I wasn’t planning on putting this up, but my other posts are all in a state of half-completion, so why not.
I drew these a little while ago, after playing through Dragon Age 2 a second time. I wanted to make my own version of an armour item pack, more reminiscent of the classic RPGs from my childhood which I now regard with all the unreasonable nostalgia that nearly two decades can create. Kids these days, and their new-fangled pointy-pauldroned gratuitously buckled armour! They just don’t know how it was back then, trudging uphill both ways through 8-bit pixel forests. Have some respect for your elders!
Anyway. Item pack and stuff. You might recognize the quilted armour on yonder rogue, because I draw it at every opportunity. I’ve also been playing mage-type characters lately, and with particular enjoyment in this game, except that I keep coming up against the fancy dressy lady mage issue (to be fair, this is probably only an issue for me). Can’t we have some nice, gender-neutral robes? For some reason I don’t often play warriors. I also never seem to make blonde characters, so I combined the two in this version.
Normally I’d save this level of geekery for my private affairs, but I can’t help but obsess.
marianchurchland.com 
It’s ok. We understand. Good looking outfits, those. I’ve got problems with fancy Final Fantasy XIXIX clothes, too.
They could use some hats, I think. Hats are important for keeping rain off.
I had a hard time with DA, and couldn’t get into it. I wanted my (female) PC to talk to the NPCs, like my FemShep did, but no. I quickly realized that Shepard’s lines were one of my favorite things about Mass Effect and put DA down, never to play again.
Convince me to pick it back up?
I think Jennifer Hale as FemShep is one of those unrecreateable things – it’s hard to hold other games against that particular magnetism.
DA2 has a voiced protagonist, but I think there are pros and cons with both voiced and unvoiced. For me, a lot of the joy of DA:O was how much it hearkened back to all those old games I love, but I know that doesn’t appeal to everyone. I vouch for it as a game that, despite some of its silliness, and its apparently well-trodden plot elements, can take you very much by surprise.
I tend to agree with you on the designs – as much as I enjoy Dragon Ages Origins and 2, some of the designs are downright bizarre (not recent Final Fantasy levels of pointless, but still strange – as funky as the Champion armour may be, I keep wondering what functional purpose all the points and buckles serve, other than to make sure no one crowds your personal space…)
I miss functional designs, which Origins at least strove for more often than not (mages aside – why don’t mages get even a light armour or shorter robes? All that travel is going to just wreck their wear or trip them up…) It doesn’t help that I just got Final Fantasy Tactics for the iPod and it has relatively sane designs for the various classes.
All of which is a very longwinded way of saying that I am very glad that you chose to share the lovely designs!
I think DA:O did a real solid for anybody who played a warrior (or a male rogue, maybe), but mages and lady rogues were pretty screwed as far as I was concerned. Nothing gets my ire up more thoroughly than armour with cleavage. Particularly if there are no other options.
I actually thought the DA2 sets were mostly pretty decent and reasonable, other than the champion armour and the DLC armours which were less to my obsessively simple tastes.
Also, thanks!
These are lovely! That mage’s dress/surcoat thing is awesome – it feels like a practical travelling outfit while still having that regal sense that’s traditional for mages.
Thanks! That’s exactly what I was aiming for.
the warrior with her china face and chainmail coif looks all bedeckled up for court attendance but i have doubt, she will keep her head in any engagement, on or off the battlefield.
one funny thing – vincent van gogh in his doctor who appearance, would carry a wooden chair slung on his back with a belt. i would think that’d be popular with mage types who have to study their spellbooks during breaks between battle.
(i haven’t had a chance to play dragonage yet, i hope my comments are still a little tentative…)
She looks kind of naive, doesn’t she. Like she’s had more ballads than battles.
I for one stand ready to pay extra for the full measure of geekery.
What I need is some kind of Star Trek replicator for polygons. I am WAY too willing to pay for the full measure of geekery.
Who do you use in your party and who did you romance?
