I also grew up loving the Age RTS games, AoE2 and AoM remain among my top favorite games of all time, and sparked an interest in history for me. Those games also captured such a great aesthetic from the unit designs to music. I'm very glad that AoM Retold came out recently and revitalized the now-dated game for modern PCs. Would love to see your own world represented in such a RTS game, an original fantasy setting with realism in the factions, warriors, etc.
This video is 2nd part and a continuation of the 1st video about creating my fantasy world visualized as an artbook. th-cam.com/video/dN5TwovoX2A/w-d-xo.html Check it out. If you enjoyed it and have any questions, thoughts, or ideas for part 3, let me know!
Admiring the warrior cultures of the past does not equate to agreeing with their antiquated ideas. I love how you drove this point across so well, sometimes I just want to nerd out about legionaries or hoplites, there isn't an actual obsession for war or a romaticization of it. And red and blue are just so typical as colors in many eras of our past too! The mycenaeans used to dye their clothing with one of them and then add decorative motifs of the other color, as the red+blue combination was really loved in most of the near-eastern world of the Bronze Age. They're just perfect, they complement one another despite being opposing tones: one more soothing, the other more soliciting. Love your art a lot, I can see many of your inspirations coming from the golden age of RTS games and from the low-fantasy universes like Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age!
Thank you, my friend, for your kind words! I'm glad you like my work and thoughts and found all the references in it. :) I also often romanticize ideas about certain times and events. I think that these pop culture movies and games create the impression of heroic warriors. Whether we're talking about legionaries, Vikings, samurai or hoplites. Even though common warriors were mostly armed farmers, I think it's in our prehistoric genes, what attracts us so much - that cult of the real man hunter/warrior, facing hardships and dangers, but never giving up, fighting for what's right or atleast for the survival. It's interesting to watch movies or read books about the ancient period, where war is "romantic and heroic", and in contrast, modern concepts of war show the true horrors of conflicts. You're absolutely right about the colors! Antiquity was full of colors. Apparently, even the Roman legions had different colored clothes (green, yellow) - not just red, as we see everywhere. It's funny that you mention the Mycenaeans, because right now I'm working on a new illustration of a Mycenaean warrior from the Bronze Age. :) I think I should also try to illustrate the Assyrians somewhen. And that's exactly what we talk about - some of the most cruelest warriors in the most beautiful military fashion.
@@merullaart I agree on the fact that we all romanticise heroism to some extent, after all we used to fight for our survival for most of our history. And even when we fought over resources, there was always an undertone of survival: if we don't conquer this region which has a certain resource, somebody else will, and then they will invade us instead. The romanticisation of conflict is not necessarily a propaganda strategy I think, but also our own way of metabolizing the horrors of war that we (as armed men) are going to be faced with or even practice; even for our own survival, it is difficult to take the lives of other men unless you tell yourself you have no other option. Everything else (honor, societal status and even political career) came later on as our civilizations evolved from tribal societies to States with actual institutions and complex cultural beliefs, but the basis of "kill or be killed" persisted. As a matter of fact, over the years I've come to romanticise more the common soldiers: the ashigaru of feudal Japan, the milita hoplites of a minor greek city-State, and even the common Hastati of republican Rome; or even more, the levied tribesmen of the kingdom-era of Rome, back when romans fought in warbands akin to their umbrian and sabellic neighbors, armed with whatever they had scavenged in prior raids or had inherited from their fathers. You mentioned movies: I loved how "Troy" (the Brad Pitt one) shows war both as an epic event and a tragic one, much like the Iliad presents it as well, that movie was accurate in a literary way to the source material. Same goes with Akira Kurosawa's movies, they are both awe-inspiring and horrifying to watch. Mycenaeans in particular have been my micro-obsession as of the past few years, as a "natural progression after obsessing over classical greeks" since highschool or earlier :DD I just love their culture, they feel like a medieval feudal society where the knights are clad in bronze instead of iron, they're treated like demigods or their descendants, they live in castle-like palaces and fight one another in almost-ritualistic wars!
