Working on Sylvania the Elven Ground Staff!

 

Working on Sylvania the Elven Ground Staff #WIP!

I was inspired by a sponsorship ad in Lifering’s exit interview episode I have seen a while ago on Youtube.

Her war-object design is based on Sylvania of the Spirit Keep. I incorporated a few elements from her elven design, such as her chest plate, hip guards, and pauldrons, into her staff from the game.

I had some troubleshooting on her staff design. Polearms usually have a blade at the end for a long-range strike, like halberds, spears, or tridents. The blade-like protrusions on the head of Sylvania's staff don’t look like they are made for striking from the side.

 

 

For something that looks close to her staff weapon in Raid, I was able to find the Fangtian Ji, a Chinese spear from the Song dynasty (960–1279AD), designed for striking opponents directly or knocking them off their horses with the spear tip or side blade. (see also the Dagger Axe for a better context of her design).

Sylvania does not do this in the gameplay footage in the ad, she just strikes the ground with an AOE attack. So, I think it’s a staff weapon for casting powerful magic.

In this design, I exaggerated the blades and lengthened the spearhead. It made her look very intimidating in my style. A powerful and high-ranking war-staff!

Update on Pyroblast the War-Torch (Paintbrush II fanart)

I sketched out their facial and head anatomy. I like a naturalistic style with my object characters, so I added a slight curve on Pyroblast's head. I also gave them a fuller pompadour bristle style, too!

 

Wing anatomy was something I was stuck on for a bit, mostly because I was bouncing between robotic wings vs a more naturalistic bird-like wing. While designing this, I realized that polearm war-objects like Pyroblast would need some protection on their wing joints and shoulder. So I added a pauldron over the should joint that overlaps with the start of the wing and a segmented couter(?) at the elbow. I also added segmented bands over the metal primary feathers of Pyroblast's wing. 

 

As for the material makeup of a polearm's anatomy: Both flying and ground polearms are made of strong light metals and wood. The wings of a flying polearm are made up of aluminum/thin steel sheets (still researching this) enchanted with spells to strengthen them for combat, flight, and high temperatures. Pyroblast is a Heavy Class General Dread-torch, so their materials need to handle stress from high heat from their fire magic, extreme turbulence from the dynamic flight, and from any attacks from other Dread-torches.

Lower rank war-torches are mostly for aerial attacks on ground armies, while Dread-torches are castle destroyers. Castles would need defense against Dread-torches, either from using Dread-torches of their own (provided from their kingdom's capital, usually for heavily targeted castles) or using other means of anti-air defense.

I'm thinking about using this design for future flying polearms set in the Mundane Realm. For RFR, I might use a more simplified style to show how the first flying polearms still kept most of their original weapon shape before the Inversion Event.

Sketching Pyroblast the Dread-torch!

Been feeling better as of late, so I started drawing my favorite character from Inanimate Insanity, Paintbrush, as a war-torch in my style.

 

I also wanted to explore some designs for my war-torch characters. Their hair/wick shape, chest and fuel tank armor, and overall anatomy are what I have been waiting to explore for the longest time. The chest armor was inspired by this Shaffron Horse’s Head defense armor and the head design was inspired by the roman helmet with cheek guards. The overall design of all my winged polearm war-objects was based on dragonflies and the shoebill stork.

In the Mundane Realm, Paintbrush would be Pyroblast, a former Dread-torch general of Janthizera who self-librated themself from the tyranny of their own kingdom.