Excalibur

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hrodeberht1

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28 comments

  1. hrodeberht1
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  2. phatbassanchor
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    Fabulous rendering of Excalibur from Fuqua's King Arthur starring Clive Owen as Arthur.  Amazing job!  This is quite possibly your finest work to date.  Bravo maestro!  Huzzah!   

    Adventure ever on my friend, Phat
    1. hrodeberht1
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      thank you. As far as my part in this (Mesh and materials) it's not that special. All the intricate detail is really Bella's work. She's an amazing designer and artist and can freehand stuff that I can't even trace. I can quite certainly say, that I couldn't have done this one without her.
    2. phatbassanchor
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      Well... Huzzah for Bella!  Huzzah!   
  3. RavenKing95
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    It's been a long time since I've seen the film. Is that Ogham on the fuller?
    1. hrodeberht1
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      it is - written from right to left - but they just wrote modern English in the modern transcription of Ogham. (or let's say in the 2D version of Ogham that wasn't used historically)
    2. RavenKing95
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      Despite being from Wales (and thereby Celtic on a pure technicality, given my father's Italian and my mother's English, though originally Scottish), Ogham is not a system I've ever even given much thought to. I pretty much only recognised it because it looked runic but they weren't actually runes. Perhaps I should get on that? 
    3. hrodeberht1
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      I only recognised it because I own a reprint of an 1880 book that has "all" the writing systems of the world. But after looking into it a bit more (for this project) it's quite fascinating. It's an alphabet, but it's the only one I know that is always written in 3D - around the corner/edge of a runestone. Really unique, and apparently a bit of a headache for Unicode.
    4. RavenKing95
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      Oh, I can imagine! Of course, the interesting question there is why such a system would develop in the first place, when keeping it all on one side of the stone is both simpler to read and easier to carve. Maybe there was some sacred significance to it? I seem to recall a lack of a written history, though it's been a while. 
    5. hrodeberht1
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      I think the ease of carving might actually be it. From my experience it's easier to start carving into an edge than into a flat surface, and from that start it's then quite easy to continue a straight line.
      There's definitely a lack of written history from the Celtic world in general, not just the Isles (or rather there is just none at all). Even Ogham inscriptions are mostly just names and dedications (similar to Nordic runestones).

      To clarify: I mean ancient history. Of course Wales, Ireland and the Old North have a lot of their own medieval written tradition.
    6. RavenKing95
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      See, this is why I prefer Norse and Anglo-Saxon. Comparatively, they're simple. Plus, the Norse ones have a kickass study about a god sacrificing himself to himself to gain knowledge of them. That's just cool.
      That said, it's always a good idea to make use of lesser known systems, if only to draw more attention to them. I imagine most people who look at the etchings who didn't know about Ogham would probably assume you were just making it up or it was meant to be battle damage.
    7. hrodeberht1
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      I think all of those cultures are fascinating. And Britain is a unique place in that all three of them survived and can be seen to this day.
      I live in what was once the heartland and birthplace of "Celtic" people, but after being first romanised and then germanised there's nothing left of that. So seeing a place that saw Celts (which is actually too broad of a term here), Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans fight for supremacy and still have all of that survive is just fascinating for me as someone from the continent.
    8. RavenKing95
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      Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Family legend has us descend from the last king of Troy, so we've basically been all over the place. I think that's one reason mythologies and legends fascinate me, especially Arthuriana. It's that unique melting pot of stories from a wide variety of works, all of them building on each other until it's damn near impossible to tell where it started. It's interesting to me that Arthuriana cannot be said to have a canon, only to have sources.
    9. hrodeberht1
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      That's one hell of a family legend, worthy of a seat in the Roman senate!

      And I really need to learn more about the Arthurian legend. I guess I know it better than the average Joe, but not nearly as well as the Germanic legends of Central Europe.
    10. RavenKing95
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      If you've got the cash, I can highly recommend the New Arthurian Encyclopedia by Norris J. Lacy. It's got a ton of reference material, including a two page listing (at least!) for Excalibur itself. Failing that, you could just watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. One of the Terries (I forget if it was Gilliam or Jones) was an actual scholar of Arthuriana and it's surprisingly one of the most faithful adaptations. Of course, it's usually exaggerated for comic effect and the names are often changes around, but almost every detail can be traced back in some way to the stories. They even remembered that Lancelot was prone to going on murder sprees in a berserker rage.
    11. hrodeberht1
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      I obviously know the Monty Python movie, I just never knew that it was surprisingly accurate. Well, a new reason to rewatch a great classic. ;)
      Thank's for the book recommendation, I'll surely look into that.

