it would have the same effect on everyone. Playing devil's advocate - as I mentioned I agree with you.
To some degree there is the effect of 'you can't un-know what you know' about armor so the errors are more glaringly obvious to that subset of people, but many fantasy armors simply don't pass the common sense test. A lot of people will never understand how a breastplate should be supported and why it's shaped the way it is, or how lame-articulation works on a fauld, but they do all have a basic understanding of how a human body moves (since well, they presumably have one :) ). That's where some fantasy armors break down. As soon as you consider human movement, it starts to show it's flaws regardless of how much you know about historical armor construction. Understanding how armor works and functions, from the design perspective will help the artist ensure they don't 'break reality' by designing something that can't work no matter how much magic there is in their particular setting.
Errant is right on point on that one. Even before i knew too much from the arms and armor of history, i often watched many fantasy worlds stupified about how people would ever have made or worn plate if it was so heavy and cumbersome that it rendered you useless, or see my (albeit heavy) suspension of disbelief crumble crumble down when people did or equipped themselves with something ludicrous while shouting between the lines that "this is how it was back in the day, you know!". Knowing what is wrong about them has mostly only helped to pinpoint these things and maybe even bear them a bit better.
One thing that kinds of bugs me about armor in video games is during animation when pieces that are supposed to represent something rigid instead bend to follow the rigged skeleton. Even for someone not really familiar with what makes armor practical, that's a blatant reminder that none of it really "works."
...or clips through the person wearing it. If the armor has to clip through its own model, it's a good indicator that something is wrong with the animation :)
I may be a bit late, but I think the problem here is not bad animation, but that the alternative to cliping and bending would be a physical model the armor. In modern game(like The Witcher 3) it is already done for big articulated pieces on a simple level. Personally bending armor reminds me always of those 50s and 60s Sword and Sandal movies where the Romans would wear leather muscle armor.
A bit late, but that is largely a problem with the way models are made. Or rather the amount of work that's put into them. Parts of a mesh can be made rigid no problem and for the most part clipping wouldn't be any worse than if the same armor was "made" out of rubber. Now if it's an armor like the one that was shown from Dragon Age, well, shit, you can't make THAT breastplate rigid, so the fundamental design of the armor is at fault, but in cases of, say, Skyrim that's entirely on developers that that animations works the way they do. For comparison, back in Morrowind the character meshes were heavily fragmented _(i.e. a foot was a single mesh, shin was another mesh, kneecap was another mesh, etc, and then they were put together by the system, instead of being a part of the same model from the get-go),_ which while looked ugly as sin for a body model, worked perfectly for armors, because each part was rigid and only joints were moving.
@@KnyghtErrant Corridor Digital actually pointed out in their recent "VFX Artists React" videos where in Avengers: Endgame, there's a shot where Thanos flexes his fingers and they clip through the Infinity Gauntlet.
Unfortunately, with our current technology, there really is no solution to that. It's just a texture over a mesh. You could animate every mesh separately and restrict the skeleton movement to only certain ranges but imagine the computing power required for that. Now do that a hundred times for each individual piece of armour and combination thereof.
I generally liked the armor and weapons in Peter Jackson's LoTR. There are a few exceptions, but more or less it looks functional, practical, and in certain cases quite beautiful.
There's a good reason for that. John Howe, the artist and design consultant for the armor in the Lord of the Rings movies is very well studied on historical arms and armor and is a member of the Medieval Living History group, The Company of Saynt George.
I normally hate fantasy weapons, armor, etc. because people take it as an excuse to not care about anything other than making it look "cool" (personally I think most of it looks stupid). However, when people take the time to design something that is more than just asteticly pleasing, you get awesome results, like that last armor.
I found that comment absolutely not boring... as a hobby worldbuilder, I strive to answer all these questions whenever I work on any of my projects. And I strive to ensure that one might be able to -believe- these settings/cultures/worlds -might- possibly exist without imploding due to massive illogical plotholes. As for my current project, I could answer all thse questions with surprising ease. So, yay, I built it correctly =)
Hopefully we'll start seeing 3D printed armour for TV shows. It'll be a lot easier and cheaper to tailor costumes to specific actors and it'll let them produce far more realistic looking stuff.
