The Basitin Military in 3D: Part 6 - Battle on the Bridge

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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Future Work TEASER (fixed)

#46 Post by Thallium »

Neptune wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 9:34 pm Maybe I should write a little stint on a bunch of Kerbal explorers finding this little planet full of weird energy and stuff, then it gets a bit nasty after they settle the place and mine the resources. The Kerbin's allies start putting sanctions on the self-sufficient fellows.
Well the story board section is right there, always good to get more content on here. Or hell, you could wait for the September writing contest and submit of that if you wanted.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Future Work TEASER (fixed)

#47 Post by Neptune »

Thallium wrote: Mon May 07, 2018 9:34 am
Neptune wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 9:34 pm Maybe I should write a little stint on a bunch of Kerbal explorers finding this little planet full of weird energy and stuff, then it gets a bit nasty after they settle the place and mine the resources. The Kerbin's allies start putting sanctions on the self-sufficient fellows.
Well the story board section is right there, always good to get more content on here. Or hell, you could wait for the September writing contest and submit of that if you wanted.
Sounds fun, though I might not put it here and on TKG instead, since that's where I mostly go now
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#48 Post by Thallium »

Part 8 of the Illustrated Guide. Today is the turn of the longbowman, a master of ranged combat who's primary attribute is strength, not dexterity as video games would have you believe. After this, the half way point, I think there is a decent step up in quality as most the images you've seen thus far were done towards the beginning whereas most of the ones to come were done nearer the end. And on that subject, next week will be this series's mascot (the one featured in my signature), the Lieutenant Commander, the second highest ranking basitin we will be looking at during this series. Enjoy!

Any problems viewing these images, you can find them mirrored on my FA: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/thallium/

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There are few things more devastating to morale as watching everyone around you get skewered by dozens of arrows. The only thing more devastating is being the one getting skewered. Basitin longbowmen are renowned for their perfection of the art of massed ranged combat, with particular emphasis in their drill going towards being able to let fly arrows quickly and in unison with their comrades. In order to pass their training, a longbowman had to be able to loose a quiver of 60 arrows in 10 minutes; each perfectly nocked, drawn and released at a target 32 paces away, with every one required to be a hit. This was no easy feat considering the 6 ft. 2 in. longbows with which each man went into battle had a draw weight of 150 pounds and thus required immense strength to be able to use for a sustained period of time. It is for this reason that those recruits who choose to enrol in a longbow company spend the first few months of their enlistment doing nothing but physical exercise and weight training in order to even begin to approach the standard needed to use their mighty weapons of war effectively. It is no surprise therefore that, like the cavalry, the longbow companies prefer initiates with a certain type of background, in this case in physical labour, be they hunters, farmers, dockworkers or the like.

On the battlefield, each archer carries with them a quiver of 72 arrows with the expectation that they would be resupplied from behind the lines as the battle progressed. Once battle was joined and the enemy came within range (typically around 260 paces), the marshal in command (as pictured here) would give the order to nock arrows, upon which every man in the company would draw an arrow from their quiver and rest it against the heavy flax string. Upon the command of draw, the men would keep their right hand, holding the string, steady while pressing their whole body into bow, bending it forwards instead of backwards while simultaneously raising it to an angle of 45 degrees for maximum range. This method of bending the bow was essential as, due to the poundage of the weapons employed by the basitins, drawing with the right arm only soon became impossible, especially over the course of a long battle. Instead, using ones whole body to bend the bow forwards greatly improves the energy efficiency of the motion and helps alleviate muscle fatigue. Finally, upon the command of loose, the company would release their payload into the sky where it would soar like a cloud of deadly birds before falling to the earth, extracting its grizzly price from those unfortunate enough to be in their way. This tactic of simultaneous fire was usually employed at the start of combat for the shock-and-awe effect it had upon the enemy. However even the strongest of archers would be hard pressed to keep up this kind of sustained fire for particularly long and so as the fighting progressed, longbow companies typically switched to volley fire: having the front rank loose their arrows first and then the second rank, then the third and so on, enabling a continuous volume of missiles to be brought down upon the heads of the foe while giving each man a short time to rest in between each draw. In practise, this also helped solve the resupply issue as less arrows were consumed by the company as a whole and so less trips needed to be taken by the young cadets who usually did the supply runs.

