Disc-rotor Compound Helo - Concept

October sure went by fast.

I follow a couple of tech and military blogs quite often. Recently I've read that the USAF had an eye on a new medium/light lifter to replace the ageing C-130 Herc. But they haven't quite figured out what they want. A few days later I read on another tech blog about DARPA's experimental Discrotor Compound Helicopter Program. This is actually old news of course - the brains at DARPA had announced this back in 2008 and now they're more or less ready to go into the prototype phase.

Now, seeing as how VTOL is one of those options the USAF are looking at for the C-130 replacement...and how the Discrotor may come into play, I decided to visually duct tape the ideas together to see how ugly it looks :D









Now there may be questions as to why not a tilt-rotor like the Osprey. I think the Osprey is a great machine. Personally, I feel the biggest shortcoming of the tilt-rotor is that when its landing, the 2 (or 4) massive engines are in the way - you can't mount guns on the side and shoot through them if you're being engaged in a hot landing zone from your 3 and 9. You can't mount a gun on top either - coz you don't want to shoot out the rotors too. The only other logical place is underneath where they did eventually fit a mounted gun, but being underneath, it can't really be used once the bird is on the ground dismounting troops. So a Disc-rotor makes more sense - even though its ugly as hell.

Now bear in mind I don't have the operational or budgetary constraints of real world engineers and researchers - its just my pen, my sketchbook and my imagination. I have no real responsibility so I don't have to make sense and the above paragraph wasn't a critique but more of an observation.

More Historical Stuff

It feels great to be doing historical units with watercolors.

One more piece of Roman Auxillary Trooper



Norman Knights maile coif study - they put on a quilted padded cotton arming cap before wearing the coif.


Subsequently with better metallurgy technology the medieval armourers were able to fashion bigger plates and the Great Helm was born. Full faced protection comes at a price - no peripheral vision.



I've been doing some reading on the Terracotta Warriors too - what intruiged me was really their armour. Instead of simply being overlapped in sequence like Lamellar armour, the Qin era plates were arranged in a way that would have less of a weakness if struck directly from the front.


What's also interesting was the plated helmet that was found in a separate site. That goes to show the Qin soldiers did not go to war bare headed. The Terracotta Warriors in the mausoleum were posed in parade dress rather than full battle dress.


If you compare the Qin bodyarmour to the modern infantryman....


...the design seems timeless.


Of course our anatomy hasn't changed at all since modern humans came about, but bodyarmour has gone through a great amount of changes via available technology and a compromise between mobility and protection. So its kinda interesting we've come full circle. If you look at the internal plate structures of today's bodyarmour - with front and back plates + optional side plates, its very close in layout to the Persian Chahar-Ainé. Ideas remain the same - technology and materials change....but war....war never changes. (October can't come soon enough)

History Weekend - Medieval Military Update

Trying out some watercolors. Getting back into it with a Daler Rowney pocket watercolor set. Also ran across several BBC documentaries on the Normans and the Norman invasion of the British Isles. And I dug around a bit on the earlier Anglo-Saxon invasion and I've been reading up on the Arthurian legends which were kinda placed in the short span of time after Roman withdrawal from Western Europe and before the Anglo-Saxon invasion/immigration. All very interesting.

Here are some sketches on those topics.

Late Roman Era Infantryman


Equipment of an Infantryman


Granted its not really accurate - The Pilum isn't really in use by the 4th to 5th century just before Roman withdrawal from Western Europe. The course of warfare has evolved by then with the Romans so effective and technologically superior - it makes no sense to train and equip expensive troops when the frontline brawlers could win the day.

On to the Normans - I was intrigued by the written description of their hairstyle. I've given it a modern spin here - when I first heard the description I thought they must've looked a lot like modern infantrymen with crew cuts.


Norman knight 1066AD


There's a lot more freedom when it comes to accuracy of the uniform in this 1500 year stretch. Most soldiers paid for their own equipment and each piece is customized to some extent. Gives room for creative freedom :D


Pretty cool exercise - I need more practice. The Holbien Waterbrush is great if you're working on a more intuitive level as it always stays wet as long as you have water in the well - but sometimes for detail work, I have to switch back to a normal brush for dry brushing. Still, its quite an interesting piece of equipment.

Time Flies

Kinda busy all thru July. So here's a post.

Rework of older concepts. I've got several things I keep reworking on throughout the years. They're never quite complete so I don't toss em out much. I guess I'll start doing it more often from now - these were first thought up of way back in 2004 but of course only close friends have seen the older sketches.

Still Nothing Done...

Listen...if you're not watching the World Cup....something is wrong.....WITH YOU!!


Sketches.










Also working on something new. Was pretty inspired by a >>friend<< who got back into drawing comics as a hobby. He claimed I inspired him...well I guess the positive vibes come back after all.









That's all for now. Nothing is getting done at all really. GO TEAMS!!! (I haven't adopted a country to support at this world cup).

Nothing is Getting Done

WORLD CUP - that is all.