I completely agree. Suspension of disbelief applies to things like having other rules of physics or magic, but it needs to be internally consistent. Asking us to believe in such a change to how people's bodies work is too much.
Yeah, when you shatter internal consistency on things that just bend believability too far it just ruins the 'feel' of the setting, world or whatever it happens to be.
I think one of the biggest "pity" moments was with Assassin's Creed 2 - arguably the highest rated and best AC game to be released but when it comes to arms and armour in Renaissance Italy, I felt that the developers threw aside a cauldron full to the brim with knowledge about that time and place, and just did their own thing from scratch. Professional troops back then, armoured or not, had colourful and exquisite clothing and armour which would have not harmed the game lore. For example, why do you need to resort to a city guardsman wearing a gilded breastplate and sallet, when he would look just as good if not better in an arming doublet, hose, perhaps a barbute, and a polearm, which also makes more sense, considering I'm not talking about rich men-at-arms?
Yeah, especially since it's supposed to be in a real 'historical' setting. They kind of missed the mark when it came to the potential of what they could have pulled off.
I don't know how historically accurate it is, but i think Brotherhood did a much better job with armors and outfits than AC2, the papal guard's is one of my favorites
@@zjay On the contrary, it carried over from AC2 a general disregard for proper portrayal. The game was augmented with anachronistic weaponry. The armour’s itself fraught with inaccuracies. The Swiss Guard as we know it was also not yet instituted (and would only be as much after the death of Rodrigo Borja) and their equipment in the game is itself rather ridiculous.
@@gianlucafalzon5868 well, like i said, i don't know about the accuracy, but i agree with you since you definetely have more knowledge than me on that, i still think Brotherhood's armors and outfits at least look better but that has more to do with taste than historical accuracy, however i would've preferred if it were more accurate, specially the weapons.
what makes 'practical' fantasy armor so appealing, is that it looks efficient and deadly. you look at artwork and you think "wow, that looks so great!". But the second you see the exact same armor ingame, where the model is in motion, it just seems clumsy. i love warhammer, i love the artstyle of warcraft when it comes to art and cinematics. but if you see it in motion, it just falls apart.
+It's Just Milk I Swear Bretonia too, though ornate more like tournament knights than war knights. Most other armies have a lot flawed armor designs though. Very spiky armor is very prominent among the "evil" races for instance.
Ninjamanhammer evil dudes of the badass kind always have humongous pauldrons. In real life its stupid, but they look epic in artworks. i fear that chaos in Warhammer for example looses its appeal, if you downsize it to something sensible. i wonder if ian could come up with something.
GruntSquad92 I never said Warhammer was supposed to be realistic, as it quite clearly isn't, I was just responding to Milk saying Warhammer had good armor.
Tymdek Nice! :D do you draw or sculpt? I have a deviantart gallery if anybody wants to take a look and maybe give me some tips in private (i warn you though the older stuff has really bad designs lol, i started just recently looking into historical designs more). Here's the thing: radialart.deviantart.com/gallery/
+Riccardo Moscatello Well, I haven't really done anything yet...I got into this topic not long ago, but I definitely will start doing something. Most likely drawing since I have never tried sculpting. The only problem I have is that I find it utterly difficult to draw a human body. I don't know why, since I can draw animals quite fine, if I may say so, but when it comes to humans I mostly draw something more like a misproportioned alien xD
What makes Fantasy armor feel so unnappealing as soon as its translated to the Real World its the exact feeling that you get when you see someone dressed as a crazy edgy Daedra in a cosplay event. You first go like: "Oh shit, this looks so badass!" Then you look at it for a bit longer and you realise the person cant move, cant pick anything off the ground and is pretty much needing someone holding her hand to walk her around... And you go: "Oh man, this is so silly."
Sir, it was because of D & D that i began, some years back, a quest for correct knowledge of arms and armour. My first real breakthroughs came with Matt Easton. He recommended your channel. For my campaign I have re-written the armour class values, and the damage values of many weapons, and most swords. I have, in the past thanked Matt Easton, I have never thanked you. i would now like to rectify that omission. Thank-you, sir. Dante.
Same, D&D is where I sourced most of my info because I had a fancy for sword and sorcery. While I clicked on Matt and Lloyd's videos because it was bringing the katana down a notch, but I learned plenty from them regarding combat in the Middle Ages. Ian's specializing in armor was so well done that I re-thought what purpose certain armors had in my settings as well.