Since the standardisation of equipment which modelled the entire army on the armour pattern first worn by the greatswords, the longbow companies have found themselves much more heavily armoured then they had been in days gone by. As such, their armour is of the pattern found throughout the military, although with a few exclusions necessary for them to perform their primary function, namely the omission of the spaulder and gauntlet on their right arms as wearing such would impede their movement too greatly. Arrows are typically made from poplar wood and the bows themselves from yew, with the outer side consisting of the sapwood which performs better in tension and the inner side of the heartwood which resists compression, forming a natural laminate. The finished construction is treated with wax or tallow to weather-proof it, a necessary feature for an army on campaign in all climates. Longbowmen additionally carry the short sword, or "burrick", used by the shieldbearers as well as a small metal buckler for use in close combat if they find their position overrun. These armaments, combined with their armour and training, allow the companies to vigorously defend themselves if attacked and many a foe has fallen before their fury under the misguided impression that the archers would be easy pickings.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#49 Post by Technic[Bot] »

Thallium wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 12:33 am -snip Cat/rabbit person with bow snip-
There are few things more devastating to morale as watching everyone around you get skewered by dozens of arrows. The only thing more devastating is being the one getting skewered. Basitin longbowmen are renowned for their perfection of the art of massed ranged combat, with particular emphasis in their drill going towards being able to let fly arrows quickly and in unison with their comrades. In order to pass their training, a longbowman had to be able to loose a quiver of 60 arrows in 10 minutes; each perfectly nocked, drawn and released at a target 32 paces away, with every one required to be a hit. This was no easy feat considering the 6 ft. 2 in. longbows with which each man went into battle had a draw weight of 150 pounds and thus required immense strength to be able to use for a sustained period of time. It is for this reason that those recruits who choose to enroll in a longbow company spend the first few months of their enlistment doing nothing but physical exercise and weight training in order to even begin to approach the standard needed to use their mighty weapons of war effectively. It is no surprise therefore that, like the cavalry, the longbow companies prefer initiates with a certain type of background, in this case in physical labour, be they hunters, farmers, dockworkers or the like.
USCS? Come on metric system is all the rage these days! Not even Britons use that anymore. I know it is customary to use lbf in bow related stuff, but bow are now made from composite modern materials, it really is time for the field to move on.
Also... 150 pounds draw weight? That is almost 70 kilograms, almost as much as my weight! these rabbit-guys must be incredibly large and muscular to pull that off, quite literally. Thanks god for modern springs and carbon fiber. you can get similar effects with much less arm.
In any case you inspired me to some good old fashioned bow science. And if you are interested this little paper deals with a lot of the bows mechanics. God bless Arxiv.

In terms of the drawing itself it is a little flat on his right arm and the platemail. Interest reading as always, half expected the Basitin to use crossbows thought.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#50 Post by Thallium »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 4:42 am USCS? Come on metric system is all the rage these days! Not even Britons use that anymore. I know it is customary to use lbf in bow related stuff, but bow are now made from composite modern materials, it really is time for the field to move on.
Of course we, modern, educated and scientific people use metric but we're talking ye olde times here! Random measurements that don't go nicely into each other is all they have.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 4:42 am Also... 150 pounds draw weight? That is almost 70 kilograms, almost as much as my weight! these rabbit-guys must be incredibly large and muscular to pull that off, quite literally. Thanks god for modern springs and carbon fiber. you can get similar effects with much less arm.
Yup its a lot, and not even as heavy as I could have made it while still being historically accurate. Much of the bow stats I used are based off the finds from the Mary Rose, a ship from Henry VIII's time that sank and contained a treasure trove of near pristine bows and arrows. The bows on that ship ranged from 100 pounds draw weight (about as heavy as any bow is made today) and 185 pounds draw weight, so I'm thinking that if a medieval archer could manage something that powerful, a basitin shouldn't have too much of a problem.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 4:42 am In any case you inspired me to some good old fashioned bow science. And if you are interested this little paper deals with a lot of the bows mechanics. God bless Arxiv.
That's an interesting paper there, I quite like people applying a rigorous scientific method to something historical like archery. Not my area of science so I skipped the equations but interesting to read nonetheless.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 4:42 am In terms of the drawing itself it is a little flat on his right arm and the platemail. Interest reading as always, half expected the Basitin to use crossbows thought.
Yeah I was way too timid with shadows at the beginning, I didn't really understand how they worked so I kinda just drew a line around the edge and called it a day. I think I've gotten a little better since then but you'll have to be the ones to tell me that in some of the upcoming pieces.

I considered giving them crossbows but didn't for two reasons. One is that as far as I'm aware we've only ever seen them use bows (e.g. page 505 which is coincidentally about when I first started reading the comic) and two, historically speaking, crossbows tended to be used by those soldiers who didn't have the training to be able to use longbows. A good example of this is the English and the French in the Hundred Years War where the English used longbows because they had a culture of training to use them since a young age whereas the French did not and so instead equipped their soldiers with the more expensive but easier to use crossbow. Given how military training from a young age is kinda the basitin's thing, I assumed that they would most likely have used longbows.

