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JohnSu β Tankmage
Published: 2011-03-09 08:28:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 100705; Favourites: 3348; Downloads: 1324
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Description
During the Cold War, a super secret Soviet R&D facility was frozen deep underground. The officer in charge of it promptly forgot about it when he misplaced the map of its location, and told no-one in his embarrassment. The staff remained in suspended animation for thousands of years, until apocalyptic events defrosted the facility.In the thawed post-apocalypse, the researchers continued their work underground, unaware of what had happened to them and the world above. Over the course of time they developed a series of increasingly compact tanks, eventually culminating in a model that could be worn by an operator like a sort of exo-suit. When they finally ran out of food, the staff sent up Petia - the daughter of the assistant mechanic - along with the tank suit to contact their superior and request additional rations.
But behold! The post-post-apocalyptic world had been transformed! The nuclear fallout combined with cosmic radiation and wild superstitions had given birth to a WORLD OF MAGIC. Ghouls and ghosts, dungeons and dragons, everywhere! But the Soviet Union and communism were nowhere to be found.
Petia shot and killed an orc and brought it back to her nerd family, who dined on the charred corpse as they listened to her story in wonder. After a lengthy discussion amongst themselves, everybody decided that yes, it sucked that their friends, family, and country were dead, but that it was pretty cool that America was too, and now would be a sweet time to take over the world with their tank and propagate the joys of communist doctrine.
And so, since Petia has the least health problems, they send her out in their latest tank model: the TI-83 (unrelated to the graphing calculator of the same name ). Petia then joins up with Lin-Lin the witch in a quest to overthrow the current ruler of Eurasia, who I guess is a demon lord or something.
Even though the TI-83 has armor, cannons, and treads, it is not a true tank in the sense that it is really more of a girl.
This picture took a long time, but damn am I satisfied. I think I'm liking the look of the thin lines + gradient coloring style. A lot of the TI-83's design is inspired by the tech from my employer's work in progress, Firefall .
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Made in Flash
EDIT: Several of you have brought to my attention that "Petia" is a Russian boy's name. The online source I got the name from said it was a Slavic/Bulgarian girl's name, so I was like "meh, close enough," but apparently it was too close to something else. So I'll say her parents were Bulgarian, and not Russian. Or they really wanted a boy.
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Comments: 478
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"And brought it back to her nerd family"Β
I lost it at that part xD
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With the treads on the knees it looks like the wearer can kneel down and the tank armor will fit to look almost like a conventional, if very small, tank. Β Was that your intention?
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Science trumps magic, orc, goblins, dungeons, and dragons hands down. Although Soviet Tank armor(I assume it is made of Stalinnium)that could be worn by small girl and dominate everything in it way.
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Wow! There's so much I love about this piece! I love the design of the tank armor (I love the aesthetic of tanks in general), I love the attention to detail with the gash on the goblin's shoulder, and I love the atmosphere created by the blanket of clouds over the landscape. Love it!!! Β
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Tankmage castsΒ 76.2Β mm F-34 tank gun. Natural crit.
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Demon lord vs girl with a russian exo suit, that sound like a fun plan.
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Yes especially when it made with Stalinnium
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Petia is also a female Bulgarian name, so it's okay ^^
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Could be the start of an epic saga!
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Yeah! Know any manga writers? The artist should pitch the idea to them! This could be the start of something big!
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Ah, well... Let's hope JohnSu may one day decide to take this somewhere.
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Yes.
IΒ΄d like a story with lots of those tank suits.
Like KnightΒ΄s & Magic, that was fun.
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Yeah, except our main knight would be a plucky girl wearing the best tech the Soviet Underground R&D Department could offer, intent on helping the land by reintroducing SCIENCE! and communism to it. Considering that a demon lord was mentioned, I think it's possible that a sort of medieval Japan-style elite of warlords rule the land, so a communist revolution - led by scientist and other patient, collected people (and a one-girl army), instead of vengeful peasants and charismatic manipulators - may actually be a step-up for the people of these enchanted lands.
