Hi chaps.
The first pic I've been messing about with
layouts for is the 'Outside on the land, Meyr ravished by Eater whilst the
others weild Diskos'.
Thus, befgore I decide exactly whom goes
where, I've been doodling a lot of 'Space Armour' in an attempt to get something
different from the Usual Look and to discover how these chaps occupy
space.
These are the present 'Shape' I'm playing
with.
I'm assuming we have 'Stuff' to
disperse/repulse in the Night land which gives me an excuse for
Valvepunk-looking metallic nozzles. The helmet arrangement has a
'crest' but it's horizontal rather than the standard vertical. This is actually
an armoured array for a bank of lights that sit either side of the head
(Headlights, if you will).
The 'Helm' consists of the goggles
(Themselves, fitted with lots of lenses and do-hickeys) and 'Empty
scream'-shaped mouthpiece under a small peak, all iof which swing back onto the
helmet itself, to expose the face behind the 'cheekguards'.
The shoulders are, you'll note, topped
with a ruddy great 'Plasma dispersal' (Whatever) array' which slightly echo an
Elizabethan ruff, slightly echo some gothic yoke and generally look 'spikey'.
This is attatched to a similarly 'spikey' backpack, giving it a Gothick sort'v
look.
The chest is very prominent, akin to the
Conquistadors, but this time we have the excuse of it being filled, not with
rags but with 'Life Support Tek'.
The boots were either going to be small
and dainty or big and clompy. With all that weight on the upper torso, I've
opted for the great clumpy boots and legs.
Kurosowa-style 'banners' complete the
'look'. Probably something more baroqe than the ones shown. It also occurs to me
that there's absolutely no reason we can't have fabric streamers to this outfit
if needed.
The whole thing should, finally, have a
slightly 'Insectile' texture in the plateletts, decorated with scrollwork. I
suspect Andy will interpolate the word ;'Fractal' here.
I've been presuming the 'Quints' have
different armour, but now I find myself thinking 'Why?'.
What's the verdict here?
Comments welcome.
Best:
Smuzz
upper torso, I've
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 3:59
PM
Subject: Re: Night land : Sea of images:
Section 3.
ARMOUR and MANSHONYAGGERS
A few points
** the most beautiful machines human beings make are war
machines. This is comprehensible because war machines, like living
things, are undergoing intense real-world selection and the unfunctional
unbeautiful gets flensed away according to criteria which are absolute and
objective.
The most beautiful war machines approach the grace of a living
thing.
** the most beautiful of an evolving line of machines are the last
ones built before the machine type becomes obsolete under the impact of a
quantum leap of new technology. Battleships like the
Scharnhorst or the New Jersey were built just before big-gun
warship was pushed aside by the aircraft carrier, for example. Contemporary
fighting arcraft are about to be pushed aside by drones, but they have
achieved real beauty too.
** this applies to armour. (Armour is a machine for the purposes of
this discussion). Perhaps the most beautiful ((and therefore most
functional, if the equation I'm drawing is correct) form it took was the
Gothic, which unsurprisingly looks not unlike a Centurion. A little after this
peak it was rendered pointless by gunnery and became ceremonial - and it's at
this time that the parade armour becomes popular. ((Which rather
undercuts Brett's referent to Negroli, because he was working in an era of
armour's decadence, while in the Night Land the armour is still vitally
functional and undergoing cutting-edge evolutionary selection by the forces of
the Land. This is not to say that the point of armour as
decorated, or as an expression of clan and personal status, is wrong, because
it isn't, but there is a difference here which must be
appreciated. The Negroli forms are over-ornate to a nonfunctional
degree. But decoration and badges of status and affiliation were
used on armour at all times. They tended however to be separate from the
armour - surcoats, crests, etc. Well, Brett has actually said all
this already, hasn't he???))
** however we are now at the end of time looking backward to the
past and there are no more leaps in tech. Armour has
become perfected to a level never seen in our history, and looks as graceful
as a living thing. How to draw this? Well, in the absence of
any other option I'd draw on the coolest Gothic suits I could find on the web
and make them a little smoother and at once more organic and more high-tech -
chaos-death-spikybits seem intrinsic to the Gothic forms but are probably
counterindicated in the Night Land.
This last advice is very detailed, probably going beyond useful levels,
because too exact & particular, and I emphasise please,treat it as just my
feelings at this time, definitely not prescriptive