Recent content by Slytacular

There is a mid-13th century written dialogue of a conversation between a King and his Prince son in Norway, "The King's Mirror". It goes into a lot of depth about how the Norwegians understand the world at the time, as well as everyday life, including details about how their Hird system works, fighting, and equipment. https://archive.org/stream/kingsmirrorspecu00konuuoft/kingsmirrorspecu00konuuoft_djvu.txt

The Swedes are basically a Viking society until the Birger Jarl reforms in the later half of the 13th century. The Norwegians exited out of a civil war that got a lot of their aristocracy killed, and the King's Hird system is pretty different- including "The Guests", "Candle Men", and the "Table Men" for example. The Danes are probably the more modernized of the two Scandinavians, and would resemble a bit closer to a Central European society.

I wouldn't focus too hard on a broad "Feudalist" system, because different regions do things rather differently in different eras. I would suggest making different cultural groups have their own style of government system. The Almohads and Scandinavians are very different from an Anglo-French system. HRE is also a tad different as well due to the election of an emperor. I would focus more on what the different systems look like during the early 13th century. The 14th century was a total upset after the 13th century due to the Bubonic Plague- a lot of peasants weren't tied to their land anymore, and were able to export their labor services, this included a gradual increase of mercenaries as well which was normally shunned in the 13th century.

From my own broad interpretation of Medieval European armies that I see a common pattern, I would suggest 4 main categories of troops:

Archers being professional commoner soldiers notably trained for specialization in bows and crossbows (good armour, good melee, good ranged). Splits between Longbows (or Recurved bows) and Crossbowmen in the troop tree.

Sergeants for personal retinue of Lords and Knights, and are essentially militant serfs (decent armour, decent melee, decent horseback, decent ranged). Splits between Polearm on Foot (with or without shield), Cavalry, and Crossbowmen (or uses bows) in the troop tree.

Militia are the Medieval equivalent of Greek city-state Hoplites. They are tradesmen who trains for war on the side, and help police their towns and cities (decent armour, decent melee, decent ranged). Splits between Polearm on Foot (with or without shield), and Crossbowmen (or uses bows) in the troop tree.

Knights being straightforward of Page to Squire to Knight. They can also be personal retainers of a Lord, but are aristocrats of their own right (excellent armour, good melee, good horseback). They are primarily a cavalry role, but can make good foot infantry. Pages would probably resemble foot soldiers.

I always thought that the lance system was more of a 14th century thing? You should read about Geoffrey de Villahouin in his bio of the 4th crusade and the Latin Empire. He describes the Brabantians as wearing a heavy amount of armour. Also, where do you get your information about Scandinavians? Norwegians, Danish, and Swedes are pretty different from each other. I can tell that there might be some influence from the King's Mirror. Too bad you don't want to extend to the East, because there is a lot going on with the Latin Empire, Bulgarians, the Byzantine Successor States, Khwarazmians, the Seljuks, and then a Mongol army arrival.

Big Daddy Vitallion, please please please don't make the Gauls look super outdated in terms of equipment next to Romans. I hate it when people make Gauls look like something from 1st century BCE in a 2nd-3rd century CE setting. Especially when Gauls are directly exposed to Roman equipment on reliable consistency.

I think its important to add in Tuetonic Order/Livonian Order instead of "crusaders", and then add in Sweden and Denmark as factions. Those are extremely critical factions involved in the Baltic Crusades. Especially since the 13th century Rus were heavily involved in these conflicts. Direct people involved would be Estonians, Lithuanians, Finland, Yotvingians, and other various Prussian groups. If you add these factions, I'll be willing to donate some of my 3D models I've made for Scandinavian and Baltic factions.

I don't mean for it to be historical. I'm thinking purely in terms of what works and functions anatomy wise using historical armour as the anatomical reference for the sake of immersion. Bannerlord characters are probably going to bend along the waist, and its weird to watch what is supposed to be a flat metal plate bend.

Yeah, thanks for accepting the criticism! There are a handful of other breastplates guilty of bad anatomy in the completed preview section of the OP, but I wouldn't get mad if you don't alter them, because it does take a butt amount of time as an artist to fix these. For example, the Gondor actors in the Peter Jackson films are wearing something like a 16th century style of breastplate which do work, but they're a little stiff when it comes to bending over (I also wonder if the breastplates are loose because they're not form fitting either?). However, those armours do have some practicality versus flat anime style breastplate armours. Leather straps around the arm isn't bad design, but there are such things as lacing if you want to consider that. Especially on maille shirts, its perfectly capable to tie strings on the maille to hold floating metal plates, as well as minimize the strings from being cut in the process.

The guy on the far right breastplate does not work in terms of anatomy. Breastplate should end where the rib cage is, and it should be rounded out. Otherwise, the person can't bend over and will be stiff. Also, the breastplate looks like it is designed to impale the person's neck. I would round out or have a semi-circle cut on the neck area. The elbow piece looks weird on the forearm and it needs to be on the elbow. The V piece on the front is a semi-okay feature, but it has a flaw where anything pointy will slide towards the maille aventail. Maille rings will pop and be useless to anything with a diamond shaped point (think bodkin arrows or frankish lances). Otherwise, its okay-ish against stuff that tries to cut and slash, but I wish Roman would've painted something like a rivet or rondel, so that the V piece can be lifted or something. The double belt just looks weird.

I only have beef with the far right guy. Everything else looks terrific.

It seems like you have some flipped faces I think? What program are you using? Should also really learn the magical wonders of boolean and bevels.

I hope the armour fits the Bannerlord Human model.

Tegulated armour worn by Swedes:




Tegulated armour worn by Prussians fighting against Tuetonic Order:

Aventails like that decline over the late 15th century, so Maille doesn't have to be included.

@adorno Are you making OSP buildings for a 19th century period? It looks good!

Working on a Riveted Maille Armour material in Substance Designer.

Adorno said:

Slytacular said:

Made this the other day in Substance Designer.

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That tea looks strong.
Seriously, it looks good. Very believable swamp/bog.

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Thanks!

Made this the other day in Substance Designer.

Hey guys, does this look human enough? I'm trying to go for a default human character that is lean and toned with an unbalanced physique. Pretty much going to use this model to dress up in Early Medieval style clothing and armour.

https://pasteboard.co/HLMMAxs.png
https://pasteboard.co/HLMML2I.png
https://pasteboard.co/HLMMWeq.png