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Well the culture shock WILL lead to quite some uproar.
But if played in a more comical way this has a lot of entertaining value.
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Yush. Mirthful meanderings betwixt the Soviet (Bulgarian? At least, according to JohnSu) girl's unfamiliarity and awkwardness with Japanese cultural customs and modern anime and manga tropes, and an actual, Marxist inspired review of such a fantasy society through our protagonist.
Seriously, though, humor aside, if the main character is portrayed well - as someone who's actually from the Second World, and thus has a Marxist view on culture and society (social classes, habits, "opiates", etc.) -, this could serve as a neat thought experiment on how the world of anime and mangas would be seen through the eyes of such a person. Despite the general unpopularity of communist and socialism in countries where it formerly existed, the ideas regarding society and cultural norms still persist in the minds of many people.
So, besides the usual hi-jinks you see in such stories, the reader/viewer would see how someone from, for example, Eastern Europe would operate in the world of Japanese pop-culture.
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The question about the values of the heroine is an interesting factor.
Is she an actual Marxist? Or is she, isolated in the science community, something entirely different?
Will she use her weapons to force Communism on the world or will she find her own entirley new individual path?
The possibilities are ginormous.
Humor would still be nice to have in though.
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Yeah. However, I wasn't talking about her political beliefs. In many former Communist Bloc countries, you would find that - despite now actively despising communism, and being fervently nationalistic - people still think of society in social classes, the exploiters and and the exploited, and may see television and pop culture as "the opiate". (There was joke in one comic strip of Calvin and Hobbes, where the two were reading a book, and Calvin read out loud the line "Religion is the Opiate of the masses.", and then wondering what it meant. Cue the next "box" in the comic, with the television set thinking to itself: "It meant that Marx didn't know about television.")
If you have been raised in this system, even if you don't believe in it politically, it may have still influenced your outlook on life, or at least serve as the basis of your personal beliefs.
Being from a scientific community that thrived (for lack of better words) under the watchful eye of such a system only means that she may be more empirical than superstitious (which is why a world of real magic may be baffling to her), and that she's not fanatically into the ideology, as much as she's altruistic and willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good, even if she isn't too keen on helping a particular set of people.
The humor would rely a lot on seeing someone who's culturally isolated, atheistic, and with a particular philosophical outlook (that, by today's standard, is rather dated) enter a world of manga and anime clichΓ©s, based on medieval Japan, as these works usually are.
I doubt scientist would be all too keen to force a political agenda unto a world where they're vastly outnumbered and cut off from resources that would aid them in continuing their work (after all, no Soviet Union = no oil, gas, uranium, machining tools, electricity, raw materials, etc.), and one girl can only do so much, even if clad in what is essentially a suit-sized tank.
Then again, in a world of magic, where only a limited number of people are able to wield it (if that is the case), a community of scientists from centuries, or possibly many millennia ago would be seen as wise men of knowledge - though, limited knowledge, as they were mostly the Weapons R&D department, specifically, the one focusing on tank development. It could serve as a major plot point that they try to make themselves seem more useful for the new locals of their former home by having our protagonist attempt to seek out other underground facilities that may dot the strata of the land, ones focusing on research more immediately useful for local peasants, like in the field of agriculture, mining, food preservation, tool creation, and hand-held weaponry.
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I had the same idea about the scientists, but you left out "transportation".
The way you described it reminded me of "Utawarerumono" (The One being sung), if you are familiar with the title.
But from the cute style of the drawing i would prefer a less serious, more comedy approach.
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It would be a mainly comedy-focused story, but with the occasional meanderings into philosophy and ideology, regarding how different people view the world. It would be unique, because, being an Eastern (well, Central-Eastern) European myself, I've rarely seen our mindset reflected or properly represented within foreign media, especially in Japanese, where our way of thinking practically doesn't exist. It's like they have little idea as to how personal philosophies on this side of the globe work.