Thank you so much guys, I'm thrilled that you are able to take and use this information. I will admit that when I first started the channel I didn't think anyone would really care except for a small handful of re-enactors, so I love that people all over the fantasy and history spectrum are finding this stuff worth their while, and thanks to Matt as well for pointing you in my direction!
It's so true. The whole "SLABS OF STEEL, HUEG PAULDRONS" thing worked in WoW because of how cartoony it was, but when other franchises adopt those design principles it often looks like the artists are trying to mask a lack of design talent with sheer complexity.
I've actually been trying to do this in my art since I was a child drawing made up characters or correcting the ones I saw in various different media in my quest for authenticity. I've found the easiest way to go about is to find a historical job that you want your fighter to do, look at the armor or clothing they are wore, and make something about it more fantastical (like giving your 16th century knight an exaggerated hoplite helmet with a metal Greek style crest). Even something as simple as putting ridiculously long chain mail tunic on your 12th century knight can make your character visually interesting.
Hey Ian, I know this was asked before, but I really think it would be a fascinating topic. Would you consider presenting more Eastern armor from Europe such as Byzantine or Slavic sets?
I absolutely thought the same after seeing this video! Really great, Ian! Please keep an doing such Videos. Perhaps something familiar with weapons? Especially fantasy swords tend to look very extravagant.
+Markus Kratochwil Maybe extravagant is the wrong term in this case, especially when applied to "swords" from the Monster Hunter series...these things sometimes look like you could use the blade for making a tank if you put a motor and wheels or something similar on it.
I enjoyed the back story relating to your introduction of armor. I know it was just a slight portion of your video but it helps build that connection and understanding of the topic. Just wanted to let you know great video.
Perhaps it's just on subconscious level, but I've always found that even people who don't know a thing about historical medieval armor tend to be able to recognize when a design really works on the human body, and that makes it so much more amazing than having to suspend disbelief just to get passed something so fundamental like being able to move.
Hey Ian. I really enjoy your videos, thank you very much for making them. I am an hobby-ish armourer in germany and do most work for LARP customers, so there are historical orders but most of those are fantasy. So what I try to tell my customers and what is my way of working is that you first have to understand how and why historical armour works. Then you can move on to fantasy designs and meet somewhere in the middle.
Yeah. CD Projekt Red actual puts out DLC that's worth the money, a full on expansion and continuation of the game, a la old school 'expansion packs,' instead of some cheap money-grab as has become the norm in the DLC world.
I love Your channel! It is really helping me to build up my Fiore de' Liberi-Period Armor. I also like your style and your fantasy preferences, I still play Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 because they are too awesome! :D Thanks for your good work!
As a 2D artist, I can't agree more. After drawing a variety of fantasy armour and weapons for many years, I eventually decided to learn as much as possible about real armour. It makes a real difference. If you want to draw something well, you have to have an understanding of how it works. That Lumecluster art is beautiful.
I loved the spiky, edgy, skulls everywhere look when i was a kid...up until I was about 12...then it became typical. As i got older, that suspension of disbelief, like you described started really killing my immersion. Some would probably say I'm being picky, but one of my biggest pet peeves in many fantasy RPGs, for instance, would be daggers...The whole point of a dagger is to have a pointy tip, yet so many developers have these big swooping daggers that are more reminiscent of a spoon. So unless your Alan Rickman of Nottingham, I don't find it a practical tool...and it kills my immersion
I was born in 1999 so I watched the LOTR movies before I read the books, and my dad showed me those the summer going into the first grade. I remember being absolutely blown away by everything in Middle Earth, from the landscape and architecture to the arms and armor. I wish I could be a little kid again just to experience them again for the first time. This led to a (so far) life long love for this topic and now that I'm older I'm able to appreciate just how far the LOTR team knocked it out of the park with the movie's arms and armor.
I hope that Lord of the Rings and fantasy in general continues to enrich your life as you grow into an adult as it has mine! It's a lifelong journey :)
Exelent video, I've been trying to do this ever since I started drawing fantasy (I'm an aspiring concept artist ) I really appreciate the detailed looks into specific armor components it helps so much when I need reference for my drawings
Awesome! I'm glad you are enjoying it! I said the same thing to another artist earlier, when I started the channel I honestly had no idea that anyone outside of the very small historical armor collector / reenactor world would care about these videos. I'm happy that it's got a broader appeal, especially since fantasy is so near and dear to my heart.
