All she could hear were the sound of hooves. Wind cut across her face as she sped across the plains, her beast kicking up dirt as it galloped with all its might. She was not alone, her loyal subjects rode all around her as they always have and will from now till their dying day. That is if it comes before victory.

Up ahead, steel warriors drove their mighty steeds which were armoured likewise onward. The sound of hooves battered in unison with the sound of clanking steel. The warriors steadied their arms and held their lances straight, ready to strike through their foes.

As the distance closed between the two sides, she readied her bow and swiftly drew an arrow from her quiver. Her men all followed suit, knowing the process well enough. She stretched her bow as far out as she possibly could and if it wasn’t for the roaring sound of the galloping horses, she would have been able to hear it creak out in pain. Despite the ache that was building up in her arms, her aim was steady. Her target was the metal rider racing towards her, glinting in the afternoon sun. She knew instinctively that it was not yet time to strike, their arrows at this distance would not pierce the tough skins their enemies bore.

Thoughts raced through her mind as the metal rider grow larger and larger within her sight as he closed in. Under that steel skin was a human being, just like her. It was a life that she had to take and that fact made feelings of guilt and uncertainty rise within her heart. But she soon steeled her resolve, and abandoned those feelings. Guilt, uncertainty, remorse, compassion…. they were all unnecessary feelings now. She bore upon her back the weight of an entire nation. As the last surviving member of the Imperial family, it know fell upon her to lead her nation through these times of strife. She had to gather those brave enough to fight, reunite her scattered nation and defeat her enemies, both of her own kin and the intruders. But to do all that, she would first have to kill that steel rider. That one life was inconsequential to the number of lives that now danced on the palm of her hand.
The time was ripe, and her heart beat in unison to the galloping of her steed. She had already done this many times before, and knew just when to release her arrow. There was no need for a signal, and as her arrow slashed through the air towards its target.

He held onto his lance, knowing that in mere seconds that his lance would find its way into the heart of his enemy. But he felt something amiss, there was a sharp pain in his throat. As he looked to his sides, his fellow men were falling off their steeds one by one. He then noticed that an arrow was protruding out of his neck. All strength left him he arched backwards and off his beast, with the last sight he would ever behold being the clear blue sky.

One by one the warriors released their arrows with lethal accuracy and as if guided by the wind, they stitched themselves upon their designated targets. The fletching ensured their flight through the air, and their steel tips allowed them to penetrate the shining skins of the steel riders. Strength left the steel riders as their once firm grips on their lances loosened. The once steady warriors fell limp and dropped off their horses one by one, left behind in the dirt with nothing but starved vultures to mourn them.

The princess automatically slung her bow over her arm, and held onto the reins of her steed. She reflexively maneuvered aside, avoiding the now riderless armoured warhorses as they rode on unaware that they have lost their masters. Her battle group split into two, riding around the steeds of their enemy. Steeds they would later claim as their own once the battle was over. Her men gave a out a roar of victory and they reunited past the steel warhorses. However this was going to be a long and bloody war, and their battle have only yet just begun.

…….

Currently a nameless story, with a nameless princess. A young girl with the responsibility of an entire nation shoved upon her back. She has to lead her nation to victory in a losing war.

Basically there were two nations. A nation that prospered on agriculture, based on feudal/medieval/warring states period/whatever Japan. Then there was a nation situated upon the highlands and thrived by using the metal and stone they could acquire from mines for building and smithing. The two nations met each other and hence began trading their resources and expanded beyond what they could alone. The highlands soon became dependent upon food from the farmlands to sustain their growing population.

The farmlands under various circumstances which I don’t feel like explaining right now soon became unable to provide for the highlands. Negotiations fail, highlanders get pissed and ride off to war… essentially raping the farmlands with their superior armoury.

Basically a samurai vs knights sort of story A realistic sort of war story where armour deflects swords and katanas are kinda useless.I’ll add more drawings and explain things in more depth in a later post.

Finished this a while ago, my final production for my university assignment. My first time using 3ds max. Characters are all based off my Doll Wars creations…. although the captain has undergone various changes into a more knightly figure. All because its my first time and I have no idea how to do cloth and cool leather trenchcoats so I decided to keep things simple.

Animation is rather iffy due to my messing up at how many frames some things should take. But I did my best. Might work on it more in the future, maybe use proper textures instead of the cel shaded look….

Need to finish the design on Eleanor. She’s meant to the be real protagonist after all.

Its kinda over here by 2 hours and 40 minutes, but its probably still going on somewhere. Trick or Treat?!

Original Sketch

Background Colour Experimentation 1

Background Colour Experimentation 2

Another bunnygirl Eri, standing pose to show the outfit in its entirety.

Probably redesign Crescencia next.

More cosplay shenanigans. A different sort of bunnygirl Eri. Decided not to use the traditional bunnygirl outfit like last time and added my own twist to the outfit. Might do another drawing of the outfit since I designed it and all, and in a standing pose so you can see the outfit better.

Eri in the Persona 3 school uniform. To commemorate P3 Portable? No idea, just decided I liked the uniform I guess. There isn’t even a gun to the head or Persona floating out or anything, so its not very Persona-ish and more just cosplay.

Suddenly the boss wasn’t happy with my Altrouge design and then there was all these alternative ideas floating around….
But I have pride in my own design skills and decided to push my design forward and upgrade it. And here is the result. Boss says to lose the crown…

In the end I’m not sure how Altrouge is going to turn out in Type-A. In the event that my design isn’t used, I probably have other ideas for my design and a character, setting and plot to assign to it.

