【Weapon Design】Become a Weaponsmith 〜Spear Edition〜

I love fantasy settings.

I love its sword duels with sparks of fire shooting out, fierce exchanges of magic spells.

Mystical elixirs that resurrect the dead.

Conflicts between humans, and also friendships that transcend races and species. 

There’s the world we’d never had in real life in fantasy settings, and that makes me love them.

 

No discussion regarding weapons gaining solid popularity in fantasy settings would go without mentioning spears.

The advantage of spears is its high usability that plays a double role of offense and defense in mid-range fights.

Adding more options in tactics, the weapon is the instrumental centerpiece in a party, in my arrogant opinion.

Besides, its slender shaft must be pretty cool.

 

In this article I show you how to draw cool spears. Hey Mom! Don’t interfere, I’m drawing a spear (hilarious pun intended, obviously).

This article is going to be like a reference material providing you readers with various types of spear, saying “how about it, you like it?”

Hope this will help your weapon design!

▼Become a Weaponsmith: Season 1

【For Beginners】Become a Weaponsmith – Casting & Minting 〜 【Weapon Design】

【For Beginners & Intermediates】Become a Weaponsmith ~Equipment Edition~【Weapon Design】

 

▼Previous Articles

【Weapon Design】Become a Weaponsmith ～Shield Edition～

 

Spear Types

The name “spear” refers to all the pole weapons that have a long shaft with an edged end.

Therefore, you could think that types of spears are defined by their usage, rather than their shape.

Edged ends have distinguished types in its shape, but let’s serve that for another occasion since mentioning it will make the article rather complicated.

Casting Spears

Here’s the design of the spear with the four elements.

It would be cool if we could include motifs in the design that would evoke each element.

To tell you the truth, In this series of articles, I’ve kept drawing weapons on the motifs of animals and plants (I forgot animal-motif shields as an exception). Leaving aside the quality of drawings, it has amazed me to learn that there’s not a few plants related to weapons.

It’s so much fun to search for motifs and discover what their names are derived from!

The next is the design of spears with enhanced fantasy essence!

Even though it was unfeasible in real life, fantasy allows anything you want to do!

Clear your mind first, and then start drawing with no plan. I bet that would unexpectedly work for your design.

Equipping Spears

With its length, the spear allows various ways of fight: stabbing, slashing, striking.

On the other hand, it is weak in close combat.

So it is crucial how to keep opponents at bay!

As it looks, a spear is difficult to carry.

I presume that more are carried by hand than by packing or on the shoulder.

I heard that the reason of gatekeeper’s holding spears is to intimidate the public, so the method by hand might be the best.

We are now completed creating the weapon design!

I’ve been wondering whether you want images of characters using the weapon, but I eventually showed some of it, since I bet not a few of you are reading this with specific character images in your mind.

 

In ancient times spears existed as a hunting tool, and came to be used for battles.

Therefore it can be said that this weapon has a shared history with humans.

The history certifies the high usability of spears.

Cast your eyes towards the reasons why spears are created, and why humans have kept using them, and you’ll get clues to cool designs of spears and spear users.

 

Let me conclude the article with the revised version of the design I like.

Thank you for reading!

 

（Text・Illustration／時計）

Twitter @Clock1231