Swords of Central Genertela

[M Helsdon]

On 2/16/2019 at 6:21 PM, Brootse said:

M Helsdon, there are three soldiers I'd really like to see; a Thunder Delta slinger, a Silver Shield Hypastist, and a javeliner who has an amentum. Trolls too!

Here two of them are.

This also illustrates a problem: started drawing again six months ago after a gap of several decades... Latest, and one three months ago.

[Brootse]

On 2/18/2019 at 9:53 PM, M Helsdon said:

Here two of them are.

This also illustrates a problem: started drawing again six months ago after a gap of several decades... Latest, and one three months ago.

Thanks, they look great!

[M Helsdon]

27 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Thanks, they look great!

Thank you, but if this project continues - will have to redraw at least twenty of the sketches: whilst I'm very far from equaling any professional artists, I am slowly getting better at drawing, and some of the older sketches are looking naff.

Just one more to do before I assess where this project is going. There's unlikely to be much of a market for a 360 page book about warfare in central Glorantha.

Edited February 19, 2019 by M Helsdon

[womble]

53 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Thank you, but if this project continues - will have to redraw at least twenty of the sketches: whilst I'm very far from equaling any professional artists, I am slowly getting better at drawing, and some of the older sketches are looking naff.

Just one more to do before I assess where this project is going. There's unlikely to be much of a market for a 360 page book about warfare in central Glorantha.

There wasn't much market for a massive two volume tome of Gloranthan history, you'd've thought...

I'll definitely put this on my Xmas list to add to the Guide that Santa brought me last year.

[Lord High Munchkin]

15 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

There's unlikely to be much of a market for a 360 page book about warfare in central Glorantha.

No, I actually think there's probably quite a good market for a 360+ page book about warfare in central Glorantha. Osprey would be otherwise quite likely be out of business, as a fair number of their publications are very "niche".

Don't underestimate the power of the Internet to gather quite large numbers of fans desperately eager for your work.

To be honest. it would likely sell as well as 'King of Sartar' - I don't know if that's a commercial viable product for Chaosium, but I would probably say it would be a grand addition to their product range.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Lord High Munchkin
Addition

[soltakss]

On 2/19/2019 at 10:30 PM, M Helsdon said:

whilst I'm very far from equaling any professional artists, I am slowly getting better at drawing, and some of the older sketches are looking naff

I haven't seen sketches of that quality from many professional artists. 

You are selling yourself short again.

[soltakss]

On 2/19/2019 at 10:30 PM, M Helsdon said:

There's unlikely to be much of a market for a 360 page book about warfare in central Glorantha.

Everyone who saw the book at Dragonmeet wanted a copy. I only buy PDFs nowadays and I wanted a copy of the book itself, but might have to settle for the PDF.

You have done the hard work, you can either let it go and not publish, produce a free PDF or publish it as a PDF and maybe a print version. 

I haven't a clue how much money Chaosium wants up front for a supplement such as this, so it might be a gamble producing it as a print book, but if you did a Kickstarter then I am sure it would get funded.

In case you missed it, if you did a Kickstarter then I am sure it would get funded.

[Atgxtg]

On 2/19/2019 at 5:30 PM, M Helsdon said:

Thank you, but if this project continues - will have to redraw at least twenty of the sketches: whilst I'm very far from equaling any professional artists, I am slowly getting better at drawing, and some of the older sketches are looking naff.

I'll add my voice into the crowd saying that you are selling yourself short here. One aspect of this that you might not be considering is that your illustrations are not just art for art's sake, but are graphic visualizations on the people and cultures of Glorantha. It's literally the "picture is worth a thousand words" thing, only in this case you manage to show things that would be difficult to "show" verbally.  

On 2/19/2019 at 5:30 PM, M Helsdon said:

Just one more to do before I assess where this project is going. There's unlikely to be much of a market for a 360 page book about warfare in central Glorantha.

I best there is. Warfare is a pretty popular aspect to most RPGs. Like soltakss mentioned, if you tried to fund this through Kickstarter you'd succeed. You already have shown a lot more of the book than a lot of projects that are on Kickstarter.

[ChalkLine]

On 12/29/2016 at 1:20 PM, TRose said:

As far as swords in metal poor area, the Dragon Newts use swords that look like the Aztec macuahuilt and I can see the Praxian tribes and poorer  warriors using similar weapons , although they would be made out of wood and obsidian, not dragon bone.

Trolls as well, with their well-developed stone knapping culture. 

Here's a weapon I have on one of my PCs, a trollkin (RQ3, as 'naginata'):

Saw-Tooth Spear. A five foot in length weapon with a four foot elf-bone shaft tipped by an eighteen-inch long flint or obsidian blade. The last two feet of the shaft has a serrated cutting edge of flint and obsidian leaf blades horizontal to the shaft. The blades are socketed, wrapped in leather then the entire section is laminated with chitin strips soaked in resin. This limits the razor edges of the flint but makes the weapon far more robust. There is a small crossbar halfway down the shaft. Although Verzeg doesn't know it it's known as a 'Trollkin Bread Knife' in New Pavis. 2.0 Enc

 

[M Helsdon]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

I haven't seen sketches of that quality from many professional artists. 

Sadly, six months ago, my sketches were more than a bit rough.