Also, only 100 views until you can see a teaser of the fruits of my labour with 3D. It's kinda embarrassing how much it blows what I've done previously out of the water.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 8: Longbowman

#51 Post by Thallium »

And here it is, a taster of the kind of step up in quality you can expect after the series goes 3D. The change will happen when the current run of images ends. I don't know how many I'll be able to finish by the time I start uploading them but hopefully the quality will more then make up for lesser quantity.

Any problems viewing this image, you can find it mirrored on my FA: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/thallium/ (in the scraps folder).

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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#52 Post by Technic[Bot] »

Thallium wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 5:31 pm
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 4:42 am Also... 150 pounds draw weight? That is almost 70 kilograms, almost as much as my weight! these rabbit-guys must be incredibly large and muscular to pull that off, quite literally. Thanks god for modern springs and carbon fiber. you can get similar effects with much less arm.
Yup its a lot, and not even as heavy as I could have made it while still being historically accurate. Much of the bow stats I used are based off the finds from the Mary Rose, a ship from Henry VIII's time that sank and contained a treasure trove of near pristine bows and arrows. The bows on that ship ranged from 100 pounds draw weight (about as heavy as any bow is made today) and 185 pounds draw weight, so I'm thinking that if a medieval archer could manage something that powerful, a basitin shouldn't have too much of a problem.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 4:42 am In any case you inspired me to some good old fashioned bow science. And if you are interested this little paper deals with a lot of the bows mechanics. God bless Arxiv.
That's an interesting paper there, I quite like people applying a rigorous scientific method to something historical like archery. Not my area of science so I skipped the equations but interesting to read nonetheless.
An archer that strong, no matter if I could get close to him, he cloud simply punch me into oblivion. Even if those rabbit dues seems small and skinny they do sure pack a punch! Also this minutae and specific knowledge is why I thought you were a history major.
On the other hand if you do not mind me asking: what is you area of research?
Thallium wrote: Tue May 15, 2018 4:57 pm And here it is, a taster of the kind of step up in quality you can expect after the series goes 3D. The change will happen when the current run of images ends. I don't know how many I'll be able to finish by the time I start uploading them but hopefully the quality will more then make up for lesser quantity.

Any problems viewing this image, you can find it mirrored on my FA: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/thallium/ (in the scraps folder).

-Scary Snip-
"¡Santa madre del purgatorio un Nahual!"
Oh sorry the picture startled me. However i am incredibly surprised. The detail in the armor is incredible just what did you textured it with? And the fur i did not know you could do that i commercial level software on a user level computer!
However the nose looks a bit plastic and the armor looks like it was painted by with an oil based paint for some reason. In any case color me impressed!
Also I still find these 3D basitin quite scary...
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Future Work TEASER 2

#53 Post by Tetrahedron »

This is freaking amazing!

Which program do you use?

I envy you for your skill!

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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#54 Post by Thallium »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 2:10 am On the other hand if you do not mind me asking: what is you area of research?
I am a protein mass spectrometrist. TL;DR: I weigh proteins. It was actually trying to find a way to create higher quality figures that I stumbled upon 3D in the first place.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 2:10 am "¡Santa madre del purgatorio un Nahual!"
Oh sorry the picture startled me. However i am incredibly surprised. The detail in the armor is incredible just what did you textured it with? And the fur i did not know you could do that i commercial level software on a user level computer!
However the nose looks a bit plastic and the armor looks like it was painted by with an oil based paint for some reason. In any case color me impressed!
Thank you! It is just textured with an image of actual metal with a bump map applied to make the little raised parts so it doesn't look flat. I am quite proud of the fur. It did take a little while to sort out but once I got the shape and combed it all in the right direction it was reasonable straight forward to work with; the whole 4K image (which this is a part of) only took 15 mins to render of my GTX 970 so I think you'd be surprised what kind of stuff you can do on a home computer these days.

I see what you mean about the nose (the armour is supposed to look like it is painted after all), the main reason I have left it as you see it is that the final image you guys see won't be nearly this high resolution, otherwise it would be massive and you'd never get a good perspective of the piece as a whole. So at the kind of resolution the finished product will be at, you can't actually see any fine details on the nose at all so I didn't bother giving them a proper texture. Maybe I'll look into doing some super high-res version but most upload sites have a limit of resolution they will accept so I'm not sure about that for now.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 2:10 am Also I still find these 3D basitin quite scary...
Good, you should fear them...
Tetrahedron wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 5:45 am This is freaking amazing!

Which program do you use?

I envy you for your skill!
Thanks, the program is Blender and it is completely free and almost every bit as powerful as the commercial programs companies like Disney and Pixar use. Think GIMP to Photoshop. I highly recommend you give it a look, there are plenty of good tutorials on how to work it on YouTube.