Some people go through various transient phases of fancy as a kid, none of which have much of an influence on their interests as an adult. Then there are people like Ian Lespina, who saw some suits of armor in a museum once as a practical toddler and now runs possibly the most comprehensive historical armor channel on all of RU-vid.
The best part of this is when somebody who never had a real piece of armour on his body starts to be clever and he says you "how it really worked" and after some conversation you find out that he is just playing video games and watching movies and this is all his knowledge.
My own pet peeve is Jaime Lannister's armour in GoT. The description in the books of entirely gilded and embossed with lions perfectly matches an extant, functional harness from reality. And it's better fantasy armour than fantasy costume designers came up with. It fits perfectly with the pseudo-tudor aesthetic in the series too.
I'm currently learning my way around Maya, trying to learn to make 3D weapon and armor models and textures and I'd really like to thank you for your videos, especially for this one. You make a good points and this is definitely something what is more needed in the industry.
Well I have the same problems with "hacking" in games and movies. Working in IT Security it is hard to enjoy this stuff shown in fiction. I think the same problem happens if you know a lot about armor ;)
Witcher makes great job in making stuff look much more realistic because of the books it's based on, by Andrzej Sapkowski. He described the look of people quite well, when it comes to historical reality, he also wrote the Hussite trilogy, also a fantasy book, but based during the Hussite wars, where he also was quite historically accurate (part from all the magic stuff of course xD). Also - first Witcher game was not as big in the world as the rest of them, and it was made (like all others) in Poland, where there wasn't many games before, but the reenactment movement is strong, so it was quite easy for the developers to look up all the historical stuff.
This is a man right after my own heart. My path of interest towards medieval history, arms and armor follows exactly this. I even remember watching the heck out of the old Hobbit cartoon as well. You sir have gained a subscriber!
Great post! I am currently reading Tobias' book and highly recommend it to any who haven't picked it up yet. I am building a 1480s style set of harness for LARP and your videos have helped greatly. Keep it up!
Your videos are such an excellent resource, I've been using them as an abbreviated research tool for the concept art I'm doing. I want my designs to not only look cool but be functional to hopefully get rid of the clipping and mesh-stretching you see in games today. Great summary and keep it up, you're helping me so much!
That chaos armour is pretty cool, has a bit of a sourceror vibe about it, warlock mayhaps. The Sovereign: Wow. It's beautiful and, it's like an artisitic tribute to the elegance and art of the late gothic armours and is just awesome.
I loved this video, and the corresponding reference to lumecluster, those armours are really wonderful to look at moving. I would like to see similar videos about fantasy armours, its a really interesting topic. I am a 3D artist and I do use your videos for reference on historical pieces. Thank you for making them, and this one, they are a great resource, and are superbly well made.
Form follows function. Now unless you want us to believe, that the humans in this fantasy setting have a few extra vertebrae and are made out of jello (if that is so it should be mentioned in the work), then we assume the humans are the same humans as in our world, so armor should be made to fit a human. That's why I love cars so much, yes they are sometimes amazing pieces of art in their design, but all of them still have to function as cars and the designers and the engineers will get in a fist fight to assure both sides of the product are developed well. Except for the concept cars, those don't really have to move so anything goes. VW Golf: your plain lower class functional solider's armour Ferrari 488: A beautiful ornate 16th century jouster's armour Concept Car: awkward fantasy armour from movies and games
Reason why i follow many youtube channels like yours is that i want to be educated fantasy illustator in subject matter that i want to draw and in future hope to draw even more. So amazing topic, greatly covered and explained as always. Big thumbs up.