I also grew up loving the Age RTS games, AoE2 and AoM remain among my top favorite games of all time, and sparked an interest in history for me. Those games also captured such a great aesthetic from the unit designs to music. I'm very glad that AoM Retold came out recently and revitalized the now-dated game for modern PCs. Would love to see your own world represented in such a RTS game, an original fantasy setting with realism in the factions, warriors, etc.
This video is 2nd part and a continuation of the 1st video about creating my fantasy world visualized as an artbook.
th-cam.com/video/dN5TwovoX2A/w-d-xo.html
Check it out.
If you enjoyed it and have any questions, thoughts, or ideas for part 3, let me know!
Admiring the warrior cultures of the past does not equate to agreeing with their antiquated ideas. I love how you drove this point across so well, sometimes I just want to nerd out about legionaries or hoplites, there isn't an actual obsession for war or a romaticization of it.
And red and blue are just so typical as colors in many eras of our past too! The mycenaeans used to dye their clothing with one of them and then add decorative motifs of the other color, as the red+blue combination was really loved in most of the near-eastern world of the Bronze Age. They're just perfect, they complement one another despite being opposing tones: one more soothing, the other more soliciting.
Love your art a lot, I can see many of your inspirations coming from the golden age of RTS games and from the low-fantasy universes like Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age!
Thank you, my friend, for your kind words! I'm glad you like my work and thoughts and found all the references in it. :)
I also often romanticize ideas about certain times and events. I think that these pop culture movies and games create the impression of heroic warriors. Whether we're talking about legionaries, Vikings, samurai or hoplites. Even though common warriors were mostly armed farmers, I think it's in our prehistoric genes, what attracts us so much - that cult of the real man hunter/warrior, facing hardships and dangers, but never giving up, fighting for what's right or atleast for the survival.
It's interesting to watch movies or read books about the ancient period, where war is "romantic and heroic", and in contrast, modern concepts of war show the true horrors of conflicts.
You're absolutely right about the colors! Antiquity was full of colors. Apparently, even the Roman legions had different colored clothes (green, yellow) - not just red, as we see everywhere.
It's funny that you mention the Mycenaeans, because right now I'm working on a new illustration of a Mycenaean warrior from the Bronze Age. :)
I think I should also try to illustrate the Assyrians somewhen. And that's exactly what we talk about - some of the most cruelest warriors in the most beautiful military fashion.
@@merullaart I agree on the fact that we all romanticise heroism to some extent, after all we used to fight for our survival for most of our history. And even when we fought over resources, there was always an undertone of survival: if we don't conquer this region which has a certain resource, somebody else will, and then they will invade us instead.
The romanticisation of conflict is not necessarily a propaganda strategy I think, but also our own way of metabolizing the horrors of war that we (as armed men) are going to be faced with or even practice; even for our own survival, it is difficult to take the lives of other men unless you tell yourself you have no other option. Everything else (honor, societal status and even political career) came later on as our civilizations evolved from tribal societies to States with actual institutions and complex cultural beliefs, but the basis of "kill or be killed" persisted.
As a matter of fact, over the years I've come to romanticise more the common soldiers: the ashigaru of feudal Japan, the milita hoplites of a minor greek city-State, and even the common Hastati of republican Rome; or even more, the levied tribesmen of the kingdom-era of Rome, back when romans fought in warbands akin to their umbrian and sabellic neighbors, armed with whatever they had scavenged in prior raids or had inherited from their fathers.
You mentioned movies: I loved how "Troy" (the Brad Pitt one) shows war both as an epic event and a tragic one, much like the Iliad presents it as well, that movie was accurate in a literary way to the source material. Same goes with Akira Kurosawa's movies, they are both awe-inspiring and horrifying to watch.
Mycenaeans in particular have been my micro-obsession as of the past few years, as a "natural progression after obsessing over classical greeks" since highschool or earlier :DD I just love their culture, they feel like a medieval feudal society where the knights are clad in bronze instead of iron, they're treated like demigods or their descendants, they live in castle-like palaces and fight one another in almost-ritualistic wars!