Uniform Updates for the Star Army of Yamatai

Yeah, this replaces the Service Dress. The frock coat goes back to being an outdoors-only type of coat, I bet.

The black coat can still be used for ceremonies and is usable for cold weather, but the duty uniform (type 35) has returned to being the main uniform for formal events and also the chibi art. So while the black coat is still around, you will probably see it (and use it) less.

The duty uniform jacket is a jacket (in the sense of a BDU jacket...it's worn over a T-shirt) not a frock coat.

WIP of the Duty Uniform (Type 35), courtesy of Nashoba (art by Dervaster):

Here's the Duty Uniform Type 35:



This is based on the new art for Johnathan Darksky, but with the skin and eye colors changes to be less distracting.

Official uniform color palette for artists.

So no department colors anymore?

The front panel is colored with the division color

I'll make a similar palette for the occupational colors.

WIP color palette. Comments wanted.

Well for our artists, shouldn't we include the codes for the colors like you did for the upper entries?

It's a work in progress. Are the colors okay?

They look okay. Although I shudder to think what occupation wears flesh tone.

Here's an updated version. I made the science color darker and called the Star Army light blue gray "Uniform Gray."

The pink is the old SAINT panel color (prior to the introduction of gray and black panels). I might remove it if I find a color that needs to be on there more. Also, I'm a little iffy on the Kikyo purple. It's subject to change based on what I find in my archives.

Note that most of the panel colors are no longer "pure" colors, which I think makes them seem more realistic.

The Star Army's Hinomaru

In light of Wes making his newer Type 35 uniforms, I wanted to broach this.

With respect to Wes, because I know he did it himself some time ago... well, I'll be plain: I don't like the Hinomaru. I never really did. I just hate the thought of knowing that once I finish the ships I'm currently designing that I'll have to slap it on them.

While the site evolved visually, it hasn't aged well. I find the red rather tacky. The rendition of the Mindy is old enough to look crude today and I never identified much to its meaning. Not that I mean to offend, but I consider it an eyesore.

If Wes plans on investing more money in artwork, I'd propose that some serious thought be brought upon this element - the symbol of the Star Army - which sees such wide usage on other media.

Perhaps this would be worth discussing? I myself always liked the Yamataian 'Lily' better than the Star Army's 'Mindy on red sun'. Perhaps by the turn of YE 35 the Star Army could go towards something more elegant to symbolize its shift in ideology?

Symbology with judicious attention to detail while aiming for simplicity sounds like it might be a good direction to go; for example, I've always admired the Lotus Fleet logo that created the Lotus flower with clever shapes and then made it look futuristic.

For that matter, a friend of mine is amazing at making logos and could perhaps be called upon to design something nice. You can find examples of his past work on the each faction page of the previous forum RPG I was involved with.

Re: The Star Army's Hinomaru

I have always wondered about staying with the Mindy, so a new design could be worth pursuing.

I'd certainly be willing to look at suggestions for a new design. It could either be something that replaces the Mindy armor but keeps the hinomaru or a new emblem entirely. Any replacement design would have to be really good, as it will have to overcome ten years of tradition, making several hundred artworks obsolete. It will also need to be simple enough to make a patch out of.

It could definitely use a design update, but I'd rather not see something too fancy. There's a reason that militaries choose simple identifying marks for their craft.

To be fair, every time the uniform changes, the character artwork becomes obsolete. *shrugs*

And most of the non-uniform style art that has it is in DOGA, which means all it takes is one person modelling the new one into DOGA, and everyone just updating the models that are already there.

To minimize the impact, we could keep the red circle and just replace what is in it, on some of the art, uniform and such that would pretty much preclude needing to redo them.