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Shimmering-Sword —
Battletech - Experimental Marauder
Published: 2012-12-17 05:20:20 +0000 UTC; Views: 60502; Favourites: 2097; Downloads: 8975
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Description
I noticed Catalyst has finally released the XTRO: Succession Wars ebook. My work on the book was finished over half a year ago but I had to sit on the art while it's release was delayed.Here it is though and I'm excited to show it, a Marauder design that I collaborated on with Matt Plog. Turns out Catalyst was trying to redesign a marauder at the very same time I was publicly redesigning it, when they saw what I had done they pulled me in to help out. After we got the design nailed down Matt plog whipped up some great TRO line art of it and I came up with this painting, which turned out to be used as the cover.
Shown, a Free Worlds League Marauder-4X 75ton heavy mech going through live fire trials on the Ronin Inc testing fields. It uses special cooling jackets around it's blazers to keep heat in check.
Loadout:
2 Binary Laser Cannons
2 Short Range Missile 6's
Enjoy.
*Edit*
Thanks to ^3wyl and ^alltheoriginalnames for the DD. I'd like to again give a shout out to ~mattPLOG for the fun collaboration on this design. He's a great battletech artist.
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Comments: 270
I like the overall concept, but the damage is somewhat unrealistic, and the left leg normally would have given way from that many holes. You were a little generous in inflicting damage on that leg. I also noticed that the lazer thingies aren't solid, they look more like crayon smears. The arms seem a little to thin to support the guns. I see this as more of a rough draft than a final concept. I especially like the realisticality of the treads and such, as well as the acess panels in key places. The background is interesting as well, but it lacks detail. This is an exellent start.
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The reviewer should also consider the fiction that this piece is inspired by. The machines in Battletech can have all of their armor stripped off and still function. Yes, even on the joints.
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A spot of damage does not indicate that the laser completely penetrated the armor. If you jam a knife into your countertop, it leaves a mark, but doesn't always pass straight through the wood.
Lasers aren't solid. I feel that one should be pretty obvious.
Criticizing the lack of objects background, considering the context of it being a live fire testing ground, feels silly. This is not a draft. It is not a sketch. This is a finished product and it looks like a finished product.
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Good afternoon!. I am not sure about where to start since weapons along robotics is a great "product". The first relation I did after looking at this work was "Highlander Marauder", though this one seems far from that, because this Marauder provokes a much different impression. This model is for sure a weapon to provoke high impact in the front line, not only over a single objective!.
I must personally say that while looking deeper at colours, the purple colour kind of makes me think in other least aggressive items, but if you see it as "combinations", of course it does fit quite well with the background. I don't know how to express it well, but the damage being made on the Armour gives live to the realism of a munition exchange (battle).
I like the surroundings, the destruction is all around, saying clearly "This is a war zone".
Quite a different model, but aren't weapons about innovation and new designs for different cases and situations?. Yes!. Is good to see a new scene and/or design!.
Keep the good work Shimmering-Sword!.
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Overall, excellent quality of work. My only complaint is that the angle does not give much of a sense of how long, front to back, Marauder torsos tend to be. And that, I think, is more of a nit-pick. The paint scheme screams "proving grounds" rather than testing in real combat. The yellow/black striping is the big one on that. Without that, I'd call the prominent presence of the Marik purple to be an indicator of a parade unit, or perhaps an elite outfit that eschews traditional camo patterns. I'd love to see an urban camo composed of straight vertical and horizontal lines with varying shades of gray, maybe with the lines composed of digital blur, kind of like modern digital camo patterns.
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At the risk of decapitation, I'm going to say now that I never liked the orginal Marauder. Now don't get me wrong; the Glaug/Offler's Pod/whatever looks cool, but it was just too 'alien' for the rest of the Battletech universe's design asthetic.
This one, however, blows it out of the water. You've retained all the elements that made the original work so well; the chicken-walker legs, the blocky arm-pods and the bird-like torso. What you've added compliments those elements; the "bubble" canopy and the chin intakes especially work well for it. From an asthetic viewpoint there's nothing not to love.
The posing adds to that, being rather dynamic and active, giving a great feel of motion, especially with the weapons fire going off all around it. The colours are also good; Marik Purple is a nice touch, but what really gets me is the combination of grey and warning strips which adds to the "prototype" feel.
All in all, awesomeness.
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First of all: Wow, hats off.
Alright, down to specifics. The upper torso area is by far the strongest part of the design. It's what I first noticed, and it's also what I remember the clearest. This area is what makes the mech really look like a Marauder, because, frankly, the rest just screams Timberwolf (Mad-Cat) which is not so strange if one thinks about it.
