Spireus Reborn

Redrawing the art from a card game I made in middle school.

[soft-horns]

Final one! I went with revamping an old character from middle school. The large gem embedded in his chest allows him to reflect magical attacks, but I probably should have made it a much more saturated color to help it stand out more.

Original below the cut ((yes I tried to make my own card game in middle school, you can check out my side project to redraw the old characters @spireus))

[ubercharge]

look. look at this beautiful sword meme. i’m going to cry

[literallybyronic]

@petermorwood

[petermorwood]

I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but it’s always worth repeating, and this time I’m adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)

Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.

Here are Celtic bronze swords…

…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…

… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…

Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.

Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…

…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.

This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…

…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.

A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.

I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).

A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.

The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.

Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.

Again, the clue is the centre-line.

Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.

Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.

There’s no doubt about this one either.

The reason - though that was a part of it - wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.

However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.

Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…

…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…

There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.

These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.

NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.

The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next one’s blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.

So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.

Here’s a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesn’t even have an odd-shaped blade…

Just a very flexible one…

If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to start…

[ubercharge]

i could not ask for a better addition to my meme post than blade education thank you so much

[dduane]

Always gonna reblog. :)

[spireus]

My middle school self really did make 3 of the same dude and acted like they were totally different.

DARKNESS!

[spireus]

I've already redone Waevar

And Zelar

So I guess it's just Zeiren left to go

[spireus]

My middle school self really did make 3 of the same dude and acted like they were totally different.

DARKNESS!

[krocodilian]

Trilobite Mermaid

[spireus]

I swear I haven't totally abandoned the project, I have just been busy

[r-truth]

[gischtglas]

[hybernating-bear]

That's because this is Silmarillion

[the-commonplace-book]

[spireus]

I've been spinning my wheels on this piece and I just don't like it. I keep working on it, but I think it's time to accept that I've made some major blunders along the way and it's time to restart the process...

Sometimes that's just what you gotta do. I'm posting him anyways because I haven't posted anything in a while (hello to my 3 active followers!) and sometimes I think it's worthwhile to talk about pieces that didn't work out.

Problems I see right now:

this composition is not it fam. I had a cool idea, but I did not refine it enough.

Shading... it's all over the place, I changed my mind in the middle and got lost along the way.

That face... a face only a mother could love, and I am not his mama. Time to get out the belt sander and just start over.

Back to the drawing board!

[spireus]

just a little animation practice

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Castles - art by Alan Lee (1984)

[spireus]

Big bummer that Adobe decided to be so shady... I've been a Photoshop user for years, and things have just been going way downhill lately. This latest update to the Terms of Use was the last straw, I couldn't just shrug and go "not great on their part".

I guess this forces me to get more familiar with ClipStudio.

[spireus]

Zelar!

A huge thank you to my peeps for letting me bounce ideas off them for this piece.

Painting the clouds and magic was my favorite part.

Compared to the original, there was not much to work with. You can hardly see his face, all we see of his outfit is a black cape, and his only distinguishing feature is the pointed animal ears. This meant I had a ton of freedom with him. I gave him a grey skin tone and went wild designing him a new outfit that felt kinda fantasy anime (and huge thanks to one friend for suggesting the colors).

[spireus]

Thanks to some input from friends and fellow artists I worked out some colors for the next piece.

[spireus]

I think what's funny about the person reposting my art, then deleting my comment when I call him out on it, is they have 0 idea how unhinged I can be.

I was willing to think this might have been a young person who didn't "know better", but deleting my comments just shows they know they are wrong and they are too cowardly to even make up an excuse.

I've reported the offending piece, but I like being a problem.

[spireus]

Hi there! I am not sure if you'll get this, but I found someone on deviantart who reposted your Blade Dragon art and is passing it off as their own. https(:)//www.deviantart.)com/dinnadour/art/Dh7q3qu-6fb9a9a4-052f-40f4-86ec-de763a129756-1041020285

Thank you for letting me know. Looks like they have reposted a ton of people's art.

[spireus]

Blade Dragon

The original wasn't bad, but he needed some pizazz! Or rather, some spiky bits. He needed to look sharp!

I actually did start off with sampling some of the colors from the original as a base and added on to that. I had a ton of fun working on the pose and painting the water.

Why the heck did I make him a Fire and Air combo? What the heck, he should be Earth! What were you thinking baby me?!

[spireus]

Hard at work!