Thank you! When I started the channel I honestly never even thought about artists finding it useful. I didn't think it would appeal to people outside of the very small historical armor enthusiast community, so I am really happy that a lot of other people are enjoying the content. Because I know that now, I try to do things with that audience in mind, and I hope it's working! :)
I can't tell for other artists, but for me it's an amazing source. I've been preaching about importance of good armor and arms research for years now and yours, matt easton and others guys videos have been really helpful. Specially because nearest HEMA club in my country is 500 kilometers away from me (and it's still in it's infancy) and most of you guys said lots of literature is either hard to find or out of date.
it is just there at 1:58 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish to commend on all your videos. You are extremely intelligent and functionality-oriented. (I am a mathematician myself) One more thing - in NOV/DEC 1994 - I was a temporary visiting employee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (I was bringing a Guarneri violin for an exhibition) so I made a good use of my stay to investigate and observe; I remember having spent several days in the room where two sets of Italian and two sets of German full-armors (for the knight AND the horse) are exhibited it is just there at 1:58 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the very center (probably still that way) so I tried to observe and understand to the smallest of detail .... to make a long story short: KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND ALL THE BEST TO YOU
Skallagrim did a review about the historical accuracy in the arms, armor, and fighting of Maria the Virgin Witch, I'd like to see your impressions on it.
Dark Souls is one of my favourite series to look at for that fantasy/reality blend. Though obviously not absolutely everything worn in that game is realistic, some of the designs in that game are phenomenal. The Elite Knight set, the Drakeblood set, the Lothric Knight set and Alva's set, it's all aesthetically very well blended together, you can see there was genuine time and research put into how they made these armours work. Though at the same time, I'm not quite as anal as a lot of enthusiasts are about fantasy armour, I can appreciate certain designs despite their relative impracticality (especially if they actually give an appropriate in-lore reason as to why they're still wearable) and I can appreciate what they might be trying to do by giving them such grandiose armour. A lot of the Warhammer series encapsulates this, actually. Orcs wear big, spiky, aggressive looking armour cause that's what Orcs are, Dark Elves wear armour that's basically more to titillate than the protect since they're all giant hedonists, Chaos speaks for itself, etc. I'd probably say I can appreciate the fantasy/reality blend "more", though. At least when it's applied appropriately.
My problem with Dark Souls is that, we have beautiful armour sets, swords,(especially compared to other fantasy rpg games) but they are just useless. Even for pve(which is what I play the most). And honestly, that just kills the immersion for me.
Your armour set barely even matters. There's a 30% damage difference between the lightest and the heaviest armour. Most people, especially in PVP, wear whatever looks good. Thus the name Fashion Souls.
Two good examples of historically inspired Witcher Gear Armour are the ursine armour for a long maile hauberk and the gryphon armour. Grandmaster for both of these. A lot of people wrongly assume that the gryphon armour is supposed to be leather but I'd you look closely at the textures you see where the later has cracked or peeled away at some edges and it is steel underneath.
There definitely a sep in the right direction, but they should be armor for a witcher, completely covered in leather to blend in cloth between each plate a hognail harness for the boots, trowing knifes viles ect, at least no mail because it would be too loud
@@asherroodcreel640 leather is not armour. It will not stop blades nor gryphon talons. Witchers would wear what stops them from dying and that is steel and maile.
@@Rune_Scholar I ment over the steel, that was vauge sorry; certain monster hides would be unnatural tough, covered in steel hard scails and good for camouflage and unlike mail wouldn't be too loud to sneak up on a lot of creatures which could be a death sentence, a lot of monsters would just tear through plate like a catoblepous or a griffin but it would be allot more then nothing though, maybe an extra harness with tear away sections for an extra chances in one hit kill fights, Witchers generally focus on not get hit all geralt wore in the was a black stained silver spiked coat, but I think that's more authorial incompetence then anything else, what he did get right was the sword, which would be effective against the plurality of monsters he'd have to deal with on a monthly basis, though we never saw any dagger use which is a shame he should at least have a qillon and a rondol, but really what stops a witcher from dieing is getting hit so some kind of supportive exoskeleton might be useful
I'm really glad you decided to make this video and talk about video games and historical arms and armor. You know there is this awesome game, currently in development called Sui Generis. One of its main features is a revolutionary physics based combat system. It currently has a prequel/tech demo called Exanima. We, its fans, would be glad for you try it out, and make a review.
Hey, Lumecluster! I know Melissa and met her at NYCC while she was creating the suit for Felicia, since my boyfriend at the time knew her from the 3D printing community. She's super nice!