      I see why you mentioned cash. Good thing I'm a librarian ;)
    12. RavenKing95
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      And now you are just so much cooler in my eyes. IF YOUR SWORDS WERE NOT ENOUGH...
    13. hrodeberht1
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      :D Thanks man. Always nice to meet someone who appreciates our line of work. Most people I talk to don't even know what we're doing.
    14. RavenKing95
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      My man, I wanted to be one from the age of sixteen up until about twenty-four, when I dropped out of college. Bit of a long story there, but I have done volunteer work in our local university library, work experience at the one in town, the one in my village and the one in the town I went to secondary school in.
      I may have stopped chasing that dream, but the philosophy never truly leaves you. I used to have the Five Laws memorized and for many years I kept a basic outline of the Dewey Decimal in the left breast pocket of my duster. It should tell you something that I settled on librarian AFTER I wanted to be a blacksmith, which incidentally was after I spent about a year when I was thirteen quite seriously considering the logistics of taking up piracy.
    15. hrodeberht1
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      Wow. that's kinda trippy. I wanted to become a blacksmith as a child - after reading the legend of Weyland the Smith. And I'm still fascinated by it, hence doing it virtually.
      Alas, my parents wanted me to be the first one in the family to have a degree, and always told me that I've got "two left hands" anyway. And while they were wrong in doing so I can't complain about my job (I had to be in the Army, I worked in cleaning and construction, so librarian is pretty cushy). I got to catalogue the former private library of the Habsburgs and work with incunabula in a 12th century monastery. And I love it, cause I love history and books (and the smell, god damn the smell....). But I'm still fascinated by glowing red metal...
    16. RavenKing95
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      I mean, I also had a keen interest in alchemy in my early teens and even after I came to the realisation that my noodle arms and dyspraxia would not be conducive to a career in metalworking, the art and science of it continues to intrigue. I think learning to express that passion via another medium is quite an admirable idea. If I had a halfway decent computer and anywhere near the technical skills, I'd probably give it a go myself! Then again, I doubt it's really worth it just to do one thing, so on the whole, I'm rather more grateful you've been kind enough to allow two of your pieces to be ported on my behalf. I'm still using Harkon's sword replacer (though to be fair, I haven't exactly had a chance NOT to use it, given my LO difficulties around the time I asked for it!). 
    17. RavenKing95
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      ALSO YES, THE SMELL OF OLD BOOKS IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST.
    18. hrodeberht1
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      Oh, I'm certainly happy I can at least make swords in this way. And even more so when there are people who like to use them.
    19. hrodeberht1
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      ?ALSO YES, THE SMELL OF OLD BOOKS IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST.
      I've got nothing to add here - just wanted to double down ;)
    20. RavenKing95
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      Well, to paraphrase the First Law, Swords are for Use! Though I can't help but hope you'll one day branch out into other blades. As I said on the WIP image for this very piece, I'm sure you've got a battleaxe or two in you, particularly since you'd know full well that having two bits is ridiculous unless you're chopping wood. After that, the real test is the bowyer's art. No blades, unless you want to put one on the limbs.  
    21. hrodeberht1
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      I'm just a sucker for swords. I always play 1h sword in pretty much any RPG that allows it. And I mostly make mods, that I'd like to use myself. I made the Langeid Axe after I made the sword from the same dig, but that axe is honestly not my best work. I'm quite confident I could make a good one, I just gravitate towards swords.
    22. RavenKing95
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      Oh, they're certainly quite thematically appropriate, especially for the setting. Axes are easier and faster to mass produce. They take less metal, they have uses outside of combat and they take less training to use effectively. Swords on the other hand have historically been signs of nobility or freedom and for good reason, as it was usually the wealthy or the dedicated soldier who could afford to invest in one. In Anglo-Saxon culture, freedmen received swords as a signifier of their new status. Funnily enough, one reason why I elected not to use Gramr after all is because my next character is based on Beowulf and while he does prefer to use a sword in the poem, it also breaks every single time he does. I get a kick out of the idea of him using axes because at least they're cheaper to replace.
    23. hrodeberht1
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      Oh, I don't dispute the usefulness of axes. They were certainly more common, and spears even more so. I just love swords, that's really it. That's not to say I'll never make another axe. But the next thing I really want to make is a frankish sword. Probably something late Carolingian, that really shows the transition from "Viking Age" to the knightly arming sword. And I've got this half-cooked idea for a "swords of legends" mod, that distributes several of my creations across the map all linked to either real-word or TES legends. After that... who knows