Despite being a fan of fantasy and sci-fi stories for most of my life - and drawing characters from those stories for several years - there’s one visual staple of those worlds that I’ve avoided like the plague: armor. Something about that combination of shininess, intricacy, and weight always made me balk. So when it came to drawing armor in my own art, I tended to gloss over it and let it disappear into some conveniently-located fog.
I realized I needed to change my ways when I sat down to draw a character whose face was hidden by a gold-colored armor mask. I did the best that I could, but the result looked less like gold, more like cheddar cheese. I ended up discarding the drawing, but in the back of my mind I wanted to try one more time - this time, slightly better prepared.
So I grabbed some images of armor from my favorite movies and games, and looked at them - carefully, this time - and tried to replicate what I saw. The notions that used to intimidate me started to become concrete and understandable: shininess comes from light bouncing off the surface, creating bright highlights and reflecting the surrounding environment; intricacy comes from combining different pieces so that the wearer can move; and heaviness comes through in shadows that convey the thickness of the material. Even little details, like filigreeing and wear-and-tear, became logical and even captivating.
I’ve still got a lot to learn but I’m glad I took a step towards de-mystifying this topic for myself. You can see some of my process in these videos.