Thanks to you both for your support. When they start to come out, the 3D images will be a mix of re-dos of the kind of style you have seen thus far for my 2D stuff (aka character spotlights) and actual full scenes that I would never have attempted to do in 2D. That taster is from the Shieldbearer re-do.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Future Work TEASER 2

#55 Post by Thallium »

Part 9 of the Illustrated Guide. Today we will be looking at someone a little higher up the ranks then we have looked at before: a lieutenant commander. These officers have vastly different equipment compared to that worn by the common soldiery we have seen before and so it was a nice break to draw something different with this one. My favourite part was definitely the plume; took a long time to get that looking right I can tell you. Next up, we will look at the musician, a member of the great marching band that plays when the army is on the move and even during battle to lift the spirits of all who hear them. Enjoy!

Any problems viewing these images, you can find them mirrored on my FA: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/thallium/

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The basitin system of government is, by definition, a military junta. However whereas in other states such an amount of power concentrated at the top of a military hierarchy would be seen as a negative, for the basitins it is the only way of life possible. This is because every single one of them over the age of 12 is a soldier under arms. No one quite knows when this total militarisation of the population occurred and under who's authority, only that it was many centuries ago and that it now defines the basitin way of life as they (and all the other races) know it. Not every man and woman is under active service of course, a functioning state could not exist if they were, however all those who take up civilian crafts and labours do so under the knowledge that they are reservists of the great military machine and that, should the time come, they will be called to serve for king and country. Thus as with any organisation of near comparable scope, the military has a hierarchy of ranks with each subsequent being superior to the last. The majority of the population find themselves on the lowest rung, a rank that has no defined name and is instead determined by the role in the army or navy the person is enlisted in, for example: shieldbearer, halberdier, marine and the like. Above them are the optios, the first taste of real command for those found with potential, and above them are the marshals, shining golden beacons that represent the pinnacle of the basic company system of organisation. But of course this is not where the chain ends and beyond the marshals lie several further rungs of the ladder, each with increasing responsibility but decreasing definition of what exactly their role entails. Pictured here is a lieutenant commander, someone who is about halfway up the chain of what are usually called the "senior officers".

The basitin military does not have a separate career path for senior officers compared to the common soldiery. Every man, woman and child starts at the bottom of the great chain and must work their way up one way or another. While nepotism certainly does exist, the principle that the stature of your parents has no inherent baring on your own station in life is almost unique to the basitins and is completely anathema to the rigid social hierarchies found in both human and keidran societies. While noble-born lords from other lands may scoff at this frankly quaint way of doing things, it gives the basitins a distinct advantage in everything from warfare to politics because, as a mostly meritocratic society, it usually means that the best person for the job gets the role whereas the other races most rely on a limited pool of nobles to fill all high-level positions of government.

Lieutenant commanders will typically have anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 soldiers under their command and in battle are usually given responsibility for a specific section of the line, with a limited amount of autonomy to deviate from the plan as agreed by the higher-ups to allow them to react to an ever changing battlefield. They can typically be found about halfway between the soldiers at the front line and the general at the rear and are accompanied at all times by a signaller (one of higher rank then those who serve with the companies and with a larger warhorn to enable orders to reach further afield) as well as a small retinue of bodyguards from either the Du'hadrin or the Akorshakai. Either mounted or on foot, this small command squad is a potent fighting force in and of its self and serves as an essential link between the command elements at the bottom and the command elements at the top.

The armour and equipment of senior officers, while still mostly made according to a set pattern (albeit a more sophisticated one) and issued out by a state armourer, has much more room for embellishment and personal taste then the mass produced pieces made for the common soldiery. For starters, all senior officer's armour is tailor-made according to their measurements, a process which would be impossible to do for all the regular soldiers. This precise fitting is necessary because the increased complexity of the officer's armour means that the tolerances between each moving plate is far lower then the simpler armour worn by the ranks. As such a "few sizes fits all" approach is impossible because it would greatly limit the officer's movement if (and usually when) they are required to physically fight in a battle. In the armour pattern shown here, the designation of the lieutenant commander's rank is the full length, longitudinal plume of red-dyed horse hair atop the helmet. The rest of the armour, while mostly of the standard pattern, has been tastefully embellished with a subtle amount of gold trim, paid for with the lieutenant commander's own money. This practise has been an accepted tradition for as long as anyone can remember and is seen as a small reward for, what is usually by this time, decades of service. As officers of comparable rank are usually in charge of multiple different types of soldiers, their weapon is no longer determined by the units they serve with and is down to their own personnel preference. In fact, while most senior officers opt to use a longsword for it's ease of carrying, some prefer to use different weapons such as warhammers, axes and even sword and buckler, often as a way of acknowledging the units they started their careers in.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#56 Post by Technic[Bot] »

Thallium wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 9:37 am
Technic[Bot] wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 2:10 am On the other hand if you do not mind me asking: what is you area of research?
I am a protein mass spectrometrist. TL;DR: I weigh proteins. It was actually trying to find a way to create higher quality figures that I stumbled upon 3D in the first place.
I imagined you would be either have a biology or chemistry background but i read a tint of physicists too. In any case i never managed to take a real college level optics course, thought i wanted to, and chemistry really is not my thing. But its still sound mighty interesting, I don't quite remember were i heard it but someone once told me that proteins are the building blocks of life.
In case of scientific figure production i would recommend matplotlib for python or even Matlab in case your university/department/company has the money for the licence. These are optimized for scientific figure generation, whereas most other software is made for the artistic person in mind. That is why is very damn hard to do 3D artistic modelling on CAD software, but i digress...

