AION - Ophidan Hauberk Mod

As a closure to the "Ophidan Armor" series, we will take a look at the chain type chest piece (a.k.a. hauberk) in this mod. Just like all its other versions, this armor is also mainly black color with draconic essence in its design. The armor looks like a jacket with full arm-length sleeve and slightly extended length (up to the upper thigh), coupled with a short skirt. The jacket surface is given a scale-like or snake-skin texture, which looks kind of like a dragon skin. You can also find this same texture on its other versions, since they are all crafted through "Balic" designs, which utilize materials looted off defeated Balaurs (a.k.a. dragon race). 

Without further delay, let us take a look at the original armor.

Front View - Original Armor

Front Close-up View - Original Armor

From the front views, we can see the black color, snake-skin jacket worn over a supposedly lighter colored blouse and skirt. But I think the most eye catching part is the shoulder guard though.  XD

Rear View - Original Armor

Rear Close-up View - Original Armor

Over here in the rear views, we can see the translucent feather tail that is half hidden under the jacket. This translucent feather design is also present in the cloth armor (a.k.a. tunic).

Side View - Original Armor

So, what have I done for the mod?

Well, for the easy part, the skirt was removed (of course  :p  ) and the jacket shortened to just around the waist area. The harder part is the torso area, which is split into 3 major parts by the mesh; mainly the neck, cleavage-tummy area and bra-sides-back area.

Due to these separations, there are discontinuities that need to be managed or hidden. This means that I cannot simply paint the entire upper torso with skin color or even to remove any parts, because that will leave holes.

So what else can I do for this armor with these constraints...?

Fortunately, the mesh retain the shape of the breasts, which means that I can repaint the area into skin color. However, I cannot do the same for the area below the breasts because of the discontinuity. Thus, I have to keep most of the designs around the tummy and middle part of the torso. In addition, the straps that run from the neck to the bra need to be retained in order to hide the discontinuity between the cleavage area and bra area.

Let's see the result below.

Front View

In the above view, we can see the jacket has been shortened, the skirt has been removed and... harpy fighting with griffon...  O.O  Don't worry about them though... They have been fighting there since AION 1.0 and no one ever got hurt...    XD

Front Close-up View 1

Front Close-up View 2

As you can see, the bra area is now replaced by a transparent layer showing most of the breasts but I did shifted the original claw-like design a bit so that they can sufficiently cover the sensitive points. Unfortunately, the lower part of the jacket cannot be done the same way because this layer is actually floating above the center portion. We cannot have a skin layer floating above another layer, isn't it?   >.<

Rear View

Rear Close-up View

From the above rear views, we can see that the transparent layer is extended to the arm and back. Also, as mentioned previously, the translucent feather "tail" is retained because it looks nice.   :D

Side Close-up View

I had to extend the transparent layer to the arm because it would look weird if the arm is just plain skin, without showing the edge or end points of the transparent layer on the upper torso. To solve this, I extended the transparent layer all the way to the hand and kept the original draconic design on the arm.

That basically wraps up this mod. You can check out the video for a better look.
 

 

 

I'm thinking that some may not like the transparent layer, so I also have a version which is just skin color without the reflective and shiny effect. But this version may look a bit weird though, especially on the back.     DX  

 

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