This is pretty much a follow up to this thread about armor design... http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=19582

Spearwoman equipped in style of medieval heavy infantry in 13th century.

Her weapons are 7-foot spear, a one-handed sword and a dagger.
For armor she has a kettle hat, maille hauberk (shirt) with integrated coif and mittens, maille chausses (leggings) and a heater shield.
She wears a red surcoat and has a drakaina (half-dragon, half-woman) emblazoned on her shield.

[ Linked Image ]

WOW Walter thats awesome, I wish I was able to make things like this

Great job, it's an excellent piece of art!

One thing that may be worth noting is that female contours tend to be practically invisible under surcoat, mail and aketon. Mail makes everyone look fat, especially when it hangs over the belt. :D

Nice artwork :D
Have to echo the thoughts of the previous poster, female shape is well hidden by surcoat, aketon and mail, the mail tends to fold out over your belt giving a pot-bellied look no matter how well it is tailored.
I think the wings on the spear may be old fashioned by the 13th century.
Phil

Great work. Although, I would like to see a little more aventail :eek:

What kind of software did you use (I assume it's digital)?

Fantastic work Walter :-) As other have mentioned - I wish I could draw like that. I´d absolutely love to see her with the helmet painted in black and red also ;-)

Great work - do you have a website with more of your artwork?

Søren

looks awesome. 1 point. the waist belt was a tad thinner based on the fittings found if i'm not mistaken

Actually if you're trying to make her look more feminine, making the belt more narrow might help. As well as being more realistic it would look more light or perhaps lithe.

Thanks for all the replies.

I intentionally made the armor a bit tighter fitting than would be entirely realistic, so that her woman figure is not entirely hidden.

Her weapon is a bear spear, it is based on initial requirement of monster slaying. They are definitely good in war too, as they were pretty much trademark weapons of Czech Husites in 15th century.

I used Photoshop and Wacom tablet.

You can see more of my art on my deviantART gallery

I will look into the suggested changes.

I was told that when fighting on foot, she would probably have only gamboised hosen as opposed to maille chausses. What do you think about that?

Maybe this is because I actually play games but I enjoy this sort of theoretical reality. By the way for any of you other guys reading if you haven't played Mount & Blade: Warband you're missing possibly one of the most historically accurate and most enjoyable games ever made.

Anyway, just because something isn't historically accurate doesn't mean it doesn't belong on this character. It's called "character design" and it's very important for a game/movie/other media to get right. It can ruin an otherwise awesome game. I suppose you already know this more than I do but I just wanted to get it out there.

To be honest I really like your concept here. I would actually say keep the maille on her legs but only if it makes sense. What kind of monsters is she fighting? I like the full body maille for a monster killer. It's what divers wear around sharks so we know it works well against teeth. How likely are her legs to get bitten?

I believe it was Grendel's mother who was defeated by Beowulf's shirt of maille, was it not? So even period fantasy supports maille as a good anti-monster armour.

Just because she is a foot soldier doesn't mean she can't wear something that doesn't quite fit for a foot soldier if it makes sense for some other aspect of her character.

I would also carry this train of thought to her sword. Do these monsters have scales. Perhaps a thrust oriented sword would make sense. The spear certainly makes sense in this regard.

Everything in history is born out of practical necessity. They used what worked. So if you have a fantasy scenario then historical armour may not actually fit perfectly. Historical armour was not made to fight dragons. On the flip side most fantasy armour would not even allow the wearer to move. I would say your concept strikes a nice balance. It would function and I think fits it's purpose well.

I narrowed both belts a bit and made aventail bigger, have a look at the updated picture in the first post.

while thick gambesons definitely hides body shape, mail in it self is a very heavy fabric, and follows body shape quite closely. While it makes certain parts of the female anatomy flatter, they are a lot more noticable than when wearing period dresses (that is, up untill the late middle ages...High medevial men KNEW what a female forms looked like without being constantly reminded...)

Unlike others, I don't really have much of a problem with the close fit of the surcoat, always keeping in mind that there are some concessions that must be made between historical and modern aesthetics in creating a fantasy designs. What I do find a little bothersome is the lack of fastenings. As a costumer, I don't think it's possible to achieve such a close fit in a garment that can simply be pulled over the head without any subsequent manipulation, at least not if the cloth of the garment is meant to be woven from natural fibers with historically-available techniques. This kind of close fit could be achieved using historically-appropriate construction techniques--and probably was, at least if we follow a literal interpretation of the body-hugging shape shown in contemporary depictions of 13th-century bliauts. However, we're also pretty sure that some method of fastening must be at work in order to get this kind of fit, even though we're not quite sure what the method is. The only clue we have is that it laces down the sides, and even here we're not quite sure about whether the cloth was cut in a rectangular shape and sewn closed up the sides in the manner of the preceding period (the lacing being sewn on top to draw the excess in) or that it was cut to follow the sides of the body, left open along the sides, and laced shut when it was being put on. Since we don't know which one is the correct historical method (or whether both methods might have been used contemporarily), either solution should work for your interpretation. Alternatively, if you're not that obsessive about keeping a strict 13th-century look, you could have the surcoat button or lace up the front, though this might look a little weird to the historical buffs out there. The only thing you need to avoid is a back lacing since it wouldn't have been practical for a fighting woman. OK, it might work if she was part of a buddy team that could help each other dress in the morning. But if she doesn't have that convenience, front or side laces (so that she can don the surcoat all on her own) would have to be the way to go.

Note that you can (or should be able to) make any of these modifications without entirely redrawing the original picture. Side lacings would be particularly easy to do since there's only a small amount of underarm area that you'd have to tinker with (and, well, change the way the cloth drapes around the midsection, but I suppose that's still a great deal less work than redrawing the picture from scratch).

But you have no boobs!

Seriously. The woman in the picture has really substantial breasts, and there's no way you're going to get such a close fit both there and around the waist without laces or buttons. If the surcoat is meant to be put on over the head like a t-shirt and fit reasonably close around the bust (say, with only four inches of ease), it'll hang straight down from the breasts and blouse out like a muffin over the belt since the midsection will also have to be sized for the bust (plus ease) rather than the waist. It might be just possible to trick this out by pulling the excess material down below the belt and towards the back, but this only works of the woman is standing perfectly still. Let her make any substantial movement and the blousing returns. Just look at Margot's thread and see how much blousing her surcoat shows around the waist! Granted, her surcoat is probably not cut as close around the bust as your character's, but the principle is the same.

Trust me, I've cut tunics for women. If you don't use fastenings, you'd have to contend with a lot more blousing over the belt than what we see in the illustration.

A quick painting which I did today.
Contemplating Queen - I made the tunic a bit more baggy, but now one can hardly tell if she even is a woman, oh well >.<

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Nice painting, but honestly, with the face and wide-legged "masculine" stance, I'd mistake that queen for a male, aged somewhere between late teens and early 30s... "Contemplating Prince" perhaps?