#Suit of Armor | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starryknight-dragonarts · 22 days ago

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Aero is a young Skywing who's fire breath is considered relatively weak compared to other Skywings, but he has some unusual ability or incredible luck whenever fire is involved. For some unexplained reason, fire just refuses to hurt him; He isn't fireproof, but fire will just move around him and not touch him. Initially it was thought that he might be an Animus Dragon- (To anybody unfamiliar with Wings of Fire lore: Animus Dragons are a rare magical condition some dragons are born with where by command they could enchant an object to do just about anything they can imagine: Enchant a stone statue to become an animate assassin, enchant a wooden bowl to double any object that's placed in it, enchant a hole in the ice to produce infinite Seals! However there is a historic precedent for these Lizard Wizards to become Homicidal the more they use their powers so the Skywing tribe's solution was just to kill anybody with weird powers they don't understand before they become a problem.) -but when tested he has shown that he is not capable of casting any spells. Some Skywings still wanted to execute him anyway for having a strange power they didn't understand, but he was deemed relatively harmless and makes a very capable Blacksmith.

Aero is friendly and upbeat but he also has a tendency to be a little irresponsible, thrill-seeking, and often meddles into other Dragon's business or wander into places he's not supposed to be in.

Smith is a Skywing Animus who found out very quickly what his tribe does to hatchlings who are discovered to be Animus Dragons. He knew he needed to hide somewhere to not be discovered, so he used his magic to hide somewhere he believed he could never be discovered: Inside the body of his friend Aero, inhabiting him in a sort of non-physical form like a ghost who is able to communicate with Aero mentally. Aero is a considered relatively weak and unassuming so that benefits Smith as being his cover, but he has a vested interest in keeping Aero safe.

Being a Secret Animus and trying to protect his buddy Aero, Smith can't just go casting spells all the time or he could implicate Aero as the Animus and then they are both in trouble so Smith is careful and thoughtful about what he enchants making sure it's something he needs and has multiple applications so he doesn't need to make more spells. He made an enchantment to allow himself to control Fire.

Smith is reserved and apprehensive around other dragons having learned early on that as an animus he can not be trusted and his own tribe would kill him if they knew what he was. The only dragon he's really comfortable around is Aero and luckily Aero is the only one who can see him. Smith is creative and intuitive, despite having the capability to turn anything into a master craftwork with his magic he prefers the process of doing things himself with his own claws and values the work it takes to make something rather than it coming easy, however in his current form crafting things by claw is a little difficult.

Aero and Smith collaborated to build a suit of Armor that Smith can control remotely using or can open up and be worn by Aero as an actual suit of armor

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pluralsword · 4 months ago

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Sci-Fi Rounded/Curved Armor References

we know we usually post transformers writing stuff but as we navigate digital art, and for descriptions as a writer, we found ourselves seeking armor references for hard scifi future armor that is more rounded and curvy, and moreover not designed around human androcentric stereotype body norms. A lot of the entries in this photo may seem odd but that's because visually hard scifi set further in the future tends to assume that armor will be blocky and flat, half copying the modern military standards (even though rounded armor is a thing that heavier infantry armor right now tends to have), so we had to turn to settings that are not as realistic and whose in lore capabilities (such as energy shielding) are not either.

Fiction aside said norms are an actual problem soldiers of various militaries have complained about and that has also meant that gals whether cis or transfemmes who want to say, find a suit of recreated medieval plate armor often end up using armor accounting for modern engineering principles to actually account for comfort in the chest and having a variety of different curvatures (which of course men also have which is why we said androcentric stereotypes) apart from the fact that usually that's custom fit rather than standardized as modern military armor tends to be. Something we want to note off the bat is that some of the flaws in the armors presented above is the general lack of armor for the groin for lighter armor variants and favoring shin armor instead first, even though getting hit in the groin is painful for nearly everybody, and even if you've had a nullification surgery having your ability to go to the bathroom be impeded by injury is extremely inconvenient to say the least