First off, I love your channel. I am a hobbyist armourer who learned from a number of excellent people in the field, like Robert MacPherson, Dr. Toby Capwell, and my personal master, Dr. Doug Strong. . Since I predominantly make armour for the SCA, there are concessions that obviously need be made, but do my best to stick as close to historical accuracy as I am able. 14th Century is my favorite time period, though I strong lean towards the German aesthetics. I would love to see a video on your take of 14th century gauntlets and how they developed from the beginning of the century into the early 15th century. On the topic of PC gaming - have you seen, looked into or played Kingdom Come: Deliverance? If not, you should look into it.
Thank you! Yes, I was a kickstarter backer for KC:D, and I really loved my first playthrough of the game. I'm looking forward to checking out the new Hans Capon DLC they just released.
I really like the Lord of the Rings movies for that - most of the armors, while fantasy do look both mobile (as actors have to perform in them), and protective at the same time. And the idea for Nazgul to wear straight up gothic armor is great too.
Oh. Nice seeing you mentioned Melissa Ng. I was hoping you do. She does some dang amazing work. And of course i enjoy the gauntlets the most, being obsessed with hand shape and all. But yea. Her work is awesome.
I love this video. Been considering throwing together my own fantasy armor with the criteria that it a) be simple designed, so easily fixed with hand tools and materials easily available; b)cheap to reproduce and; c) actually function on a human body. Videos like this are amazing for me in this light.
+Mayor League Gamers You're missing out, then. Wait until a sale or something, then buy it. It's really not worth missing out on if it's on sale with so much well made content in it.
Hey Ian, have you ever read Miles Cameron's Traitor Son Cycle series? It's fantasy, but it's also has exceptionally realistic combat sequences, from arms and armour, to technique, tactics and strategy. The author REALLY knows his stuff when it comes to historical warfare. It doesn't have any of the bad fantasy arms and armour tropes and even the world building itself is very much grounded in reality, modelled after a specific time period in our own history with a touch of magic and wild beasts. It has so much attention to detail about combat equipment that most people (who aren't knowledgeable about these things) wouldn't even begin to notice or care. For guys like you though, I think you would really appreciate it.
No I've not red the Red Knight books but I have read the first in his 'Chivalry Series' of historical fiction set in the Hundred Years War, _The Ill Made Knight_. I know Christian in real life. Miles is his pen name for fantasy, but when he does straight historical fiction he uses his real name of Christian Cameron. He does an excellent job of bringing his personal knowledge of historical armor and fighting technique to his novels. He fights in armor in real life too, does a lot of experimental living history and practices HEMA. It's his firsthand experience of how the objects and techniques work that his readers are reaping the benefit of, and yes, geeks like me totally appreciate those details that are probably lost on most of the audience :) The photo a couple minutes in to the Visor Lock video is actually him (he's the one with his back to my camera with the green and gold surcoat on ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tDkB-zMUf7k.htmlm11s) I really should read the Red Knight books!
Amazing! You are well connected. Although I'm not very surprised actually since you two have a lot in common, being soldiers who have an interest in history and reenactment.
fantasy armour that is not grounded in reality looks cartoonish and it really DOES break you out of the immersion. every time, much like cartoonishly big and elaborate swords. Anime is really bad for this but western cartoons are not any better either.
Check out Pillars of Eternity! The arms and armor in it line up very well with my (admittedly much smaller) knowledge of historically accurate arms and armor, as far as protection grades of armor and damage types of weapons, as well as in the feasibility of several different centuries of weapons appearing alongside each other. As a fellow fan of the Infinity Engine games, I found it to be a very worthy spiritual successor.
So glad I ran across this video! Love the analysis - because it's spot-on - but one thing I run into as an amateur costumer is HOW DO THE HARNESS CONNECTIONS WORK? It's relatively easy to see how the shapes should nest within one another for flexibility, but the straps and connection points are all hidden. I can't afford to go to NYC to see the real thing, and most of the LARP/cosplay/re-enactor pieces also tend to suffer from flop-&-bind issues when the action starts. Is there a manual, good reference, or reliable tutorial out in the world you would recommend? If not, would you be open to filming a detailed "inside the armor/how it's constructed/armor joint mechanics" video? That would be amazing! Any guidance you could offer would be greatly appreciated!