Thallium wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 9:37 am
Tetrahedron wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 5:45 am This is freaking amazing!

Which program do you use?

I envy you for your skill!
Thanks, the program is Blender and it is completely free and almost every bit as powerful as the commercial programs companies like Disney and Pixar use. Think GIMP to Photoshop. I highly recommend you give it a look, there are plenty of good tutorials on how to work it on YouTube.

Thanks to you both for your support. When they start to come out, the 3D images will be a mix of re-dos of the kind of style you have seen thus far for my 2D stuff (aka character spotlights) and actual full scenes that I would never have attempted to do in 2D. That taster is from the Shieldbearer re-do.
Ah good old open source no-bull GNU GPL license. It brings joy to my heart that such a project is powerfull enough to produce that kind of result. It reminds me when pixar started experimenting on animating fur and bragged about how they have to animate every stand by hand to get a realistic feel. Computing has really come a long way.

Thallium wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 10:31 pm Part 9 of the Illustrated Guide. Today we will be looking at someone a little higher up the ranks then we have looked at before: a lieutenant commander. These officers have vastly different equipment compared to that worn by the common soldiery we have seen before and so it was a nice break to draw something different with this one. My favourite part was definitely the plume; took a long time to get that looking right I can tell you. Next up, we will look at the musician, a member of the great marching band that plays when the army is on the move and even during battle to lift the spirits of all who hear them. Enjoy!

-Very long and interesting snip-
First let me tell you i love the officer armor. A problem when trying to do historical/realistic armor is that it tens to look bland and boring as historical arms were designed to keep you alive, not to be flashy except for ceremonial armor but that was not worn in battle so same point applies. On the other hand fantasy armor tends to be overly ornate and in some case plainly unusable at best and make no god-dammed sense at worst.
But your design is quite appealing, ornate enough to be interesting yet functional enough to be believable and useful in combat. Love the longsword too the white metal makes it look stylish and the green handle gives a nice contrast. The shading and lighting is on point.
Also given that he is the mascot of the series would he happen to have a name or is he only one of the hundreds of unamed officers their military posses.?
My only question is how would traditional plating and helmets would work when the user has a muzzle and a tail...
Thallium wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 9:37 am
Technic[Bot] wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 2:10 am Also I still find these 3D basitin quite scary...
Good, you should fear them...
The way i read it Basitins are supposed to be ironic. These small and cute cat/rabbit folk turn out to be fierce warriors. Who would have thought? In any case i know this interpretation is wrong. If you go to the bottom of Tom's deviant art you will find the earliest sketches of proto-basitins, which like more like furry fairies or something...
My only complaint about the basitins is their militaristic culture. Nothing wrong with the idea or implementation in the comic or here but these types of societies have never been interesting for me.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#57 Post by Thallium »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 10:10 pm I imagined you would be either have a biology or chemistry background but i read a tint of physicists too. In any case i never managed to take a real college level optics course, thought i wanted to, and chemistry really is not my thing. But its still sound mighty interesting, I don't quite remember were i heard it but someone once told me that proteins are the building blocks of life.
In case of scientific figure production i would recommend matplotlib for python or even Matlab in case your university/department/company has the money for the licence. These are optimized for scientific figure generation, whereas most other software is made for the artistic person in mind. That is why is very damn hard to do 3D artistic modelling on CAD software, but i digress...
It does bridge the 3 sciences pretty well although I try to focus as much on the biology as possible as that's where my training lies. That is certainly an apt way to describe proteins, they are involved in one way or another with almost every cellular chemical reaction and they're what is encoded by your genes so its difficult to overstate their importance.