So- we dug around from stuff we remembered for a variety of art references from official and/or in-game art from comics, videogames and shows that works on those principles while usually at least somewhat reflecting the current trajectory of offensive-defensive technology development, or in other words what armor in the future could look like assuming some radically new physics/chemical processes or changes in weaponry don't cause shifts. Some of the examples here are basically medieval armor redone as a spacesuit but that is a cool look. E.G. the Huntress of in-game RoR2 and RoR Returns art is actually not underarmored from a medieval perspective, a lot of professional infantry such as halberdiers and pikemen did not use leg armor much or at all in order to have higher mobility, and that is something that some tactical / special ops units today with skin tight clothing underneath somewhat reflect. for an archer, her space cuirass with arm bracers and ?leather/scifi material equivalent? banded tassets (the sideskirt armor over the cloth side skirts, tassets can also be at the front of the thigh) would actually be quite good for medieval times for the kind of combat she does.

Risk of Rain is not the only science fantasy influence we looked to, specific armors from Star Wars, Metroid, Halo, Mass Effect, XCOM 2, Half Life, (listed in order approaching realism) and Transformers (the odd one out as an inherently iterative franchise that can range from high fantasy isekai to superhero fantasy to to science fantasy to social scifi to hard scifi, Verity's armor is decidedly from a continuity that is 3 out of 5 of those genres) were also considered, along with the more hard scifi Expanse, Mars Tactics, and Selaco. The funny thing about armor design in scifi is that artists who want to make realistic considerations appear across all the different subgenres because that is something that helps with the scifi feel. We did our best to find stuff that uses convex armor principles, ie, curves outward and thus helps deflect or lesson blows away from say, one's heart or lungs. Rather than concave, which curves inward, which is why boobplate that goes past the extent of being realistically useful to the point of carving out breast shapes, which historically have only been used for ceremonial purposes or by people not expected to be in the fighting, such as commanders who hung back rather than leading from the front, because the problem with such armor is that a blow over either breast can more easily slip into into the middle and chip away or pierce into a vital area.

This is true whether for pecs or tits it doesn't matter it's a bad idea. There is, from a point of view of ritual or fashion, nothing wrong with segmented boobplate, but for combat armor it is a terrible idea, unlike concave boobplate (which frankly is what a variety of historical armor designed for men look like which is yet another point for the appearance of the body is shaped by clothing showing how much of gender is a construct tally), cavalry heels (and as far as street brawls go as compared to muddy warfare if you're good at balance in high heels those things deliver quite the sharp kick, but there's a reason soldiers don't usually go past 1-inch in terms of heeled boots), battle skirts (again, tassets, such as the heavier scale mail ones used by ancient scythian men and women, and then you have stuff like hoplite battle skirts where the leather flaps would usually have an actual cloth skirt underneath, and then you have the lengthier scythian, assyrian, celtic, and persian skirts that with the scythians could be out of leather, banded, or scale mail. these are among many other societies who have a history of combat with skirted clothing), and so on.

We went for a mix of light, medium, and heavy armor on purpose, because different amounts are preferred based on needs regarding mobility and stealth, amount of combat where enemies landing a blow is expected and what kind of weapons are being used (and thus how to approach deescalation if possible), amount of other equipment being carried or that may need to be carried or carrying injured personnel, and availability.

Note- this is not a criticism of preparing for combat *without* armor that isn't just a kevlar weave or flame resistant material or something or less than that- some situations call for forgoing armor usage either because of needing to be able to move as fast as possible or get through very tight places, or because the setting is one where armor is a bad idea. For a different example, when you look at flight suits for pilots of aircraft and spacecraft, they often don't have much armor (of course, astronauts irl are not supposed to have to worry about combat in space and we hope things stay that way even though things around satellites are getting a bit heated), and even during World War II the downside of wearing flak vests on a big plane is it slows you down and if you need to get somewhere fast say to do repairs or grab a parachute or apply first aid, and technology later changed to make them much lighter.