At first, I did not care for the weapon arms much, until I looked up what those binary lasers are, and no the design makes more sense. Now it really looks like one of those old Blazer guns from the pen and paper Mechwarrior RPG
Arguably, the only weak part of the design is the crotch area, which is essentially a box. It serves it's function well, but beyond simple functionality, it seems to stylistically clash with the curved, heavily slopped upper body.
Overall, it's a fantastic redesign for a long missed battlemech. I'd love to see this treatment for the other Unseen mechs. With some luck PGI will eventually ask for permission to add them to Mechwarrior Online! They could even have a year of the Unseen e.deviantart.net/emoticons/w/w… " width="15" height="15" alt="
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i love the game as well has the pc game love to build my form the tech books
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Love this. The detail is phenomenal. The captured motion and use of colour really make this
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Ah, Marauder, how would I live without you?
I've been reading up on all these TRO's lately and I must say there are some really interesting variants to some 'Mechs. 
Those Blazers are pretty cool and all, but I'm not entirely sure they're really that much better than just mounting two Large Lasers on something.
But my amateur ramblings aside, this looks really cool.
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The Blazers are mostly there because it's an experimental chassis, so they tend to put odd weapons on them. From what I've told, although the blazer isn't an ideal weapon, it is capable of head shotting a mech due to concentrating all that damage into a single area. So fluff wise, when you don't have access to any other heavy hitting weapons, a blazer is a good substitute.
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That makes sense. 
I did not know that! I'm sure everyone likes to get a good headshot every now and then.
Still, even if it's not an ideal weapon, it's still a neat idea. I wonder what would happen if someone took that concept and implemented it on PPCs? A twin-PPC... that'd be fun.
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Now that I play Mech Warrior Online, I actually know what those guns are, and how to use them.
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btw, If you run by the same name as on here, then I'm pretty sure that we've fought. It was a one way battle, not very memorable.
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Awesome!
Can I use it for a game, granting you credits, and an annual percentage as it turns commercial?
Please consider my offer
to the following link:---> [link]
Have a nice day!
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Did you look at the image for very long or even read my description? This is official game art for Battletech.
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haha, sorry, I was enchanted effectively 
can I scout for other of your works, being careful that is not owned by others?
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All my work is either commissioned or for my own projects so I don't have anything to give away, you'd have to commission original work.
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My friend, I would really like to accept work on commission, but please consider this...
Unfortunately as you see, if I should pay each artist 500$ for each image, I will surely have top works, but I would have to pay 250,000$ only for this, as I need 500 images.
I can bind myself by contract to use your images for free and then as it turns for commercial use, I grant you, each year, as the game keeps growing, a percentage of income, multiplied for the number of your images used in the game. And of course credits and your web address are granted to you.
(I have an appointment with a very capable lawyer, to write it down; and I'll send you and you send me back; keeping your copy of it, and your read it clearly, no strings attached).
I hope you understand that the initial start-up as a free-phase of the game is needed to carry on the project and its expenses; focusing on making it good, and widely spreaded.
This doesn't mean I don't pay Artists, I bind myself to pay them as the game will have an income, it is written and also will be in the contract.
And the expenses and work, and everything I do, about which I will never ask you to do more or pay me for.
Please consider my offer, and if you have not images available, please consider to let me have the chance to consider other available images of yours if possible, or to, if you wish, work on commission creating images that you can submit to my offer.
Anyway I respect your idea and opinion, whatever it would be, either good or not.
But please, don't think bad on me, because I'm not that kind of person, and really I don't want to be damaged or accused or prejudiced for have done nothing bad. Instead, I think I'm doing a good thing, and that can be of value also for Artists. It's a matter of trust, I know, but you can't imagine how much I'm happy when a good artist trusts my offer, because not only trusts me and it's very nice in these times of distrust towards common simple people, but because we are building a team, and a little dream to bring to reality together. And quality works will make the likelt of the game to survive, much bigger, and also for Artists to carry on and keep working not much, and have a very nice income, although annual, is proportioned to the used images of the artist.
Personally, I'm a Psychologist of Communication and Marketing, Specialist in Psychology, with Master in CS6, and more than 4 years of experience as clynical psychologist and 5 as marketing positions.
So believe me my friend, I'm not that lay.
Have a nice day, anyway!
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You may think this sort of plan is necessary for you, but there are always ways to make something work on a tight or no budget without resorting to attempting speculative contracts with artists. It's pretty simple, whatever you are trying to accomplish it too great in scope, and what really worries me is that you give absolutely no details on what you are planning to do with everyones work.
