The Design You Miss

There is nothing complicated about this one. It's a Monk fighting a Shadow Knight. And while the premise is simple, what it allowed me to examine about EverQuest's armor design was eye opening.

This was one of the first combat or action pieces that I did. Obviously, given the amount of Iksar in my paintings, that is the race I played to explore the world and network. Painting this fight meant I had to grab some VERY limited screenshots of existing armors or characters from the classic era, and use my own screen grabs as I explored the world and met new players.

Since there are no "dwell time" algorithms on Artstation for how much time you spend on my posts, I would like to genuinely invite you to explore the lines and layers of the armors portrayed in this fight. Let's first start with the Iksar (Lizzid peeple).

The armor he's wearing is called Black Pantherskin. Could you have guessed that just by looking at it? It's blue, it has stone-looking textures on the shins, bolts around the boot-line, knee pads, layered protection and more bolts or fasteners on the quadricep, before a thigh guard, crotch guard, and let's not even start on the area that's being obscured by the massive sword.

Now, look at the Ogre. His armor is massive, and what you can't see is that it's layered in a way that makes the shape of a skull on his chest. It's rough, grainy, but also solid-looking and somehow flexible because of how its stacked on top of each other. The boots are shaped into feet, giving it a simple and primal look, long before Vibram made their Five Finger shoe-line.

Your brain clocks it, but doesn't dwell on it. It's fantastic and curious armor design. The Iksar design of the Black Pantherskin armor doesn't tell you that it's probably worn by a lizard person. However, the Ogre's armor definitely alludes to the size and primal/rough nature of it's wearer.

Originally, I just wanted to paint a cool picture of my character fighting the scariest looking thing I could find that is also a playable option. What I ended up glimpsing was an iceberg of design and care that extended to every zone, building, character, and item.

Thanks for sticking around in this long post.