In DA2? My first time through I played a rogue and romanced Anders, which I didn’t find terribly satisfying. The second time I played a mage and rival-romanced Fenris, which I enjoyed a lot more.
I tried to rotate everyone through my party, but I used Varric and Aveline a lot, in particular. What about you?
Just restarted DA: Origins for the third time. Going to buy all the downloadable content and go through it and then DA2 for the second time!
Nice! That is a lot of Dragon Ageing you have ahead of you.
why wouldn’t a mage wear armor? i never got that part
you would think with however many years of magic existing, mages would invent a way to wear steel plate or dragon mail or at least mithril or something light.
but i always played rogues/thieves anyway so…
Because wearing armour is cumbersome, and spoils your spell casting? I’m happy to buy that, as an excuse to balance the classes. But I rather like the lack of armour, visually, so I’m easy to please.
Rogues/thieves are my standard as well. My interest in playing mage-types is strange and new, and I don’t quite trust it yet.
So jealous of your marker collection!
The outfit on the far right reminds me of Demon Souls, which if you haven’t played, omg do it. Some seriously gorgeous armor, none with cleavage come to mind. I liked DA but it feels a little Wow-ish in comparison? A little grindy in some areas. Demon Souls is grungy, more life and death hanging in the balance with a Heavy Metal feel, there was something a little more raw to it that kept me interested. When I hit the swing button, it makes my sword swing, when I block I block, there are chances I could miss and it’d be me who was making the miss, it’s like seeing Dnd come to life beautifully animated.
Ahh yes, Demon’s Souls… Beautiful game… even if I haven’t beaten it yet. And yeah, that ‘raw’ feel is pretty neat, and you don’t see that in fantasy often. The only other action RPG I’ve played with that feel is the King’s Field games… and those are more life and death in the sense that anything can kill you. It’s a humbling experience to be killed by a plant in the first 10 minutes, let me tell ya! XD
Thank you – those markers took a loooong time to collect.
I really want to play Demon Souls (and the upcoming Dark Souls even more). Sadly, I don’t own a PS3, or any consoles! But I hope I’ll be able to some day.
You continue to amaze. I really enjoy the practicality when you cloth a character. It really adds something to the look. Mrs. Marian, you have to post your D&D stuff, I saw it on your husbands page and I am having a bit of trouble containing myself.
Thank you sir. I don’t think I have any more D&D stuff to put up, but there will definitely be some more D&Desque game-design posts in the future. It’s my favourite thing to draw and write about.
rdkcus1 on February 13, 2011 Well I have three navigator and my brother has the 05 and 09 escelade I have the 1998 2006 and 2011 navigator but I must say I’m not a big fan of the 2011 I favor to tue 2006 it’s flashy but not over exagrerating the car I love my 1998 navigator to it’s just awesome but I’m thinking about goin to get the 2011 escelade esv platinum over the 2011 navigator
…WANT. No seriously, I’d love to see this armor in a game. It’d be especially nice to see it in Oblivion, considering a lot of modded armors are heavy armor thongs, but I digress.
Actually, I can kind of see these armors fitting into the original Final Fantasy Tactics, which is a good thing, as that game had some nice psedo-Medieval outfits… a lot nicer than the recent FF games mantra of “Belts! More Belts!”
I hate those heavy armour thongs! Though I’m also glad that they exist in mods, so I don’t have to deal with them in the vanilla game. I wish I had a background in 3D modelling, but making teapots in Nifscope was about the extent of my skills.
And the art from FFT has been a life-long influence, so you’re definitely right to see the connection there.
Actually Marian, I did see the padded armor in one of your mods… It’s one of the armors in Thieves Grotto, right? I just started using that one, actually… I’m curious about your inspirations for the armors you’ve made; they have their own distinct styles, while still fitting ingame.
If you want more NifSkope knowledge for future modding endeavors, though, I know a good place to learn… if you’re interested, let me know :)