There's an important distinction between fan and professional artists. A professional artist can draw almost anything, from any angle, and these days probably has access to digital drawing tools to make the process faster; a fan artist cannot do these things, unless they are very very good, and usually lacks the digital tools, and takes longer to draw things than a professional. For example, the latest sketch is shown below - took about five hours, and has been digitally altered... using Paint. A professional would probably draw something similar in less than an hour. [I'll probably make more digital changes tomorrow.]

The reason I started drawing these is because a reviewer wanted annotated pictures of people in armour - I couldn't afford professional artists' rates, so decided to try my hand. There are now about sixty sketches in the book - and another twenty that were abandoned/redone.

 

Edited February 22, 2019 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

2 hours ago, ChalkLine said:

As far as swords in metal poor area, the Dragon Newts use swords that look like the Aztec macuahuilt and I can see the Praxian tribes and poorer  warriors using similar weapons , although they would be made out of wood and obsidian, not dragon bone.

The 'book' covers the use of stone, bone and metal weapons, as well as a few other materials. It doesn't tackle non-human arms & armor in any depth, because I didn't feel competent to do so.

Praxians use bone and stone weapons, and have magics to aid their manufacture, because 'hot metal' is taboo, but happily use metal weapons when they can get their hands (or paws, as the case may be) on them. Orlanthi who can't afford metal will use stone or bone - for that matter, well into our Bronze Age, stone tools and arrowheads remained in use for a long time.

[Rob Darvall]

6 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

The 'book' covers the use of stone, bone and metal weapons, as well as a few other materials. It doesn't tackle non-human arms & armor in any depth, because I didn't feel competent to do so.

...

And I routinely flick to this page to demonstrate what I'm talking about to my players. Despite your doubts you are producing a work that is already a valuable resource for harried GMs. This whole project has, from the start, been kept alive by fan work, just ask MOB or Nick Brooke, or Rick Meints or Ray Turney and the list goes on and on.

[Runeblogger]

17 hours ago, soltakss said:

I haven't a clue how much money Chaosium wants up front for a supplement such as this, so it might be a gamble producing it as a print book, but if you did a Kickstarter then I am sure it would get funded.

Although Chaosium's Fan Material Policy does not allow kickstarters, their Commercial License does, and I bet they would grant it to you.

If you don't dare publish the book in physical format due to the involved costs, I suggest selling the PDF. I would buy it. It's an incredible resource for GMs, if only to show the pictures to the players during games.

[7Tigers]

I guess we now really need the launch of the Glorantha equivalent of the Miskatonic Repository on DriveThruRPG as:
. Royalties to Chaosium are automatically managed
. Print On Demand option has been recently activated

Edited February 23, 2019 by 7Tigers
typo correction

[M Helsdon]

Rework 'done'  to make armor look more like Moon-Iron (silver).

Now I need to do a few format changes, generate the index, generate the PDF and dump it in DropBox.

There are now only three chapters where there may be some growth (unless interesting material comes to light about arms, armor, regional warfare): Gods of War, Armies, Army Lists. If I do any more new sketches, they might fit in the index as the index/sources end on an almost empty page.

Additional: v5.8 sent to Chaosium and licensees. Only half a page free at the back of the book (ignoring three 'incomplete' chapters).

 

Edited February 23, 2019 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

I am starting to redraw some of the illustrations, working through the chapters. First reworked one from chapter two - left, new; right old.

[Byll]

I really liked the eye-in the sunburst motif on the wall regiment shield that appeared earlier. I appreciate it didn't fit with the objective of showing some of the 2H spear and shield fittings, but to my mind it's strong enough to be worth recycling somewhere.

[M Helsdon]

13 hours ago, Byll said:

I really liked the eye-in the sunburst motif on the wall regiment shield that appeared earlier. I appreciate it didn't fit with the objective of showing some of the 2H spear and shield fittings, but to my mind it's strong enough to be worth recycling somewhere.

That was in a preliminary sketch - will hopefully be redrawing one of the Stonewall regiments this week and may make use of the design. Very few regiments, as I understand it, have uniform shield decoration.

[M Helsdon]

Rework not complete - digital changes and corrections to be made (hands and feet need work - in a rush copied the original too closely) - but the very first sketch redrawn. Sword is too small - can fix.

The eight-pointed star is a symbol of Polaris. Whether the eye is apotropaic or an 'I'm watching you' threat, or symbolises the eye of Polaris, I don't know.

Edited February 27, 2019 by M Helsdon

[Mankcam]

I'ld certainly pay for a book of these 😎

[Steve]

Wow, these are lovely, Martin.

[M Helsdon]

Three more redrawn or redone. The Snakepipe guard and Lasadag Lion originals were modified. Fifteen or so to go, though several were damaged by a bad cat with wet feet so will have to be redrawn.

These three were the first to be drawn six months ago.

Edited March 1, 2019 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

Not much free time today...

New/Old

/Source of the helm.

Edited March 2, 2019 by M Helsdon

[Sir_Godspeed]

Wow! Which culture is this handsome fella from?

[M Helsdon]

20 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Wow! Which culture is this handsome fella from?

Orlanthi - his armour indicates he's a wealthy Urox worshiper.

Of course, Orlanthi is as 'useful' a cultural template as, say, 'Keltic' as it also covers a wide region (and time).

Latest - redrawn.