Decorated Trench Knight Concept

Decorated Trench Knight

This character design came from a sort of world-building project I had in my head for a while. When I first sat about designing the character, I had to put down some guidelines for the world he inhabits, both so the design would better reflect it, and it wouldn't end up too broad or narrow. 

Imagine a dark fantasy world evolved into the early 1900's

A short summary of the world: A mix between the World Wars, dieselpunk & Magic/Folklore. In this world, conventional small-arms are clunky and unreliable and due to this, sword fighting (and close quarters fighting in general) is still widely used and highly regarded. 

A short summary on the design: Even though the dieselpunk, folklore and magic elements aren't explicitly clear in this design, I had them in mind when I was figuring out exactly what role this character would serve in the universe. I had a bigger unit in mind, with more mechanical parts, limbs etc. but decided focus on this 'medium' sized unit that's more human.

When I was making the camouflaged version of the armor, I liked the look - but I thought it's not really what I envisioned the Trench Knight being about. With camouflage you're trying to hide, and I thought that's the opposite of what they would be doing. That being said, it's a balance that has to be struck between making them look like they belong to an army (that is using camouflage) and not making them look like they're trying to disappear in their surroundings.

Example of helmet opening sequence

One of the first things I did when I wanted to design this character, was to try and do some intial "proof of concept" paint-overs of pictures (as shown on the left), to quickly get some ideas of how it could look. One of the first ideas I had was to combine traditional knights armor, and elements from uniforms from the two world wars. I tried to make the kneepads like English brodie helmets, and the shoulder-plate became more of an American-looking M1 helmet. 

Even though the gun didn't make an appearance in the final piece, I still did some explorations of different potential versions. Guns being clunky and unreliable is central to the idea of swords and other close-quarters weapons still being widely used in this world, so even if it's not in the final piece it's still important. 

Some thoughts on the design process:

I knew I wanted the gun to be bulky and unruly, so the first thing I did was make the frame and barrel bigger - here by make it a double barrel. I also increased the size of the cylinder, imagining a limited amount of bullets, perhaps 3 or 4 (1).  I then made the handle more elongated (2) to look more like old flintlock pistols shot once in the heat of battle and then discarded. The brass knuckles were added (3) to further sell the idea of brutality in the trenches, but also for the idea of: even though you have a gun, it might just be better as a blunt weapon. A few variations followed those, and with number (6) and (7) respectively, I added the barrel and the grip of the Lewis Light Machine Gun.