Heavy Infantry portrait

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

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irrevenant
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Post by irrevenant »

thespaceinvader wrote:It may just be me, though, but the sort of muscle that takes a modern gym, obsessive training for hours every day, 7 or 8 thousand calories a day and more often than not, steroids, looks HORRIBLE to me in a fantasy environment where those things just aren't really accessible.
I'm not a history expert, but it seems to me that rocking about all day in heavy armour would be as decent a workout as a couple of hours in the gym.

We need gyms and modern exercise routines because we don't physically work our muscles on a daily basis like they did in ye olden days.

[EDIT] P.S. the main difference between bodybuilders and strongmen is probably that bodybuilers reduce fat as well as building muscle. That's what makes them look so well defined. At the other extreme are sumo wrestlers who are insanely strong and well-muscled, but it's all hidden under layers of fat.
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Post by thespaceinvader »

Debatable. Look at someone who does hard, manual labour as a job, and you don't see a body-builder's figure. It takes specific training to get biceps the size of beach balls, and it's not the kind of training that you get from just practising in heavy armour.

I'll do what i can with this, since Jet's the one who needs to be satisfied with it, not me. But i don't personally think it's the correct course.
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Post by West »

Also (as I've said before) the common notion that you need a lot of muscles to wear full plate armor is a myth. You need stamina more than sheer muscle strength as the parts of the armor are strapped to individual body parts, and thus the weight is evenly distributed.
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Post by thespaceinvader »

My point entirely. Huge muscles are not needed for big armour. In fact, it's my suspicion that huge muscles would be very inconvenient, as they'd be a bugger to fit armour to reliably and comfortably.
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Post by Shadow »

Broad shoulders are still a sign though. Hard workers get one.
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Post by thespaceinvader »

Mmhmm. I think his shoulders look pretty broad, tbh. Not that it's easy to tell at this angle, or under the enormous pauldrons.
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Post by Blarumyrran »

thespaceinvader wrote:Mmhmm. I think his shoulders look pretty broad, tbh. Not that it's easy to tell at this angle, or under the enormous pauldrons.
width of shoulders is subjective to the length of the human. the only way to get a perception of his length is currently to judge by his neck. so, for an observer i believe it would seem the neck is too long as compared to the width of the shoulders; its the same issue, shorten neck & it will be fine imo.
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Post by Sgt. Groovy »

P.S. the main difference between bodybuilders and strongmen is probably that bodybuilers reduce fat as well as building muscle.
That, and in body-building training the muscles are isolated for specific excercise, while strongmen, and heavy manual labourers, excercise they muscles in concert, when the whole body works. This develops the musces in different ways.

Keep in mid, though, that building a bodybuilder or strongman body takes huge amount of protein in the nutrition, which generally would not be available for common people, such as soldiers, in a quasi-medieval society. The puffiest men in Wesnoth would still be far from Arnold.
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Post by thespaceinvader »

Indeedly.
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Post by Vendanna »

Sgt. Groovy wrote:That, and in body-building training the muscles are isolated for specific excercise, while strongmen, and heavy manual labourers, excercise they muscles in concert, when the whole body works. This develops the musces in different ways.
To increase muscle size they do the exercise repetitions slower so they can increase the mass, instead of fast movements, that would make the muscle different. so you are right.
Keep in mid, though, that building a bodybuilder or strongman body takes huge amount of protein in the nutrition, which generally would not be available for common people, such as soldiers, in a quasi-medieval society. The puffiest men in Wesnoth would still be far from Arnold.
This is false, the most protein your body could absorb is "2 gramos" per kg of weight, the rest dissapear on the urine, and still that will not increase your size to a hulk, the only way to inflate your body is using "anabolizying" things that will destroy your spleen, and that you will transform into "grasa" when you stop using the "treatment" so no, its improbably you would find that type of bodies, lesser on a medieval setting in which alimentation isn't as good as actual (not american, the alimentation is rather bad there for certain reasons that I'll not note there)
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Post by Sgt. Groovy »

I guess the best idea what's realistic would be ancient Greek statues of athletes. The models most likely represented the physical peak of what their technological level of food production and training could produce, and the style is relatively realistic (if the sculptors used artistic licence, it was for enhancing muscle definition). They are definitely strong, but no juggernauts of flesh.
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Post by JAP »

Thats sounds like a good idea but perhaps even better would by a statue of a soldier, like this one http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?m ... ner=Google
You can see he has a impressive "bullneck" (not sure if that is an expression in english). And he looks very strong but his muscles are a lot less defined then a modern bodybuilders.
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Post by thespaceinvader »

Bull neck is the term. But i wouldn't exactly call his impressive. However what i would call it is realistic. That's the sort of build i'd went for with the HI. I'd envision going for bigger builds with the higher levels.
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Post by thespaceinvader »

Revisited to make a few edits - hunkered his head down into his armour, deepened the chest a little, and shortened the mace handle. How's it look?
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Post by JW »

thespaceinvader wrote:Revisited to make a few edits - hunkered his head down into his armour, deepened the chest a little, and shortened the mace handle. How's it look?
I think it looks good, though his shield is now rather bland. Perhaps put some studs around the edges, or a circular bulb in the middle to make it more interesting as the rest of the pic? Just some ideas.
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