It could be just cultural homogenization for the sake of familiarity - most works of manga and anime rarely leave the home islands, and the market is very nationally oriented.
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Well most shows are usually geared towards an audience with the same background as the creators.
So that is not much of a surprise. It would require a really good author and director to create what you have in mind.
But the end result would definitely be worth watching.
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If we're thinking of a traditional manga that's primarily geared towards the Japanese, the main source of comedy and conflict would come from essentially seeing a foreigner of a somewhat obsolete mindset come face-to-face with their well-known pop-cultural tropes and clichΓ©s.
It would be a little bit like "Look Who's Back", a German dark comedy novel and film in which Hitler suddenly appears, alive and well, in the early 2010s, and, growing somewhat accustomed to the changes Germany underwent in 70 years, he utilizes the comedic infamy that surrounds him to regain his popularity, and return to politics. The movie goes from humorous to terrifying over its course, as Hitler's portrayal as charming manipulator (despite his biases and antiquated mindset) is chillingly spot-on, as well as how he could potentially "work with" the populism and nationalism of new tens.
This would be something similar, but not as sinister, and far more comedic - the hypothetical portrayal of someone from a country that's long gone, who's mindset clashes with the modern pop-culture inspired, mythical present. Since fantasy anime is often dipped heavily in traditional beliefs, national and cultural mythology, and religion, seeing someone, even a child, or young teen, who comes from a radically different, ideology-fueled, somewhat artificial culture of years gone by, would react when facing such a world could be both the source of hilarity, and a thought-provoking review of anime "traditions" from a rarely seen perspective.
It would certainly be a refreshing material for the Japanese, who rarely experience and different point of view from their own in their home media.
If the whole thing was meant for a more international audience, it could go even further with the philosophical approach - making fun of both Japanese manga and Soviet/Russian cultural clichΓ©s, while giving an explanation to the nature and origin of said tropes, comparing the two world views, and how and where they would clash.
One of the bigger questions, as proposed by JohnSu in the description, would be how this technologically advanced, but resource-scarce society of intelligent, but ideologically-minded scientists would go about in with their lives in this new world. After all, if they have the means and the know-how, they could re-establish the old regime, and revive communism in the post-post-apocalypse, now armed with the knowledge of the several errors and failures of bygone regimes. Also, a medieval society is typically characterized as the potentially "past" breeding ground for communism, as often heralded in the common excuse/explanation about communism's failure as an ideology that the world is both "too advanced" and "not advanced enough yet" for.
It really depends on whom the show would be aimed for.
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Communism fails because it ignores some fundamental characteristics that makes human beings work.
But going as far as you write here would require more than just that single pic as basis.
I know that movie with Hitler comming back but i havenΒ΄t watched it yet.
The culture clash is definitely the most intersting point as both comedy and philosophy invoking goal.
And what would the scientists do? How would they interact with the new world?
Push their values on it or adapt to the others? Would they enrich or ruin it?
The sheer potential is collossal.
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Yeah. By communism, I meant collective farming and centralized organization. In medieval times, most people would be glad just to able to have good crops, and survive until next year. A more simplistic society offers a greater chance to success for economic part of the system, if done well. Larger farms tend to be have more successful crop yields than smaller ones.
I base most of my ideas on the description of the picture. JohnSu explicitly (albeit, probably with considerable irony) mentions the scientists' intention about bringing back communism into post-post-apocalyptica.
The primary focus, and thus, humor and philosophy, would stem from the main character - the titular "Tankmage", as she would come to be called, in a world where technology is akin to magic, and magic already exists -, and her interactions with whatever allies, enemies, or bystanders she encounters.
The scientists, being outnumbered and without resources, could probably offer their knowledge of weaponry (and, if they have any, their knowledge of agriculture) to the dispossessed, after our hero frees them from whatever demonic oni warlords they were toiling under, and offer them this new system of organization that they're familiar with - which would basically be communism at its most simplistic: a society where the workers (or, in this case, farmers) own everything collectively, and work together, joining their fields, and planting crops and orchards based on their consensus, as opposed to being taxed by an uncaring wizard or warlord who merely levies these tolls on them in exchange for his "protection".
