Continuing on from Mike H’s last post of his awesome pirate designs, here’s a look at what I did with the Pirate divers.
This image is actually the finalized piece from my first live draw. If you were able to be there for that, it was in its infancy and has evolved from this…
Into the first image shown above. Here’s how.
If you read Huddleston’s last post on his mining process, he explained that the pirate designs were a mixture of rearranged giant crab wear and garments, so I thought it would be cool to show you where the crab shell idea started to form. The thought behind the look of the Divers was patchwork suits. Something not well made, almost put together from different found parts. Most likely parts that were found on ships they’ve seized.
My first thought was it would look really cool to see a sewer cap-type helmet on these divers, just visually. But then I thought, it would be difficult to look through all these awkward holes so the function wasn’t there. That got me thinking, maybe this can work based on the whole patchwork suit vibe. The head gear wouldn’t necessarily match their head shapes as they were just trying to make it work with what they’d found. Some divers would have helmets too big for them, or their eye holes wouldn’t match. Maybe some helmets were made for 3 eyed alien heads which had 3 viewing holes. I think some of this was covered during the live draw.
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After the live draw, I went back to the suit cuz it just didn’t feel done. It looked cool, but needed one extra thing that would set it apart. So, I came up with the idea that they would meld all these found objects using Sea Shells, Crustaceans or stuff from the sea to join these parts together. I figured, these are pirates and they’ve spent their lives in the sea so why not make that a part of their culture.
Then came the ideology that since these pirates aren’t God believers, they hunt down these Giant shellfish (which in 3W/3M mythology are looked at as sacred Gods of the Sea) and hold them as trophies to spit on believers and show them they own these waters.
Here’s what came to be of the pirates.
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Just for the record the "Slick Rick of pirates" is still just Slick Rick.
I'm a really big fan of a lot of what's going on here! The narwhal weapon is classy and kickass, the warlord ship is packed with detail and practical, and the design of the diving equipment feels SO spot on.
I'm interested in how the coral is adapted into armor and weaponry. Are the leg wraps and knives naturally occurring phenomena which the pirates happen upon? Is the coral grown in specific shapes to eventually become a leg wrap or arm plate? Are there coral workers who (like metal workers) have a trained intuition for working with coral as a material?
Again, such a big fan of the work you've done and thanks for being so open to questions!