For a different comparison, an almost absurd Catch-22 one, from scifi, in Battletech, mech pilots ideally use cooling suits to reduce chances of heat fatigue. But when that technology was lost to most societies after several rounds of galactic nuclear wars and key industrial assassinations, most pilots typically were practically down to their underwear. Given all this, it does make sense in a way that Samus's layers under her armor is basically a jumpsuit because of the amount of heat her armor could produce (with that said, we do want to eventually try drawing her with some light armor and flight suit stylization on top of that). We do fully intend to reblog this post with futuristic scifi flight and stealth getups that we took a liking to, eventually

A friend also recommended this linked thread on people going over armor designs as something to look at starting from the most recent and trawling backwards, it has been useful!

anyway, people probably want the names of these things in the image so they can look them up, so without further ado:

-top left: Security Chief Dawn's armor (which you actually equip within gameplay iirc) from the game Selaco

-in red and white with forearm armor integrated blaster cannons: Verity Simone Carlo's armor, which first appeared, iirc, in Last Stand of the Wreckers by Nick Roche for the IDW1/IDW 2005 Transformers continuity

-the two Mass Effect armors present nearby are the N7 Defender Armor worn by MShep (couldn't find an image of canon FemShep with it on and didn't feel like booting up ME3 to photo, but this one is great because Shepard is still effectively wearing mostly convex boobplate that actually looks realistic apart from the underboob indents lmao, and the suit really accentuates curves for both versions of Shepard) Hahne-Kedar armor, and that one is sourced by the art models posted by ME3 artist Rion Swanson

-with a similar color scheme and less obtrusive shoulder armor is the Martian Marine power suit armor worn by Bobbie Draper as depicted by the amazing actor Frankie Adams in the show The Expanse (we are not in any way ready or looking to discuss the plot of the show at the moment we just wanted to bring up the armor. only so many spoons). Her armor also features a forearm sized integrated minigun

-the five armors from the Halo series present are: ODST battle dress uniform,Gen 2 MJOLNIR/V - EVA, Halo 5 MJOLNIR/R - Recon, MJOLNIR/K - Commando, and MJOLNIR/B - B-class

-we chose a photo of the Laborers from Mars Tactics specifically because they are very much on the light side of armor, only having space cloth/polymer, an astronaut helmet, greaved boots, and a remote unit/life support pack that is basically a chest cuirass ie the most bra-like realistic boobplate can get

-the armor chosen from XCOM 2 is the W.A.R. suit, which in what seems to be a running theme has a heavy forearm blaster weapon mounted on.

-from the Risk of Rain series, the default armors of the Risk of Rain 2 Commando, Loader, and Huntress are shown, along with Risk of Rains Returns art of the Huntress and Mercenary.

-the cover art of Half-Life Decay depicting player character scientists Colette Green and Gina Cross wearing the signature HEV suit (Hazardous Environment Suit) typical of Black Mesa scientists prepared for dealing with said environments, including forays to the border dimension world of Xen, and famously worn by Half Life protagonist Gordon Freeman. while not quite what hazardous material suits or bomb suit armor looks like currently irl the design is undeniably slick and didn't break any of the rules we posed for our search except the avoiding concave armor in that the mid-riff area has a remote unit indent. ah well, given that the suit is literally something you power up to reduce damage to your person, it has (within the lore) first aid capacities to administer morphine when wounded, this suit doesn't play by normal modern armor rules.

-two versions of Samus Aran's armor from the Metroid series are shown, one is her partially organic technology power suit as it appears in Metroid Dread and the other is her gravity suit as it appears in the Metroid Prime trilogy. The power suit is definitely on the lighter side, while the gravity suit is easily some of the heaviest armor shown here. the size of her pauldrons on the gravity suit is of course absurd and irl her armor would be difficult to move around in unless it's an exosuit with it's own locomotion

-lastly, Star Wars The Old Republic's Shae Vizla's armor as leader of the Mandalorian people, Mandalore the Avenger. she's sometimes shown with closer to breast tight boobplate but thats not the case for this art here

Also just want to say it's very funny to us how armor plate carriers (which are commonly used currently) are not as prevalent in scifi the further in the future of a timeline one goes

#art reference #art resources #female armor #scifi armor #armor realism #and also who doesn't love #plate armor #boobplate #realistic at that #light armor #medium armor #heavy armor #power suit #suit of armor #battle dress #women in scifi #scifi women #scifi gals

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