This could be sort of a secondary plotline of the story - the scientist, while being faithful to their old Motherland, are still men and women of empirical knowledge, and thus, would choose to put their own ideology to the test: could it work in such simple conditions, without the conflict with modern capitalism, or is it to be eschewed and left in the dustbin of history?
In the meantime, they themselves - along with our heroine - would have to adapt to a world where magic exists, which they would, of course, try to study in the same manner as they did with other fields, forcing them to interact with local mages and witches to gain knowledge, while offering them their own knowledge of technology, and scientific practices (such as metallurgy, the creation of certain chemicals, and other such experiences). Yet, in the same time, the world they knew is gone, so they would be forced to both rejoin a society different from the one they left behind, and send the "Tankmage" to try and recover other underground Soviet research centers.
This could also offer us a bit of a (darkly) humorous insight into the paranoia-fueled bureaucratic lunacy of the old system's (such as finding out that the Soviet Space Program had been moved underground, in order to preserve secrecy after the failed N1 moon rocket), or some genuinely harrowing experiences, such as stumbling into underground facilities where the experiments have gone wrong, or where the cryostasis has failed, leaving behind only mummified corpses, or even perhaps the unlaunched remainders of the U.S.S.R.'s once vast nuclear arsenal.
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Yes, exactly what i meant, LOTS of potential.
The underground facility exploration sounds a lot like a Fallout game, which fits the dark humor you mentioned as well.
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In essence, yeah, but with the same, occasionally harrowing twists that the fallout games offered (Rest in peace, residents of Vault 34).
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Oh yes, some of the Vaults had rather... disturbing content... (Gaaary!)
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Vault 34, and the vault where they pretended to "rehabilitate" junkies for a year, before reintroducing them to drugs, even after they've successfully recovered, are, from a moral standpoint, the most fucked up ones out there.
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Morally yes, but not as eerie and disturbing as 54 Garys or as dangerous as a Vault full of Supermutants.
Then there is that Vault that turned kids into pro killers only to kill them when they became 18.
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Ah, yeah, the Gunners' vault. Then, there was the one where the air was filled with hallucinogenics, driving everyone in the vault insane.
I doubt we would see THAT level of moral myopia in the Soviet research vaults, but rather, the sometimes ludicrous results of an oppressive and paranoid bureaucracy - such as moving the Space Program underground, or dedicating an entire center into creating the "eternal engine"... And then, sometimes, we would see the results of experiments gone wrong, such as failed biochemical weapons research facility, where the toxins leaked out, slowly infecting the entire facility, with those inside all infected, and placing the entire complex under quarantine, slowly dying on the inside, and leaving nothing, but corpses behind, as their artificial viruses die off without new hosts, or due to radiation leakage, and their chemical toxins simply expire over time... Or, our heroes would stumble into what remains of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal, with missiles buried and inactive, but still just as ready to launch, should the dirt above their silos be cleared away, as they were, centuries ago.
This could serve as a stark reminder to the scientist and the "Tankmage" about the negative aspects of their own scientific research, and the old country and world they've left behind...
It would also lead to some uncomfortable explanations to their new friends in the new world, as well as the dilemma about what to do with the remaining nukes.
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A friend of mine said their latest work was dreamed up looking at your stuff... This is the second pic I have seen, and I love the art!
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Thanks! And I'm glad it's of use to your friend!
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Mind if I use this for a quest? (Tabletop game.)
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Thank you!
Would you like to see the end product?
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.... <3Β
All fantasy must now have cute tank mages, this is not a request!!!!
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I'm going to take a guess that the apocalypse was caused by the US and the USSR deciding to finally fucking blow each other and everything else up.
Tankmages; totally worth destroying the world for.
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