Painted 2D Medieval/Fantasy Items 1

2D art assets by David Baumgart

email: dgbaumgart@gmail.com
webpage: dgbaumgart.com

Description:
This is a set of lovingly hand-painted 2D medieval/fantasy inspired weapons & armour suitable perfect for an RPG or any game involving combat in a medieval/fantasy setting. 
- 64 items total
- painted to fit 256x256 pixels, but can be downsized smoothly for whatever you need
- PSD of item sheet included 
- Includes: 8 swords, 8 axes, 8 maces, 8 daggers, 4 bows, 4 types of arrows, 8 torso armours, 8 helms, and 8 shields
- Items progress in quality from simple & rusted to ornate & magical

Do note that this does not actually require any particular version of Unity. This is simple 2D art saved as a png and split and named into sprites. There are also the individual tiles in a separate folder if that's how you roll, as well as a PSD to get you started on adding dropshadows or colour alterations if so you desire.

Usage:
You can put this on a background, or use them with transparent backgrounds. You can resize them to be much smaller, keep them 256x256, or adjust the size of some of them as you wish -- want to helmets to look more correctly scaled compared to the armour? Just reduce them by 50% and keep the armour full size!

Future:
If these prove popular, I may wish to do further items. This first set was combat related but I've been thinking to do crafting objects for medieval/fantasy trade skills, more magic things like wands, tomes, gems, and maybe even some more historical objects like equipment for Roman legionaires and Greek hoplites. If any of this sounds interesting, drop me an email and I'll see what I can do!



Inspiration behind various items:

I love history and getting really into referencing real historical artifacts, so for fun I'm going to include commentary on each item. Some are simpler than others, most inspired by real objects, though some are pure fantasy.

Armour00:
This is based on the quilted or padded garment, the "gambeson" or "arming doublet" men-at-arms would wear under heavier armour. So if we were properly realistic, this would be just one layer of a warrior's armour. There's also a fascinatingly large number of examples of cloth-based armours that sound like they were highly effective - the linen armour of Greek hoplites, for instance, though we usually assume they used a bronze cuirass. 

Armour01: 
Based on "cuirboilli" or "cuir bouilli", boiled leather, a phrase which fans of George R. R. Martin will recognize. Finding historical reference for this type of armour was really difficult presumably because leather tends to rot and it wasn't as high-status an object as metal armour, so this design is somewhat fantastical.

Armour02:
Studded leather. I loved how this armour looked in the 1992 RPG "Darklands", so that's probably my primary point of reference for this one. Maybe "Ultima Online" as well. Historical examples are not easy to find for above-noted reasons.

Armour03:
Scale-mail. Based loosely on an illustration of historical scale mail armour that I believe "Darklands" also used as reference.

Armour04:
Chainmail. This one is a classic, but man, it's a pain to draw! And I wasn't happy with how the chainmail texture turned out, so what you see is indeed attempt number three at drawing it. This probably took the most time of any of the armour. Hope you like it!

Armour05:
Brigandine or "jack-of-plate". This type of armour doesn't get as much attention as it deserves considering its wide usage. It's basically a coat of metal plates bound in cloth and/or leather, not so unlike modern combat armour that consists of hard plates embedded in more flexible material. It's not as high status as proper plate armour, and the cloth bits would tend to rot, so that's probably why we never see historical representations. Still, the "Game of Thrones" TV show gives it a good showing.

Armour06:
Plate mail. This particular example is based loosely on German 'gothic' plate armour. I believe there is a small set of excellent historical examples that are used as reference again and again, so you'll see something like this in everything from "Darklands" to "Diablo" to ... well, I'm sure it's elsewhere. Anyway, this stuff looks awesome and I love drawing it.

Armour 07:
Plate mail, fancy. Based on a historical example belonging to one of the English kings, if I recall correctly. Historical timescale  for this one is getting to the Renaissance, when you see the craft of full articulated plate armour honed to its peak, at which point guns of course made it more and more irrelevant. 

Arrows00:
Basic arrows, slightly rusty. My goal with the arrows was to show a bit of a progression, though if you want to be realistic about it the different types are based on designs for different roles. This is your standard broad-head.

Arrows01:
Loosely based on armour-piercing "bodkin" arrows made to pierce chain or plate mail.

Arrows02:
Very broad headed arrows with vicious barbs. Probably far less effective than the previous arrows in realistic combat, but they do look cool!

Arrows03:
Pure fantasy - arrows with some kind of fire potion in them. You could hue-shift these to get poison, cold, whatever special effect you want from them.

Axe00: 
Basic rusty wood-chopping hatchet. Because you need a worst axe.

Axe01:
Your basic rusty broad-axe.

Axe02: 
A broad-axe based on a nordic design of some kind - Danish maybe? I was definitely looking at images of the famous "Dane axe" at some point in drawing these.

Axe03:
This one is based on a drawing in a book my dad bought for me when I was eight years old, "Weapons: An International Encyclopedia From 5000 B.C. to 2000 A.D.". I've basically got this thing memorized. Anyway, this axe is apparently a ceremonial "mine owner's axe". That stuck with me because I'm not really clear on why a mine-owner would need a ceremonial axe, but with an axe like that? I'm not going to ask; cool design.

Axe04:
Crescent axe w/ spike. The spike lets you know that it's an upgrade over axes without back-facing spikes.

Axe05:
Axe with multiple spikes! If one spike is one upgrade, why not another spike to upgrade again?

Axe06:
Same deal as previous, just much fancier. We're now thoroughly in fantasy territory.

Axe07:
"And MY axe!" - fantasy double axe; the "Golden Axe" for fans of that game (which I definitely lost a lot of quarters to in the arcade when I was a kid).

Bow00:
A simple bow. Any self-respecting bowyer would shave off those twigs, but the point is to show that it's really crudely made.

Bow01: 
If I was following the "Darklands" progression, this would be the classic English long bow. There's not a lot of space to work with in a 256x256 square, so as you can see everything has to become very thick and stout. If this was rendered at the actual proportions of a longbow, you'd have a skinny stick and an invisible string; not fun at all!

Bow02:
Following the "Darklands" progression, this would be the "composite bow", or "composite recurve bow" depending on how technical you wanted to be about it. Based on Asian steppe design aka Mongol bows. The historical record of how the Mongols used these things is frightening for good reason.

Bow03:
Fantasy recurve bow. The initial sketch was based on the really intricate modern hunting bows with multiple pulleys, but that looked a little too technical so I pulled it back and just made the design curvier and more ornate instead.

Dagger00:
A rusty knife. Dull, one presumes.

Dagger01: 
A crude hunting knife, based a little bit on the design of things like the classic Bowie knife with that back-curved tip.

Dagger02:
Your basic medieval dagger.

Dagger03:
Slightly fancier medieval dagger. Very very loosely based on the idea of the poignard from "Darklands", a thrusting dagger used to pierce armour. This one is too blade-focused to be a proper poignard.

Dagger04: 
Fantasy dagger, based loosely on the "flamberge" type swords, but actually inspired by the dagger motif found in certain textures in "Quake" (yes, the 1996 shooter from iD Software).

Dagger05:
Jade dagger, a fantastical interpretation of an Aztec-style sacrificial dagger. Based loosely on the magic item from "Dominions 4".
 
Dagger06:
Very fantastical dagger. I just drew something that looked evil and like I wouldn't want to be stabbed with it.

Dagger07:
Another very fantastical dagger (yeah, the daggers are very fantasy-based; thing is, you can only do so much with the idea of a small knife before having to wildly innovate). This one is meant to be somewhat organic looking, though I pulled back from making it look too much like flesh and bone. Related: for this item set, I had actually drawn a fleshy axe that was lined with teeth but it was too gross so I cut it from the set. 

Helm00:
All of the helms are drawn to match their respective level of armour. This would be the padded cap to go with the gambeson, and if one were being realistic this should be worn under your metal helmet. And seriously, would you want to wear a metal helm without some padding? 

Helm01:
A metal-reinforced leather "nasal helmet" or design loosely based on the historical "spangenhelm". The leather would presumably be cuirbouilli.

Helm02:
This is a full metal version of the spangenhelm with a little studded leather neck-covering to make it match the studded leather armour.

Helm03:
An open-faced "barbute"-style helm? Or maybe open-face "bascinet" style helm is more accurate. One or the other.

