Cosmetic Heavy Armour: Brrokk Barrowbane
Here's how I've made up my armour appearance.
I've always liked the Armour of the Seven Fathers. I think it's mostly
a well-designed, realistic looking, dwarvish set, coherent in appearance, but
there are a couple of niggles. Here I am wearing the entire set.
It's clearly based on some low-level pieces sold by armour vendors, but
the textures make it look good. There's some dwarvish chain mail, and
the individual pieces are marked with "runes" which match nicely. I
like the score marks from combat too.
The main problem is: the helmet! This doesn't match the other pieces so
well, and it looks like it was added to the set as an afterthought.
What's more, it looks slightly too small; my ears are squashed. And why
is it blue on top? (It can't be dyed). Finally, there are some odd
clipping issues around the back of the neck, which seems strange
considering that this is meant to be a whole armour set. Experiments
have convinced me that the back of a character's neck is actually a
component of the chest item being worn, which is why clipping happens
with some chest/helmet combinations and not others. Here is a close
view of the clipping:
Oh, and one more thing: where has my hair gone? Some dwarves may be
baldies, but I have thick flowing locks. Am I to assume that it's
coiled up tightly in the helmet? That sounds uncomfortable.
For a while I made a vow that, when goblins were slain by me, the last
thing they saw would be my face. This solved the problem in story
terms, but I still experimented with various helms to see if the
clipping could be solved. Here's another example of a low-level
NPC-sold helmet dyed black, which worked quite well:
A reasonable match, but I didn't like the rather "eastern" shape.
Finally, one day in the School of Tham Mirdain, I picked up the
solution: the Mutnul-Khudh. It's big enough, nicely detailed and
matches the rest of the set well. Clipping isn't an issue although the
effect on my hair is still mysterious if I think about it. Here it is,
dyed black:
I considered this an ideal look for some time, but eventually became
dissatisfied with the chest piece. Yes, it's a good match for the rest
of the set, but I began to feel that the whole effect is a bit drab. I
experimented with swapping pieces out one at a time, and came to the
conclusion that the chest piece was messing up the whole look by its
drabness, and also those strange light areas under the shoulder pads.
Inspriation struck when I got the chest piece of the Armour of Durin's
Guard (here dyed black):
I didn't like giving up the rune decorations, but this is just the
right colour level. It's been my standard heavy armour appearance for
some time now. Just recently I've been able to add the Algraig shield
and a cloak which dropped in Northcotton Farm (dyed, er, black). This
cloak finally hides any neck-clipping problems and obviously my unruly
hair is just hidden underneath it. (It's just a shame that crossbows
and cloaks don't mix). Here's Brrokk Barrowbane at last in his fine
armour, ready for battle: