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Problems with Rigging


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A rather controversial discussion has come up on the discord about the nature of the rigging in the Victory Belles art. The basis of controversy is several discrepancies in the rigging of the belles compared to actual ship equipment, and between the art of the belle and that on the rigging.

 

For example, look at the brilliant detail on Kongou's incredibly intricate dress.

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Then look at the cartoonish and silly rigging on Arizona

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Or the sheer discrepancy between Algerie's head-cover and her own turrets.

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There's a clear difference in the detail put into the girls and the rigging.

 

The other major issue is the accuracy of the rigging itself. The biggest offender of this is not the oft-mentioned Scharnhorst, but in fact Camicia Nera, whose art has the turrets for the OTO 1933 120mm/50 naval guns, when she carried the Ansaldo 1936 120mm/50 guns. The turrets you see on Camicia Nera's art are in fact for the secondaries of the Conte di Cavour class battleships.

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I want to preface this by saying I like Salmon's art. His character designs are great. However, I just feel like the rigging is neglected in the art. From the shapes of the turrets and equipment to the size of the guns and extra turrets or catapults that the ship never had. I just wish the rigging had a little more care put into it. This game is about ship girls, yes the characters should be important, but if the characters have rigging, the care should be put in to make sure they're using the right equipment and have all the shapes and proportions correct.

 

Kongou probably has the most correct looking turrets of all the belles, they're more easily identifiable than many of the turrets on other characters. The correct looking equipment only adds to her character design as a whole. I would just like to see more care taken into the equipment if it's put in the art. I'm also fine with characters who have more creative equipment like Graf Spee's triple barreled rifle. Voykov's bigass gun, and Bellfast's harp pompom gun. Even Rawalpalindi who only has a single gun, the gun and turret look correct so I have no issues with it. But if the turrets and other rigging is decided to be added to a characters art, I feel the equipment should look a little better than it does on many of the other belles because otherwise for people like me, it detracts from the art more than it adds to it. Dunkerque's turrets shap disappointed me a little even if all my issues are very nitpicky.

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All that really shows is that Salmon88 prefers to draw fancy clothes over mechanical detailing. (not that there's anything wrong with that, every artist should play to their strengths)

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Yea but then I feel more of the belles should be drawn like Graf Spee, Voykov, Belfast, or Rawalpindi. More limited rigging involved with them. But when he tries to draw rigging and equipment, he's already not playing to his strengths anymore. And Kongou shows he can certainly draw equipment in the correct shapes.

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I am a man of the opinion that while people should certainly play to their strengths, they should be able to take criticism and improve upon their mistakes. The purpose of this thread in my mind is to point out mistakes and our criticisms of them so that the artists and design teams, and in fact the VB team as a whole may better themselves from it. If we can help them find where they fall short, we can help them improve themselves and make Victory Belles even better than it already is.

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A few thoughts.

 

We've seen sister ships Hans Ludemann and Diether von Roeder, and their riggings were nothing alike. It seems to me a Belle's rigging is her own personal interpretation of what she has.

A question about the belles and their gear. Now I've learned from experience to never ask a woman her weight, but I'll take any and all responsibility for my actions:

 

How much does what the belles form on them (guns torpedoes AA) weigh, would it be possible for a human to lift them or would you need cranes and such?

 

How much do the belles themselves weigh, let's use Bulldog and Royal for an example since wellington is right above me. Let's say something catastrophic happens during a patrol and one of them gets injured/knocked out would it be possible for your standard 200+ pound man to move Bulldog, what about Royal? Or would it be physically impossible and you would have to leave them there while you continued fighting?

 

 

And finally: How much do their melee weapons weigh, they are constructions of their will correct so would they weigh the same or can they control the weight? Comparing say Mahan's sword and Bulldogs' switch.

 

 

SS;

 

While density is partially under their control, in general you could lift them and often their gear. Usually, they weight slightly less than a real human, sometimes significantly less.

 

Their melee weapons vary, and the weight is under their control, for the most part.

 

This from the General Questions thread leads me to believe that Belles' rigging operates under the Rule of Cool, not the Rule of Cosplay. ;)

 

Salmon 88 did all 39' art virtually single-handed. I'm in awe. I've no doubt that his craft improved as he went on, so that his seventy-second Belle was much better than his second. I'm not even going to attempt to tell the order he drew the Belles though. ^_^

 

Personally, I couldn't tell a OTO 1933 120mm/50 gun from an Ansaldo 1936 120mm/50 gun. Even after a quick Google search I still can't. :wacko:

If there is that big a difference, perhaps you can provide a picture reference, like close-ups?

 

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This is a great thread.

 

Now, in some cases, the Belles will take artistic license (for instance, Scharnhorst's turrets or Algerie's over/under), but it's a different matter if the wrong one was selected. Although it's not certain that these will be corrected for '39, ultimately, we'd like to correct the major ones as we can.

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I just felt things like this should be brought to the attention of the team. Hopefully you can get everything fixed soon. I'll keep my eye out, but hopefully other people will help me comb through and find things like this.

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