The Capo's LH Gallery and Self-Help Thread!

[The Capo]

Time for a posting hat-trick! (sorry)

I am having a bit of mental anguish over what to do for Clovis. I have a few ideas in my head, but I'm not sure what to make him look like. Based on when he was alive 466-511 it is difficult to figure out what his attire should be like. I already know what his face and hair will be like. A lot of the images of Clovis are clearly anachronistic (most of them look like leaders from the time they were made, like renaissance style Kings, or high medieval Kings) but he was around for (and part of) the fall of the Western Roman Empire. So I'm not entirely sure how much clothing changed between those periods. I suppose I could whip up a few concepts and ask what you think about them, although that might be a lot more work than it is really worth.

Does anyone have any good preliminary ideas? I'll probably put up a few mock-ups in the meantime.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Time for a posting hat-trick! (sorry)

I am having a bit of mental anguish over what to do for Clovis. I have a few ideas in my head, but I'm not sure what to make him look like. Based on when he was alive 466-511 it is difficult to figure out what his attire should be like. I already know what his face and hair will be like. A lot of the images of Clovis are clearly anachronistic (most of them look like leaders from the time they were made, like renaissance style Kings, or high medieval Kings) but he was around for (and part of) the fall of the Western Roman Empire. So I'm not entirely sure how much clothing changed between those periods. I suppose I could whip up a few concepts and ask what you think about them, although that might be a lot more work than it is really worth.

Does anyone have any good preliminary ideas? I'll probably put up a few mock-ups in the meantime.

If it helps, I used this LH as Charlemagne for a while, it it helps any. Its very generic, Roland made him to be a generic elderly medieval european king, and Clovis was one of the archtypes. Actually since BTS came out, I haven't really thought about who to use it as.
Your right though about the attire, I dont think it would have changed much during the period.

Spoiler :

 

[Bakuel]

Hey Capo!

First off, these are some awesome leaders you are making!
Second, for Clovis you could would give him fancy Frankish/Germanic dress since he is a Frankish king. Basically a fancy shirt, with or without a tunic, and a cloak with a gold clasp. Or if you want to give him a warrior bent, he could be wearing a chainmail shirt instead of a tunic. See the two pictures in the attachment.
For a crown (if you want a crown that is), I would give him a roman emperor style diadem (like the one Justinian is wearing) since he was the Frankish emperor to convert to Christianity. Similar to the picture of the coin in the attachment.

This would probably fit as it is very similar to what Einhard says the dress of Charlemagne consisted of:

Spoiler :

"He used to wear the national, that is to say, the Frank, dress-next his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet, and he protected his shoulders and chest in winter by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins. Over all he flung a blue cloak, and he always had a sword girt about him, usually one with a gold or silver hilt and belt; he sometimes carried a jewelled sword, but only on great feast-days or at the reception of ambassadors from foreign nations. He despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed himself to be robed in them, except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys, and shoes; the first time at the request of Pope Hadrian, the second to gratify Leo, Hadrian's successor. On great feast-days he made use of embroidered clothes, and shoes bedecked with precious stones; his cloak was fastened by a golden buckle, and he appeared crowned with a diadem of gold and gems: but on other days his dress varied little from the common dress of the people." http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/einhard.html#Dress

I don't think the Franks of Clovis's time would have dressed that differently, and at least this is a bit better then to go with the dress of a even latter medieval king.

 

[The Capo]

Thanks Bakuel! Good to see you again, let me know what you think of the units I have made too (there's a link in my signature). Also when are you going to get back at it yourself?

I have decided on some attire, I am going to give him a more militaristic look so he differs from Charlemagne, although he will still look quite regal.

 

[Bakuel]

The units are very good too! I saw most of them before but I had sworn off forum posting to focus on my thesis and exams. Now that I am done with them, I will be returning to unit making and finish the requests that I never fulfilled.
You should expect something from me at least within three or four weeks. It will take some time to get back into the swing of things, but I am modding again.

 

[The Capo]

The units are very good too! I saw most of them before but I had sworn off forum posting to focus on my thesis and exams. Now that I am done with them, I will be returning to unit making and finish the requests that I never fulfilled.
You should expect something from me at least within three or four weeks. It will take some time to get back into the swing of things, but I am modding again.

Cool, good to hear that.

Anyway here's a quick mock up I threw together for Clovis. I am going to retexture the hell out of this, but you can see what direction I'm going in. What do you guys think?

EDIT: @ Bakuel, some Indian, Babylonian or Turkish units would be cool.

 

[Vrenir]

Pretty sweet. I'd try to add a bit of Roman stuff to him though to represent the cultural blending. For instance, perhaps the clasp on his cloak can be the one on Julius' toga.

I'm also not sure, but I think it might be worth putting a leather Augustus cuirass on over the chain shirt just to see how it'd look (don't keep any shoulder claps though, because they'd probably look odd with the cloak).

If you do that, then perhaps you should also consider merging the chain sleeves into the full-length ones (to prevent the appearance of umpteen layers of clothing). So you'd have a long-sleeve chain shirt covered with a low-level Roman breastplate and an ornate cloak with a Roman clasp worn by a Frankish guy with tousled hair and a huge mustache.

 

[The Capo]

Sorry, DP. I don't know how that happened.

 

[The Capo]

Pretty sweet. I'd try to add a bit of Roman stuff to him though to represent the cultural blending. For instance, perhaps the clasp on his cloak can be the one on Julius' toga.

I'm also not sure, but I think it might be worth putting a leather Augustus cuirass on over the chain shirt just to see how it'd look (don't keep any shoulder claps though, because they'd probably look odd with the cloak).

If you do that, then perhaps you should also consider merging the chain sleeves into the full-length ones (to prevent the appearance of umpteen layers of clothing). So you'd have a long-sleeve chain shirt covered with a low-level Roman breastplate and an ornate cloak with a Roman clasp worn by a Frankish guy with longish hair and a huge mustache.

Well, I'm not sure how much blending was going on in the northern parts of the Rhine (or if it was necessarily going in the direction you are assuming it was), also I don't think the Romans were really wearing Cuirasses short of maybe some officers, but even then it's pretty doubtful. They'd probably have on plate-armor or mail by this time. I'm going to make the chainmail gold anyway. The cuirass was one of my ideas originally, but the more I looked into it the less sense it made.

EDIT: And I forgot another reason I didn't want to give him a leather cuirass; Ptolemy is wearing one.

 

[Bakuel]

Clovis is looking good!
I'll add Turkish, Indian and Babylonian units to my list.

 

[The Capo]

Clovis is looking good!
I'll add Turkish, Indian and Babylonian units to my list.

Thanks man! For both really. It is supposed to snow here pretty badly, so I might be doing a lot of modding this weekend! Anyway I'll try to have a good clovis preview up shortly, I just have to finish rigging everything and then do some texturing.

 

[The Capo]

If anyone wants to be of service to me (and Clovis) finding a good background would be really helpful. Any takers?

 

[cybrxkhan]

What kind of background are you thinking of? A semi-historically accurate wooden fort, or a nice forest/landscape of central europe, etc.?

 

[The Capo]

Whatever would be good, I asked for help with it because I'm still working on the LH and I still have to reskin him, and I have no idea what to use for a BG right now. So whatever looks good I'll use.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Here's a few random landscape pics from France/Germany/Somewhere-Around-There I just found on google/wikipedia:

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[The Capo]

I haven't tested him in-game yet, but here is what Clovis looks like in NifSkope. If anyone is looking for a background for me, maybe seeing the LH in its (basically) final appearance may help.

 

[The Capo]

I could use a landscape, but I was hoping for something more interesting for the background. I know it is difficult to find things to use from his period because its like right at the end of the Roman Empire and the begining of the dark ages.

EDIT: Maybe like an ancient Germanic village, or something like that.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Ancient Germanic village... Hmm. That may be a bit harder.

 

[The Capo]

Yeah, I just looked (using bing) and found nothing. I'll try again.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Clovis looks really good.