Something I've been scribbling in my sketchbook...



MoP

awesom mop, one of the nicer things ive seen you draw.
ah,
good thing at least with friends i dont have to type with caps letters and shit [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

see how u expand it from here.
lets say, he was a samurai in the queen of heart's army
all those black spots on his body --> hearts
colors.. gold+black decoration, white+red stripes?
white and red make up on the face
weirdsy personality
etc.
could be cool!

proportions are a bit funny.

nice sketch

Wowee. Nice antiqued look!

I can see that you're flashing your Artistic License, but it appears that his armor is solid metal, which real samurai armor never was. It's still cool!

/jzero

hey MoPPer

im loving this sketch,on eof your better ones ive seen for sure.

Just curious what did you do to get the nice brown background?

john

Shotgun: Hehe, thanks, and good suggestions ... I will try to put more interesting twists and more "character" in my future sketches!

Hawken: Yeah, his shoulders are ridiculous, and legs are rather odd too. Also one arm is smaller than the other, heh. Thanks.

jzero: Cheers. Actually I was thinking painted varnished wood for the wide expanses of armour, trimmed with metal, and with metal catches for holding it all together. I guess it's the little highlight dots making you think it was all metal?

Bronco: Just a photo of a brown paper bag on a medium-opacity Multiply layer in Photoshop.

Hmmm varnished wood? This guy would have the heaviest Samurai armor EVAH, even if it wasn't metal. But then, being Edo Period, it would have to be laquered also, so it would have specular all over the place! [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Heya, MoP. I'm a massive samurai geek (which will be revealed Sunday, I expect), and I know you're not going for anything historically accurate, but in the event you're curious:

Samurai heavy armor from an era involving metal helms would be made out of laquered iron plate or scale. The plates or scales are held together by cotton, silk or leather laces which can almost cover the entire armor. The reason ancient Japanese armor is so colorful is due to all that lacing - intricate patterns or designs were created by alternating in and out different pieces of cord of different colors.

A number of things about your piece make me think it was inspired by something towards the end of samurai history. Around 1600 through the end of the era, solid breastplates started to become more common, and you could find many examples of heavy armor like that seemingly devoid of laces. Solid breastplates were actually around before 1000, but it was pretty late in the day before solid iron armor was used all the way around the torso. The helmet and sashimono battle flag are both from around that period as well.

*edit*

Heh - yeah, jzero, Edo period is what I was suggesting myself [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Hey, thanks guys, you're a fount of knowledge! I'll definitely make an effort to research stuff like this next time, it seems like it'd be useful to get a feel for why things were made in a certain way, rather than just wild speculation on design and construction (as I usually do [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )

I was going off fuzzy memories of some of the armour seen in The Last Samurai ... don't know how accurate that film was as far as costumes go, though.

that rox mop