*hurk* MATLAB. I know it's incredibly useful but I try avoid it as much as I can. Nothing turns me off faster than coding (and physics in general really). SigmaPlot and GIMP have served me perfectly well so far for 2D stuff and I'm lucky in that I'm in one of the few disciplines that can actually make use of 3D software at all (check out the Protein Data Bank and I'm sure you can figure out how).
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 10:10 pm Ah good old open source no-bull GNU GPL license. It brings joy to my heart that such a project is powerfull enough to produce that kind of result. It reminds me when pixar started experimenting on animating fur and bragged about how they have to animate every stand by hand to get a realistic feel. Computing has really come a long way.
And I've only been using it for a few months. If I'm still doing this in a few years time I have no doubt I'll be able to produce something perfectly photo-realistic. If you want a good comparison of what Blender can achieve compared to Pixar or Disney, check out their Open Projects short films. Have a watch of some of those, especially the most recent ones like Cosmos Laundromat, and tell me with a straight face that you can tell a difference in quality between them and your average Pixar movie.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 10:10 pm First let me tell you i love the officer armor. A problem when trying to do historical/realistic armor is that it tens to look bland and boring as historical arms were designed to keep you alive, not to be flashy except for ceremonial armor but that was not worn in battle so same point applies. On the other hand fantasy armor tends to be overly ornate and in some case plainly unusable at best and make no god-dammed sense at worst.
But your design is quite appealing, ornate enough to be interesting yet functional enough to be believable and useful in combat. Love the longsword too the white metal makes it look stylish and the green handle gives a nice contrast. The shading and lighting is on point.
Also given that he is the mascot of the series would he happen to have a name or is he only one of the hundreds of unamed officers their military posses.?
My only question is how would traditional plating and helmets would work when the user has a muzzle and a tail...
Thanks very much, it was nice to do something that wasn't the standard armour pattern for once (incidentally, if you're getting sick of it, you'll only have to see it 1.5 more times in the series). The design comes from 3 places: the curiass is historical, the helmet is from Dark Souls 3 (minus the plume) and the rest is partly the steel set from Final Fantasy XIV (an obscure source I know). I felt combined it had a good balance of historical and style points. I'm a sucker for a shapely longsword (which is possibly why the Witcher 3 is my favourite video game, so much beautiful longsword porn) and I had to get my favourite colour into one of these somehow so I thought it might as well be here. As I said in previous posts, I was much too timid with the shading in the past so it's good to know that the level here is about right.

I hadn't thought to give him a name, although now you've mentioned it, I think I know just what it should be. Jason Wight.

As far as the practicalities of wearing the armour, curiasses typically stop approximately at the coccyx anyway so I don't think much adjustment would be needed for a tail. As for a muzzle, well as you can see if you look at historical examples (including the one here), visored helmets tend to project out away from the face in order to create a steep angle against which arrows and physical strikes glance off rather than the steel absorbing the full force of the blow. On humans this creates an air gap in front of the face so for a short-muzzled race like basitins, I don't think they would have too much trouble fitting their muzzles into this gap. The only modification you should really have to make would be holes for the ears.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 10:10 pm The way i read it Basitins are supposed to be ironic. These small and cute cat/rabbit folk turn out to be fierce warriors. Who would have thought? In any case i know this interpretation is wrong. If you go to the bottom of Tom's deviant art you will find the earliest sketches of proto-basitins, which like more like furry fairies or something...
That's one of the things I like about them, they're full of surprises. They could have been orcs or whatever to get the whole war thing but instead they're so much more nuanced.

Ah yes the 3 magician girls, he's come a long way since then. Fun fact that I'm (99%) sure about, those girls from the start of his DA have been reincarnated as the 3 western basitin girls from the recent comic pages.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 9: Lieutenant Commander

#58 Post by Thallium »

Part 10 of the Illustrated Guide. A slightly early submission this week as I will be away over the weekend. Today we will have a look at the musician, specifically a drummer in the great marching band that plays at public ceremonies, occasions of celebration and on the march to battle. It was interesting trying to do the hand poses for this one, I can see now why everyone hates having to draw hands. Like the signaller, this picture also has some text for you to decipher, although hopefully it should be a little more visible this time. Next up will be the apothecary, a battlefield doctor who sometimes spends more of his time ending lives then saving them. Enjoy!

Any problems viewing these images, you can find them mirrored on my FA: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/thallium/

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The first thing most people notice when they see a basitin is, not surprisingly, the large ears. Far from being just for decoration, a basitin's ears are supremely sensitive, not only able to discern quieter sounds than humans and even keidran can hear but also both higher and lower pitched ones. It is no wonder therefore that music is an extremely important part of basitin culture and the way this manifests itself with regards to the military is in the Corps of Music. Ostensibly a non-combat role, a member of the Corps' marching band must memorise more than a hundred songs spanning centuries of history and tradition, with old classics rubbing shoulder to shoulder with new and inspiring anthems. To be a composer and have your melody inducted into the Corps' musical lexicon is a great honour, even more so if it is played at some great event of state or in celebration of some great victory in battle.