absolutely agree with you. The first rule of art is be observant. I see too many artists, whatever their art discipline, who have been taught this very valuable lesson. It's nice to see someone else advocating it's importance. No matter what project they are working on there are lessons to learn from the past and present in order to create or recreate an alternate fantasy or futuristic science fiction. I'm a mecha & weapons designer and you do see a lot of armored vehicles that just don't work. While they are interesting to look at you begin to wonder about where they're stowing the ammunition, equipment, or how the weapons platform even moves. Like you stated there's a lot of learn from and a lot you gain from referencing the appropriate historical data to get it right or inspire new concepts. Look forward to your next vid. Great work =^^=
Chip the glasses, crack the plates! That's what Bilbo Baggins hates! That's what Bilbo Baggins hates, So carefully, carefully with the plates! Blunt the knives and bend the forks! Smash the bottles, burn the corks! That's what Bilbo Baggins hates, So carefully, carefully with the plates!
_I agree with every point that's made here, I'm always trying to help out others myself with the design of armour in fantasy, and the point of the practicality helping with immersion is something people should see more often. Another big problem I see a lot is the fact that most armour nowadays tends to have little to no padding underneath, often it's just steel plates strapped to the body and called armour. I feel that is something a ton of people miss, and I've been trying to help with that myself. I also help with weapon design, since both are just as important as another, in my viewpoint_
Totally agree with everything said here! I remember when I was first getting into Skyrim I thought all the armours were really cool. Then I got into researching HEMA and european armours and I realised how bad much of the armour in Skyrim was. Now, thanks to mods like "Practical Female Armours", "Improved Closed-faced Helmets" and "Better Shaped Weapons" the armours and weapons feel much more believable. Additionally, when I do concept art for my stories, I try to make all the weapons and armour at least somewhat feasible by starting with a historical concept and working off that. Comparing what I thought early on was cool armour (spikes, jagged edges and more spikes) to a recent drawing I did of historically grounded armour (sci-fi renaissance plate armour with a sallet), I can see how much cooler the feasible ones really are.
many of the armours they design would be enough if they would have to walk a few hundred yards and up a small stair and then try to raise their hands over their head.
Maybe that should be a requirement... build it, walk in it, fight in it, if you can't, re-design it :) Somehow I don't think that will catch on though, lol
I started gaming on the Commodore64 as well, but managed to miss Exodus. Through all the platforms and great games, somehow the first Neverwinter Nights has managed to keep top spot for me in crpg's. Most people have several other games I've also played placed higher, but I just really enjoyed that one. Never finished my 3rd playthrough where I intended to graduate to a Dark Paladin class. I recommend playing Pillars of Eternity if you haven't already. Very good modern crpg.
I really enjoyed NWN. I also played a lot of multiplayer on some persistent world servers which was fun. I've played about half of Pillars of Eternity and I haven't played the expansion at all. I should go back to it when I get the time.
Great video, must share this idea to more fantasy artists and writers. I recently watched many armor makers' video. Seeing the process of making different types of armor helps me build my fantasy world. I can design armor sets with the price and effectiveness in mind, even enhance some features to fit the needs to defend against monsters rather than humans.
I love it how people are more and more educated about the past and medieval ages, our media is reflecting it more and more. And although in 1995 Braveheart was a cool movie, in 2020 the demand for quality of historical movies is increased and increases with each year as more people are educated about the topic.
was on a big larp con here in germany last week. i was in the chaos camp and saw the paladin.... holy shit this dude kickes ass not only with his looks
The Witcher was amazing for me from the moment i saw it. even just things like arming ties and gambesons and tunics visible (so armour is not just straight onto your body like other games) blew me away.
+Knight Errant, great vid. This is something that I look at all the time in fantasy movies or even ones that are supposed to be based in reality myself. As an artist and martial artist as well as a US Army Infantry veteran one of the things I notice all the time is how idiotic, impractical or simply how completely infeasible some designs are especially with regards to size and weight many of the designs both in movies and in many video games are. For the most part I can immediately tell when the artist has ever picked up a real sword or weapon be it modern or historical. Keep up the good work I really enjoy your channel.
I am making a new kind of armor for a new kind of game. I'm trying to design something fantasy looking but it has to be functionnal at the same time. You sure gave me a lot to think about with this video. Thank you very much.
