One reason the new Conan won’t be as good as it could have

Jody Samson. Not a name you are likely to be familiar with unless you are a huge sword/movie/fantasy nerd, he was responsible for many things in his time, one was designing and creating an armory of incredible fantasy swords with an attention to detail and a unique hand built quality that would have been worthy of any ancient sword and sorcery craftsman. Another was creating the Iconic swords from John Milius’ Conan The Barbarian in 1982. Seen below; these swords made such an impact on audiences that they are still being reproduced and sold today. They were an incredible amalgamation of weapon and artwork that along with Basil Poledouris’ amazing score are part of why 1982’s Conan is so beloved.

Some of Jody Samsons best and most well known work

Fast forward 29 years and a rebooted Conan The Barbarian has just been released. despite not having seen it yet I wanted to provide insight on what is to me one of the most glaring oversights in the new films production, The Sword. New Conan claims to be based more directly on the works of Robert E. Howard which could be a blessing if handled with the gravitas and reverence that his source material deserves. (But I will reserve that post for after I get back from the movie later today) Swordsmanship in western film is sadly lacking in authenticity, outside a handful of men working in this specific field on movies like the LOTR trilogy, The Princess Bride, Rob Roy, The Duellists and most recently Game of Thrones, most swords shown in film are reproductions of historical pieces and for a good reason, Even for skilled draftsmen unless they have some idea of the design fundamentals most attempts to create a sword for the screen end up like this:

Some of the worst offenders of ignorant sword design. From left to right: Kull the Conqueror (not sooo bad) 300 (great movie, awful swords) King Arthur (one of the worst movies for martial anachronisms) and Eragon (shudder)

While not as obviously awful from a functional standpoint as those above, here are a few productions stills illustrating what I am so concerned about:

What the hell!?

So what!? I hear you say? well yes, it’s fullered, has a decent pommel and a “simple” crossguard, but the proportions! it’s the proportions of those features that blow this little prop into an oblivion of inaccuracy, Why is it hilted as a two handed weapon? why is the crossguard so tall and wide? and why is the blade so short!?

I can only assume there was never a full steel practical model of this built, let alone used by anyone with a deeper understanding of sword technique, as just looking at it I see badly hurt wrists and a weapon with all it’s weight distributed about the guards center. Now I can forgive ignorance, but I do believe just a little bit more research could have saved overly analytical geeks like me from posts like this. Considering the prevailing impression I always get from REH’s Conan is one of simplicity and ruggedness; this badly inflated longsword just seems wildly out of place. I will go on the record as saying I don’t like the decorative accoutrements or the choice in materials either, it looks hammered rather than polished/ground and the gold embellishments just aren’t working for me. Now with all that in mind, sticking as close to the original design features as I could stomach I wanted to provide the internet with some alternatives to show what could have been, first a rendition of the new sword for comparison:

Blegh, Thank God my render was overly generous, it looks better here than it does in the stills

And my examples of hardware that wouldn’t have caused anywhere near as much trouble:

Ahhhhhh, much better

See? easy. From left to right: Two Handed, Single handed and a Hand & a half. Now while probably not perfectly realistic or practical, these variations are a damn sight closer to what I wanted to see Conan wielding in the film. I stuck with the same overall features as I wanted to show that even under strict design requirements there was still room for improvement, again I understand not every good concept artist has a second clue about sword design but if you are running short on ideas, give me a call next time yeah?

-Expatriategamer

The ideas flow past 1:00am

I have recently come across an abundance of free time, I am officially making the transition to something I hear is colloquially known as a “Stay at home Dad” my Wife is of course tantamount in the intialisation of my new place in our world, as were it not for her I would be spending my days working where I had to to earn a living, So, Intimidatingly I am now, save for a few simple day to day duties regarding our home and my step-daughter, left to my own devices. Certainly a portion of this time will be spent enthralled by electronic entertainment of one sort or another, but otherwise I am now no longer able to blame my lack of creative production on external obligations, which is, frankly everything I could have hoped for (if not ever so slightly terrifying).

This little alcove of webspace isn’t much, it is no bastion of free thinking and ideas that will save the world and pave the way to the future, It is however mine, and that is reason enough to make it the best it can be.

So time to sink or swim as it were, which brings me to the titular conundrum. Often days I am a barren desert of ideas until mere minutes before I ready for bed, consequently it is 1:58am as I type this and I was struck with the clarity for this post about 20 minutes ago. Time and time again my nights end this way, with a flooding rush of inspiration in one form or another, usually only expressed in quick sketches or story notes which just isn’t enough, so it is with this >1:00am letter to the internet that I state my intention to act on as many damn creative impulses as I can. and I figure if I am going to be producing something worth looking at on a regular basis, I may as well use this as a platform to deliver it to anyone who thinks to look (I’m talking to you Google Images) with that in mind I intend to make this wee space as visually interesting and exciting as I can. My initial goal is something like this:A two column deal with some widgets on the left there, the leftmost column being where the posts would show up and the right containing posted images, tags, categories etc. The main aspect I am interested in right now though is the banner/page background, hopefully what you can see at the top  is a view of a long indoor bar neatly containing the name of this here weblog (only so much can be done in paint with a laptop trackpad) with a number of people sitting at it, a few bartenders and some more patrons milling in the background. As a comic fan there is a special place in my heart for crossovers, which is why those paintings of 50’s icons (Elvis, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, etc) coming together at diners late at night have always appealed to me, so my thought here is a Bar scene  completely populated by my pop culture icons, characters like Spike Spiegel, Cloud, Nathan Drake, Clare Redfield, Vincent Vega, Solid Snake etc. All hanging out in a bar together just like it’s another night out. I am hoping to be able to integrate a banner with the background seamlessly and have the image fade out as you scroll down the page, I will need to look into different themes or more likely some custom CSS so if this isn’t the first time you’ve been here, keep your wits about you because things are going to be a changin’.

Takeshi Kitano in his role ans Aniki from Brother is another character I want to squeeze in there, you can never get enough Beat.