Helm04:
This is roughly based on "viking" helmets (or "hjalmar", if you like) with a chainmail neck covering to match the chainmail armour. I only had to redraw this chainmail twice.

Helm05:
Definitely a "barbute" style helm. Weird how this family of helmets became so identified with either Magneto or Spartans.

Helm06: 
A German "sallet" style helmet. This is my favourite style of helmet! It looks super cool and kinda menacing, a bit like the classic WW1/WW2 stahlhelm (which of course, for instance, Star Wars drew some imagery from ie. the Imperial Commandos and Darth Vader to an extent, though that design was more based on the Japanese kabuto helm). Anyway, sallet helms are great.

Helm07:
A full bascinet-style helm, ornately decorated to match its respective armour.

Mace00:
Why, this isn't a mace at all, but a club with nails sticking out of it! So yes, I'm using "mace" to describe all blunt-type weapons.

Mace01:
Very, very roughly based on what a medieval blacksmith might use for a hammer. I figure the first two levels of blunt weapons can be somewhat makeshift.

Mace02:
A pretty standard metal flanged mace.

Mace03:
A "morning star" style mace. (By the way, I really wanted to include a set of flails, especially the classic morning star flail, but they just didn't quite fit neatly into the mace progression.)

Mace04:
A slightly spikier all-metal flanged mace in menacing dark metal!

Mace05:
Basic warhammer with a spike on the back. See also the commentary about showing progression with axes.

Mace06:
Same deal as axes, here's a slightly fancier warhammer with an additional spike on it.

Mace07:
Pure fantasy, I was thinking "What would Thor use?". Looking for reference all I could find is the comic-book version of Thor's Mjolnir which is like a brick on a stick, a bit too silly, so I pulled it back a touch to get this. (Random side-story: my mom went to highschool with Walter Simonson aka the writer of the Thor comic books! Apparently she didn't remember him at all.)

Shield00:
Basic metal buckler. The first level shield should probably be worse than this, but it's the visually smallest so it reads as the worst even if it perhaps shouldn't be. Such are the travails of visual design.

Shield01:
Your archetypal medieval wooden shield. 

Shield02:
A standard "heater" style shield. Apparently its called a "heater" because in the Victorian era they thought it looked like the shape of a clothes-iron. This is, in my opinion, a really dumb name for a type of shield. Heraldric symbol based roughly on one you could choose in "Darklands" (Yes, it's one of my favourite games if you haven't noticed yet).

Shield03: 
A "kite" style shield with a heraldric eagle. I remember crafting a million of these in "Ultima Online". See also previous note about letting Victorians name types of shields.

Shield04:
This was originally going to be a Roman Legionaire Scutum shield, a subset of tower shields perhaps, but I decided that the direct reference to Rome was too outside the generally medieval scope of this item set, so I moved the design toward heater shields. I did keep the lightning bolt design though because it's pretty neat.

Shield05:
Based on a Scottish "targe"-style shield. A bunch of the pictures of these had a big spike in the middle, so there you go.

Shield06:
This was loosely based on the "Lead Shield" item from "Dominions 4" which increases your magic resistance a bunch, though is super heavy. I decided that a big lump of lead didn't look very appealing so I added a celestial-looking design in silver.

Shield07:
Based on a fancy bronze "rondache" style shield, a medieval Italian style I think? It's quality is based mostly on the "fancier is better" principle.

Sword00:
Rusty short sword. This is what your level-1 warrior always starts with in D&D.

Sword01:
Falchion. A chopping sword, as usual, appeared in "Darklands".

Sword02:
Okay, this is a Roman shortsword aka the gladius. Even if I didn't include the scutum shield, you get just this. 

Sword03:
A non-rusty standard medieval sword.

Sword04:
A slightly prettier longsword. I think the longsword graphic in "Baldur's Gate" used the same colour scheme.

Sword05:
Now this is fantastical! It's some kind of scimitar/cutlass thing with writing on it; my thought was "what does an Elven Druid use?", and I came up with this.

Sword06:
Based on the "flamberge" style sword with cool underlighting. It's not clear if the wavy blade adds anything to the effect, but it sure looks cool.

Sword07:
Fantastical "hero" sword. Gold, wings, runes of power; the whole lot. If you're the hero, you have to use this to defeat the evil wizard.