An army on the move is not a subtle thing and even the most short-sighted of enemy scouts would be hard pressed to miss the regular, organised columns of the basitins on the march. The Corps embraces this lack of a need for discretion by striking up a tune almost as soon as the columns form up and usually not stopping until the hour is late and the troops retire to their tents for the night. Band members usually have one instrument they specialise in but the vast majority are capable of playing more then one in order to enable them to fill any gaps in the rota should a band member be unable to play for reasons of injury or death. The soaring refrains of the marching band greatly invigorate all who hear them and enable soldiers of the army to march longer and faster then one would expect, even from the famously indefatigable basitins, allowing the army to cover surprising amounts of distance every day. Many times has an enemy commander been caught out thinking his foe was a day's march away, only to look out of his tent flap that morning to find a glittering host already formed up for battle against him.

Music of the sort produced by instruments of wood, hide or brass is a major part of the Corps' role in the military, however it is not the only one. For above all other forms of music that are valued by the keenly sensitive basitins, none is prized more than that of the voice. Go to any family occasion, any public celebration and even any battlefield and it will not be long before voices are raised in song, with all those in attendance encouraged and sometimes even expected to join in and sing along. It is no surprise therefore that the great majority of those more than a hundred songs a member of the Corps of Music has to learn include a vocal component, be it large or small. In order to facilitate the singing of these songs, a significant minority of the Corps' members do not play any instrument at all and are instead a part of the choir, a group that includes both men to supply the bass and tenor as well as women to supply the alto and soprano voices needed for the numerous complex, interwoven parts that feature prominently in many of the best-loved songs. Just like in civilian gatherings, many of the common soldiers join in with these exhortations, with the choir forming a nucleus about which tens of thousands more voices join in a verbose ensemble that can shake the very ground upon which the army treads.

The Corps also has a small role to play during battles as well as on the march to them. While usually silent in order to allow the orders conveyed by the warhorns of the Royal Corps of Signals to be heard above the din of battle, small sections of the band, usually the drummers like the one pictured here, are tasked with embellishing certain orders, most commonly the call to advance. Once the call has been given, the drummers will strike up a beat for the soldiers to march in time to. This ensures that the front line moves as one with the same pace and so prevents certain units from pulling ahead or falling behind and so opening up gaps which could be exploited. While members of the band are not expected to go into combat, they are all trained in the use of and therefore carry the burrick, the short sword most commonly associated with the Shieldbearers and worn by most other units as well as a side arm. However, not every battle goes in the basitins' favour and so there inevitably comes a time when the Corps must down instruments and draw their blades to defend themselves. This is the darkest time for an army as it signifies that the battle is almost certainly lost and has thus been immortalised in the saying: "res ad musicus venit", which translates to "it comes down to the band", a signifier that the fighting will carry on to the bitter end.
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#59 Post by Technic[Bot] »

Thallium wrote: Mon May 21, 2018 4:11 pm
*hurk* MATLAB. I know it's incredibly useful but I try avoid it as much as I can. Nothing turns me off faster than coding (and physics in general really). SigmaPlot and GIMP have served me perfectly well so far for 2D stuff and I'm lucky in that I'm in one of the few disciplines that can actually make use of 3D software at all (check out the Protein Data Bank and I'm sure you can figure out how).
Well you are talking to a guy that codes even when writing reports so yeah i may not share your opinion on that area. Also all areas of science these days require computing in some way or another In any case it depens on what you want to do. Matlab and a lot of other packages realle, offers numerical and symbolic simulation which is pretty damn useful.
Thallium wrote: Mon May 21, 2018 4:11 pm I hadn't thought to give him a name, although now you've mentioned it, I think I know just what it should be.
Jason Wight

As far as the practicalities of wearing the armour, curiasses typically stop approximately at the coccyx anyway so I don't think much adjustment would be needed for a tail. As for a muzzle, well as you can see if you look at historical examples (including the one here), visored helmets tend to project out away from the face in order to create a steep angle against which arrows and physical strikes glance off rather than the steel absorbing the full force of the blow. On humans this creates an air gap in front of the face so for a short-muzzled race like basitins, I don't think they would have too much trouble fitting their muzzles into this gap. The only modification you should really have to make would be holes for the ears.
Sounds like a pirate.
My question was more related to how a muzzle a tail and those ears would be such a large unarmored targets. I am surprised we have not seen many basitins with amputated ears or tails. And the muzzle provides a leverage point, a fulcrum if you like. Grab it, twist left, twist right and you got one less rabbit person to worry about.
Thallium wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 2:45 pm Part 10 of the Illustrated Guide. A slightly early submission this week as I will be away over the weekend. Today we will have a look at the musician, specifically a drummer in the great marching band that plays at public ceremonies, occasions of celebration and on the march to battle. It was interesting trying to do the hand poses for this one, I can see now why everyone hates having to draw hands. Like the signaller, this picture also has some text for you to decipher, although hopefully it should be a little more visible this time. Next up will be the apothecary, a battlefield doctor who sometimes spends more of his time ending lives then saving them. Enjoy!

