Tips for my artist friends drawing melee weapons/A gigantic rant about medieval weapons
Dunno how much this'll help you, but I have so much about weapons and I can't not expound upon it, so, I'm putting it into something that you can hopefully use for art refs!
So, melee weapons, with a focus on medieval stuff for my more fantasy inclined friends!
The first thing to remember about a weapon is leverage.
Physics plays are very large part in how a weapon is used and how effective they are.
Take a straight sword for example.
The power and force behind the sword is all going to be in the hilt and the tip.
Because the hilt is heavier than the blade and that's where it's held, that's where all the driving force behind it is going to be. The sides of the blade are going to carry little of that energy, but the tip is going to be carrying a lot of it, which makes it really damn good at THRUSTING attacks, big ol' forward pokes. Cutting through something with the long side takes a lot of brute force, and it can't do crap against armor, but with the tip it's easy to slash at something rather than cutting through with the long side of the blade.
Basically, they poke real well but can't smash worth a damn!
Now compare that to something like, say, a mace!
See, unlike what most video games and such would have you believe, polearms like these are actually incredibly light compared to a sword.
Unlike the sword, which can change directions very fluidly because the blade is much lighter than the handle, something like a mace cannot do that as well because the head is much heavier than the handle.
A mace's power comes from the head being heavy, and when it's in motion, the weight is what adds so much force to it, because very little of the weight is in the handle, which acts as a lever when it's in motion, giving it devastating swinging power.
Unlike a sword, you can't block a mace, at least not without great difficulty. A sword can easily be deflected away by another sword, but a mace will just straight up bat it out of the way, and if it doesn't, it definitely will damage your wrists, if not straight up break them. Even then, the metal might just buckle because of the sheer smashing force.
Maces were created as anti-armor weapons, and that's why they're designed this way, a big ol' heavy head of metal that swings and hits really fuck off hard, and it can dent and go through metal because of the sheer brute force behind it.
You can't outright block the mace without risking serious damage, so you have to sidestep it or dodge it, which is what it's weak to, because it can't change directions as easily with the heavier head and lighter hilt, which means each swing has to be a commitment.
If they miss, they have to quickly get out of the gutting range, but if they're too slow, there is a small window to shank the bastard for the mistake.
Still, they are by no means slow, and there are definitely means to mitigate it. Especially on horseback, when weapons like these are twice as dangerous.
Basically, trade some agility for raw strength and anti-armour abilities/clobbering the fuck out of somebody.
Now, polearms! Or, as I belovedly refer to them, the Long Bois! Featuring, the Poleaxe! (Not the halberd)
You can do so much fucken shit with these things.
You have the axe head, which, because the haft is very long and very light, hits like a truck and has massive cleaving/bludgeoning power power behind it.
You have the BIG poke, which has a lot of piercing power and is excellent for going through armor or chinks in it.
And the Smol poke, which you can use to also go right through armor and hook into things to trip them up!
They have massive utility, and are excellent specialised anti-armor weapons. On horseback or on foot, it's a force to be reckoned with.
It has all the parts of a thrusting and a stabbing weapon, just on a much, much longer platform, and a heavy head of steel that is great for bashing in armored skulls. You can also trip people up with it using the edges!
The smol poke on the back is also great for acting as a miniature hammer, like a Horseman's Pick, which can be used to go through chainmail and armor with sheer piercing power.
Polearms are also typically very tall, and it gives them a reach advantage. They can block more effectively with the long haft, and if it breaks, you still have the other half with the metal bits on it to hit things with.
-
So, what you have to remember about weapons, is where the lever is, how it'll swing, and how to connect it to a pose. A sword thrusts, a mace swings, some can do both, others cannot, etc, etc.
I heavily encourage you to do research into different types of polearms, swords and the like, because all of them have a purpose and many act differently than their kin.
I hope this helps you depict weapons more accurately or just helps in general.
I’m driving myself up the wall because I swear I can hear the vocal line but I don’t know how that could be if it was truly converted to MIDI. Unless you can replicate speech sounds entirely with modulated MIDI notes, in which case I’m actually impressed with this tire fire of an MP3.
jbbartram-illu
areudirty
snowghoul
stormborns
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
vaporwave