Also, even if you did have money to pay me up front (and trust me, you don't need anywhere near $500 to get great art) I would refuse to provide you any because I would not want my work to be seen among the other artists you have chosen, most of it is terrible and this is going to make your product look bad. There is no publicity reward for an artist that makes a small contribution to a massive image library that consists of low quality. I would consider having my work in your product damaging to my reputation.
I don't think you're attempting anything "wrong", but you could be doing much better if you went about things in the right way. Image farming is not going to get you anywhere.
And a last note, I thought I'd mention that your portfolio doesn't apply much to an artistic career, so you may not want to boast it. if you want to impress an artist, show them all the games you have published.
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My friend,
I cannot tell all because of competitors, its a way to protect my idea. I cannot reveal everything, I'm sorry, and I hope you understand that a contract is a good enough way to make things clear.
Also, I don't think I'm speculative on artists, because I don't see which way, if I propose with a contract that they will get their money, and I sign it, and they keep a copy of it. If I want to fraud them that will be very stupid, since the start, because I've exposed myself, and believe me, there are always prejudices... So I don't want to tell public my competences, because there are a lot of peope who would paint in their mind a worst image of me just because I'm what I am, and could be whatever, because people are very easily ethnocentric without knowing it.
I would like to show my portfolio, but I see no use of it. And for the same reasons, if I's offering a contract I see no harm. But I really appreciate your advice, that people could, unfortunately, get me "wrong", but I think it's in their own ways of seeing the world, and introducing me more would not help reducing prejudices but, instead, would fulfill them.
I hope you understand.
And I hope you'll also understand that I don't think, my friend, that paints a good image of you, criticising a work that you didn't see in the end. You think that your work will be damaged by mine, ok, I can respect your idea about my competences, but this prejudice on the game is an offense; because I don't think that you can read my mind and know exactly in the future how would it be like and if it would succeed or not. Anyway you can try and trust or not, and anyway the contract grants you an income, so it's not useless your effort to do a new image, or spread a new image of yours.
Also, if your image is good, that would be surely noticed in the game is it is ugly, and your image would be sparkiling among them. Like Leonardo da Vinci said "if you want to make an ugly tree look good put it among uglier ones". Anyway, my friend, I should be really very stupid to do a game with bad images... I totally agree with you, with the difference that I dn't think I'm that stupid.
Anyway, I respect your choice, and thank you for this conversation. 
Because even in a future, your visible talent is welcome.
Have a nice day!
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Yay, mechs! Sitting on something like this must've been tough, this is gorgeous.
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This reminds me of when I used to play the first and second MECHASSAULT games while the original Xbox still worked.
MECHS! MECHS EVERYWHERE! :3
Anyways this is epic!
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Fun games, I played MA1 a lot untill Halo2 came out.
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I never really had money so I stuck with my limited edition copy of MA2. They already did, or they are in the middle of making a new legit one. I think its called MECHWARRIOR.
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Hehe, Mechwarrior came long before MA, and yes a new one is already out.
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I knew that, lol. I have several of the original Mechwarrior books, and they are epic reads. I also have several Battle Tech books, as well as an old Battle Tech board game. [SO MUCH STATISTICAL CRAP OMFG, ROFLMAO!]- You had to deal with stuff like this [link]
I'm sure you probably knew that already though, lulz. There was however one other board game that required almost just as much of that stuff. It was a car battling game of some kind.
Good I couldn't remember when it was supposed to be out.
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Outstanding detailing and composition. I wish I did this.
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This is my favorite so far, I love the action and all the activity. Especially like the purple on the mech, the paint scheme is well done and is believable. This mech just look malevonent like a Marauder is suppose to be, this one looks like it dares others to fire on it
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I like this one, though it sat around for so long that I could have done it better while still being in time for the book.
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The Marauder-iic from MW2 was a pretty good design even if it looked a little spindly the hexagon theme was cool. So i was wondering why it needed redesigning?
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Since then all the designs taken from Macross became unseen, so to have art close to the classic look they need to be modified a bit.
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Been getting into Battletech a bit lately (tho always a Mecha fan), & gotta admit I like this pic. Possibly a bit light of firepower, but it looks like it should be sturdy & fast, probably agile too...
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Eeeee, Battletech */fanboi squee*
God how I miss this stuff...
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It's still alive and kicking, you just have to find local players, or go online for megamek and mechwarrior.
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Reminds me of the Warhammer 40,000 TITANS!!!! Still epic though. love it.
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Pretty different than a titan, much smaller.
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Warhound TITAN?? I'd think it's on par with a Warhounds' size... OOohhh. Wait! I see the cockpit is quite big. So the size of the Mech CAN NOT BE anywhere near as big as a TITAN. Even a Warhound-Class.
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