Any problems viewing these images, you can find them mirrored on my FA: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/thallium/

-Musical Snip-
I loved the image of a bunch of Basitins at festivals singing and playing instruments cute. Yet the idea of a whole army breaking into a song before battle. Well that makes me a bit nervous.
Not much of a music buff so there is not much else i can comment, except perhaps that with their good hearing they might actually have songs that a non-basitin would be unable to hear. Also with that kind of hearing would their army be susceptible to sonic attacks? A well tuned horn and you might disable large swathes of the basitin army whit a noise you can't even hear! Then there is also the possibility of sonic armament developed by them but they seem a few centuries behind that.
On the matter of the drawing, his left arm looks funny, seems like it is on a plane on front of his chest. In fact look like he dislocated his arm...
On the other hand i had not noticed you really draw some nice hands! (pun intended) Those structures are really complex and very hard to draw, you basitin hands are not perfect but they are certainly good even at weird poses. (And kilometers better that what i could dream of drawing).
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Re: The Basitin Military: An Illustrated Guide - Part 7: Bombardier

#60 Post by Thallium »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 5:29 am
Thallium wrote: Mon May 21, 2018 4:11 pm I hadn't thought to give him a name, although now you've mentioned it, I think I know just what it should be.
Jason Wight

As far as the practicalities of wearing the armour, curiasses typically stop approximately at the coccyx anyway so I don't think much adjustment would be needed for a tail. As for a muzzle, well as you can see if you look at historical examples (including the one here), visored helmets tend to project out away from the face in order to create a steep angle against which arrows and physical strikes glance off rather than the steel absorbing the full force of the blow. On humans this creates an air gap in front of the face so for a short-muzzled race like basitins, I don't think they would have too much trouble fitting their muzzles into this gap. The only modification you should really have to make would be holes for the ears.
Sounds like a pirate.
My question was more related to how a muzzle a tail and those ears would be such a large unarmored targets. I am surprised we have not seen many basitins with amputated ears or tails. And the muzzle provides a leverage point, a fulcrum if you like. Grab it, twist left, twist right and you got one less rabbit person to worry about.
Haha not quite a pirate or a beach volleyball player. It is in fact a shameless bit of self promotion. Jason Wight is an alias used by one of the character in my Art of War story, so it makes sense that Jason Wight would have been a real person known to that character at some point who then took on their name. Fun fact, that name will appear again in one of the last images of this series.
I think I remember quite a few basitins in the Basitin Isles story arc that had if not missing then partly damaged ears. Keith is of course one, general Alabaster has a missing half and even Alaric had some scars there; I'm sure they'd be others if we went back to look. As for muzzles, I think they'd only be a significantly greater target if attacked from the side which is of course possible but less likely than the front. I guess these are just some of the thing we'll never quite know as no furry analogue has ever existed in our world.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 5:29 am I loved the image of a bunch of Basitins at festivals singing and playing instruments cute. Yet the idea of a whole army breaking into a song before battle. Well that makes me a bit nervous.
Not much of a music buff so there is not much else i can comment, except perhaps that with their good hearing they might actually have songs that a non-basitin would be unable to hear. Also with that kind of hearing would their army be susceptible to sonic attacks? A well tuned horn and you might disable large swathes of the basitin army whit a noise you can't even hear! Then there is also the possibility of sonic armament developed by them but they seem a few centuries behind that.
Yeah I've always thought that music should be a super important part of their culture and the marching band was one of the first soldier types I knew I wanted to include when I was planning this over two years ago. I always had in mind the Skyrim theme when thinking of the kind of music they would play when marching into battle: a distinctive orchestral theme with strong vocals.
No doubt about having songs and perhaps even whole instruments that other races cannot hear; makes you think doesn't it? We can't even imagine what that would sounds like but it would be perfectly natural to them.
If you could hook up a dog whistle to a megaphone you might have the perfect anti-basitin weapon. Shouldn't a problem for comic-era basitins as I doubt any of the other races have a good enough grasp of science but it could definitely be a problem these days.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 5:29 am On the matter of the drawing, his left arm looks funny, seems like it is on a plane on front of his chest. In fact look like he dislocated his arm...
On the other hand i had not noticed you really draw some nice hands! (pun intended) Those structures are really complex and very hard to draw, you basitin hands are not perfect but they are certainly good even at weird poses. (And kilometers better that what i could dream of drawing).
I see what you mean about the arm; I think its a combination of my old nemesis: perspective as well as poor placement of the drum strap, making it look like there's a hard boarder there when in reality there isn't. If I were to redo it I think I'd drag the strap more over to the centre of his body and that should help a bit I think.
Looking at reference photos of drummers, they tend to hold these quite weird poses with their hands which is what I was trying to emulate here. Basically it a was a lot of trail and error and drawing and then deleting over and over until I got what I thought was half descent. Once is enough though, no more 2D hands for me.
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