[COMPLETED - ARMOR CONCEPT] Armun An shield

Check my post in iron shield design regarding grips, fun fact - there was an event where me and my historical reenactment brotherhood could chill and talk a lot with Polish riot police, and they seemed to agree that a double strap grip is not always the best idea, since their shields are mainly for protection from stones, bottles, molotovs and firecrackers being thrown at them, and a singular grip lets you move it out and cover a bigger area. And yeah, being squished in a dense crowd and pushing with it is perfectly possible with a single grip as well, especially if you brace your shoulder against it. And most importantly, Skyrim shield animations are for a singular grip only...

The way of attaching the shield is not that important. It will be solved eventually by the modeller to fit the game's requirements. 
Just get rid of all that concerns the handle, and focus on the overall shape and aspect. I love the fact that you chose  a riot shield as main inspiration for those bulky football players. Try to play around with more different shapes, that's the most important. You don't necessarily need to have a rectangular shield.

Keep it up!

Bonemold is not melted bone. It's a mixture of bonemeal and resin, which is then cast into mold. Hence, the name.

I think, these shield designs are more fit for chitin and trollbone armours. Alternatively, shapes like these could work for ashlander-made bonemold items, as they use shells of native fauna for their molds.

Additionally, natural is not something i would use to describe Hlallu art style.

The last ones are a bit more boring...

Here, however...
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G is interesting. F needs to be used for something, it's gorgeous.

D and E are great and fitting, in my opinion. I'd choose them. D is more classical, E is more original, but both are very cool!

I want the D.

I think D with the horns from B would be awesome. Something interesting to play with on bonemold shields is the fact that they're much easier to mind into novel shapes than metal or wood - you could have bumps on various parts (for bashing), intricate trajan's column-like reliefs etc.

You could have kept vertical line in the middle. Otherwise, looks perfect to me!

Tres cool! J'adore.

Fantastic work dude!
I also just came to say that I love your style of illustration. Would love to see you do stuff for the in-game books or maps.

Seems a little impractical to have the shield cover everything but the face in my opinion. Other than that though great job, I'm loving the look of the design.

darkslayer49

Seems a little impractical to have the shield cover everything but the face in my opinion. Other than that though great job, I'm loving the look of the design.

Obscuring your view is often what gets you killed. It's less important to have your face covered, than to have a good field of view - that's why in medieval times nobody worn a visor down in a melee, only during a horseback charge, or advancing to a besieged castle. Not to mention a crook on that side also allows for more weapon arm mobility.


I really like that final shield design, it's got a nice silhouette and works with the armor. I'd still make it a touch smaller though, as NPC's will be holding it horizontally when in an idle position, and if it's too big it might not look well.

But that's just a little difference, other than that I'm not sure if the wood and leather is necessary here. I know having multiple materials is always more interesting, but bonemold is stiff and strong on its own, and adding wood and leather seems like unnecessary weight. At the same time, a shield made from Dunmer materials only seems much more exotic and native, and more materials is more work for the modeller, while not many people will give much attention to the back of the shield.

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Here's a very rough sketch of an alternative shield back. Note that I also straightened the grip and pushed it in - a flat shield with a grip sticking out does not work at all, the grip has to be in the very middle of balance if it is to be operable.

I see what you mean by the wood feeling out of place, but I think it does look a little too weak at the joins between the segments now. The dark rectangles seem like they could be easily bent, deforming the whole shape of the shield. It would be good if you could have a couple of vertical slats either side of the handle, either wooden planks, long pieces of bonemold, or maybe even a more exotic alternative, such as the bones from a Silt Strider's legs.

Otherwise, looks amazing. The shape is absolutely perfect.

beautiful, but jesus that thing must be heavy.
Defence +1000 ingame I assume? it could stop a clanfear dead in its tracks

@FDT 2 That's amazingly detailed!

I am agree with Drago - such materials must be pretty deficient and non-traditional on island.
I wonder if some intact bones could be used instead of wood.
There can be variant with visor_holes / cancellated_parts (to completely match police shields), but maybe that's too complex for damn elves :)

While I disagree that wood on Morrowind is too scarce for use in shields (c.f. wooden beams in Hlaalu interiors, wooden furniture and use on ships etc.), I do think it's unnecessary here, and makes the already-heavy looking shield look heavier. Also the flimsy-looking leather straps and rivets attaching the wooden boards to the bonemold plates don't look ready for battle. I think some extra struts (wooden/metal/bonemold etc.) either riveted or moulded (if made of bonemold) would be perfect, but they would have to look very solid or it would look like the shield could easily split into pieces given a strong hammer blow. The alternative is to have the plates directly bonded and moulded into eachother - this could be done while maintaining the segmented look by having them, for example, molded together on the front down a central spine and more completely on the back of the shield. 

One thing I think should be noted is that the shield has a very rough and organic form in comparison to the Armun-An armour, which is very smooth (i.e. straight or neatly curving lines). This is actually one concern I've had about this armour, though in general I really like it. Bonemould should be organic in shape, but the Hlaalu set really isn't. Either the armour needs to be made less smooth or the shield needs to look less organic.

Why not use a frame of metal bars, instead of the wood? It seems a little out of place with the bonemold piece. Another suggestion would be to add an upwards pointing bonemold spike or two on the middle front for that extra nasty shield bash. Simular to the orcish shield in Skyrim.

I really like this shield shape, and compared to the concept the armor was made much more rough looking, enough for this shield to be fitting anyway. I also like the idea of using intact bones as a frame, in place of wood.

It catches the old Morrowind feel, but looks completely different, which is good, excellent even! Hell I'd go into battle naked with just that shield.

Nailed it.

The face holes version looks awesome, plus the little horns and maybe some more carvings and the front of it is perfect in my book <3 for the back I really like the look of the siltstrider legs but I'm also convinced you could come up with something even better :) One thing however is that it doesn't really match the armor, however that's because of the armor, not the shield, the armor looks a little bit to nice and polished. Keep up the great work and hopefully your writer's (designer's?) block is over soon

Really hard to choose between, they all look so cool! But I think the one with the face holes is too uniquely awesome to not do. For the back my vote goes to having one piece, but that's only a mild preference. Edit: I've just realised that the redoran guard shield had a similar thing going on with the faces holes - perhaps this design should be transferred to the redoran shield?

If you feel lack of ideas, use more ribs and spine as grip. However, such thing can be "too unique".
And chitin-legs variant is great too. Use of more abundant species than silt-strider recommended (Shalk for example).
 

why not mix both of them ?

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I like the last FDT's concept the most, and I'd go without face holes. Not because they look bad or anything, but I'd just save that idea for the Gah Julan shield, which had these holes in Morrowind. For the sake of variety.

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What are leather strips for? I thought that's intact bone parts.

Looks solid.