A frontal sketch without any obstructions. I think I like the new look better than the old look.

I needed to draw again, so I pulled Erika Rosenthal back in her original form and revised the design a bit. Felt I was going a bit too far with trying to fit her in a new style Nazi sorta getup. Should visit her roots, Battle Maid Chronicles is what she was made for anyway.

As for what spurred the design changes…. the old one just started to bother me. Like it wasn’t good enough. But I spent so much time on her already, I’m not going to let the whole idea fall out of favour with me.

Design changes would be:
-Full Apron with added puffiness
-Neater Hair
-Longer sideburns
-Butterfly emblem on her waist
-New skirt
-Different boots
-Took out the collared undershirt with the necktie. Too much of a clusterfuck around there for it to remain after I decided to use a full apron.
-New sword – COMBAT SWORD

Her new sword is meant to be a elongated combat knife essentially. I know I drew it too long in that image, considering it has a one handed sized handle. Gave it a pointless serated bit for the whole combat knife aesthetic. As for how functional it actually is, that is a different matter altogether.

Not sure if the whole combat-knife-sword aesthetic actually suits her. The kimono top is asking for a katana to be paired with it. Combat knife katana? No idea anymore! Maybe I should toy with it a bit more. Somehow I want to avoid using a katana, since its a bit cliche. But then Battle Maid Chronicles is essentially bagging out cliches….

Probably do a different drawing later where you can see the whole full apron without a sword in the way.

Remember Aspergillus Oryzae? Something I started a while back and gone nowhere with…. well its getting a revival. As Kuchikami no Sake. Yet another random arse name. Mouth chewed sake… basically how they used to make it. Chew rice, spit it into tub, let it ferment. Fun stuff.

This is basically a link to the old stuff.

Changes! Main character is now… a miko. Yes a miko.

Shiori. A miko. As a character, she might actually be different…. in ways but not quite I guess. Outfit inspired by Artonelico and Kannagi.

She travels around and is generally polite, soft spoken and seemingly nice. If you piss her off, she shows it by… attacking you rather casually in her same polite soft spoken tone. In a way, that makes her incredibly evil. Super indifferent verbal assault. And it hits you in all the soft spots.

She still likes to drink I suppose. Rather unbecoming of a miko. Maybe her personality changes when drunk…

Generally a helpful person. Like Ginko of Mushishi or something. Like if she has nothing to lose by helping people, she might as well. Unless you’re a total prick and its helping you be more of an asshole or something.

All that aside… I should think more about it. Since she’s going around, meeting all kinds of mythical creatures and things, I wonder if I should link her to some goddess or mythical being. Either way she’s a bit weird for a miko, traveling. And not belonging to a shrine. She probably comes across and helps out at a bunch of shrines as she moves along.

Lastly… Group Picture!!
YUS GROUP PICTURE!!
A fox priest, hairy samurai, buff Oni, even hairier Hibagon, a Tsuchinoko, a Kuchisake Onna and a Kappa. And my design sketch bits of Shiori.

I guess I could at least elaborate about these guys. 300 words is a bit unbecoming of me.

Fox Priest! He’s a priest in the sort of way everybody follows what he says. So he essentially rules this town of his. Nobody knows he’s a fox spirit though. Miko miko comes in, and does some of her little investigating on him mainly because she’s bored and curious and finds out his true identity. But since he’s not actually doing anything malicious and is just… bored and wants to run a town…. she doesn’t really do anything about it. The whole premise is a big load of about nothing anyway.

Samurai guy! Due to lack of any real conflicts, he’s kinda jobless. So he decided to try fit into society but he looks too scary so he’s a bit stunted. He tried offering bodyguard services to travelers and stuff, but when he walks up to them, he’s mistaken for some criminal causing them to run off and spread bad rumours about him. So he’s kinda been living in the wild… so he’s a bit dirty. And if he’d just wash his face and cut his hair, he wouldn’t be looked so badly upon. Well one day he meets the miko who doesn’t run away for once and hires him as a bodyguard. Although in actuality she hired him so that she’d have somebody to talk to as she traveled from one place to another. She tells him to shave and wash his face if he doesn’t want to be treated like a criminal but he refuses to for some reason or another.

Hibagon! Harry monkey thing. She meets it in a forest and maybe finds some Hibagon village. No idea what else. Tsuchinoko… probably unchanged from previous incarnation. She tries fishing, and hooks this guy and they start smacktalking. And then get drunk. Oni will probably remain unchanged too.

Kuchisake Onna! A spirit of a woman who had a ‘Joker’ treatment. Just go wiki it.
Miko miko its requested to take care of this evil spirit. So by the folktale or whatever, when it asks AM I PRETTY? She goes, heh I’m much more beautiful! And it leads to some kinda bitchfight involving a metal fan meeting a knife. Evil woman gets subdued somehow. Should think about more details. Damn woman kinda deserved getting her mouth slit open anyway, for cheating on her husband and toying with the delicate hearts of men around the place!

A friggin Kappa. Well I haven’t really thought about shit here either. It was quite arbitrary when I decided to draw it in the corner. Evil ugly thing that eats children. Maybe its actually not such a bad creature in my rendition. No idea. I’ll get to it someday… I’m lacking focus right now.

Until next time I guess.