This week, we will start looking at the new Frigida armor set, which was recently introduced in AION 5.3 NA. This armor set drops off the reward chest from a new instance known as "Dredgion Defense", where the Balaur launches attacks on the capital city of the Elyos and Asmodians. This PvE instance is currently one of its kind, as it opens only once per week allowing up to 384 participants. Everyone needs to work together in order to achieve the desired points, which then determine the received rewards.
As the armor set is related to the Frigida legion which operates under the order of the Dragon Queen of Ice, Ereshkigal; it therefore, has an icy feel to it with a glowing/glittering white-blue tone. Another interesting thing is that I find this armor set to be the sexiest armor to date, with lots of 'unprotected' area around the body. XD
Specifically for the leather chest (a.k.a. Jerkin), the right side of the torso looks pretty empty, with only a vertical piece of armor narrowly covering the front portion. The leg portion of the armor is a shiny, tight-fitting long pants. The other eye-catching part of this armor set is the glowing white-blue accessories that are attached to the armor. These accessories contains draconic design essence, such as sharp claw-like and scale-like structure.
Let's check out the original armor below to see how sexy it really is.
Front View - Original Armor
Front Close-up View - Original Armor
From the second image, we can see that the right side of the front is covered only by a vertical piece of armor, that runs from the right waist to the right breast.
Rear View - Original Armor
Rear Close-up View - Original Armor
So, the right side of the back is practically.. hmm... 'unprotected'. >.<"
Right Close-up View - Original Armor
So is the right side of the torso... >.<"
Left Close-up View - Original Armor
Wow! The left side of the torso is heavily fortified though! O.O
Hmmm... how can I make this already sexy armor even sexier?
Well, first of all, I reduced the vertical armor piece on the right torso to just sufficiently cover the breast. Followed by partially modifying the left side of the 'heavy' metallic (I guess from the look) armor into a hard translucent plastic feel. Finally, I changed the long pants into panties-style.
So, what does the armor looks like after modification?
Front View - Modified Armor
First, we can now see the skin of those leggy legs instead the pants. XD I have also modified the boots to match the legs.
Front Close-up View 1 - Modified Armor
Front Close-up View 2 - Modified Armor
Notice the reduced armor piece on the right torso? I have also added a transparent layer between the armor piece and the body... to make it not so 'naked'. XD Else it will look like simply pasting a stamp over the breast. ~.~
On the left side, we can see the hard plastic layer in place of the original metal armor. I have made the plastic layer looks like it is a translucent layer over the body. In fact, I have painted a darker dot onto that layer to give the feel that we are actually 'seeing' the left nipple under the thick translucent layer. Well... It isn't very obvious unless you guys look at it very closely. :p
The reason why I used a "hard plastic cover", instead of those transparent layer that I have always been using, is because the left side armor does not actually follow the body shape tightly. If I had force-used a transparent layer over that, it would become an irregular body shape. D:
Rear View - Modified Armor
Rear Close-up View - Modified Armor
The rear view looks really 'clean' isn't it?
Right Close-up View - Modified Armor
Hmm... I am guessing some may find the transparent layer on the left torso a little pesky so I won't mind stripping off that layer if anyone wanted it removed. XD
Left Close-up View - Modified Armor
The right torso no longer looks as 'heavy' and 'bulky' as before, right?
Well... That wraps up everything for this mod. You can watch the video for a clearer view of the modified armor.
For the last piece of the Indigo Phoenix armor set, we'll be looking at the chain chest, a.k.a. Indigo Phoenix Hauberk.
Overall, the hauberk looks like an full sleeve evening gown, which has a long slit running down from the chest area to the right hip. This design feels like a shirt that someone would wear from both sides and button up at the middle; except that the only button here seems to be the beaks of the 2 phoenix that hook together. And since the slit ran right through from the chest to the hip, it also gives an impression that it has gone commando underneath (i.e. no panties). o.o
But of course, that's (going commando) not true. The designer had simply "erased" the side of the panties so it doesn't show up under the open slit. Don't ask me how a panties can be worn without the side straps because nobody really care about physics (at least not on costumes) in a game. XD
So, let's take a look at this exciting commando-styled armor in the images below.
Front View - Original Armor
At the bottom of the armor on the left side of the body, we can see a trail of feathers, that looks like the extension of the phoenix's tail; one from the front and another from the back.
The overall design also shows off the leggy right leg.
Front Close-up View - Original Armor
Here, we can clearly see more of that sexy slit which 'cuts' the armor in halves, and held together where the beaks of the 2 phoenix meet.
Rear View - Original Armor
Over here, we can see the tail extension of the phoenix, from the front right to the back bottom.
Rear Close-up View - Original Armor
The back of the armor also has a slit that runs half way down.
Side View - Original Armor
Now that we know what the original armor looks like, let's see what can be done for the mod.
Basically, I took the original design and expanded it further by opening up more on the chest area and duplicating that commando effect on the left thigh. I also kind of like the idea of the tail extension so I tried to keep a part of it....Hmmm.. More like the front half of it. XD
So, let's see the mod version below.
Front View - Modified Armor
From the above image, you can see that the left side of the armor has been trimmed off, at the hip area, giving a panties-less feel. Don't worry (or maybe get too excited?) though. She's still covered underneath. :p
Front Close-up View 1 - Modified Armor
Front Close-up View 2 - Modified Armor
The top 2 images show an expanded opened chest concept.
Rear View - Modified Armor
From the rear, you can now get to view both of her leggy legs instead of one.
Rear Close-up View - Modified Armor
The modified panties is just sufficiently covered by the tail feathers of the right phoenix.
Side View - Modified Armor
Although the mod looks pretty simple. I did spent a lot of time trimming the little details to finally get it to the way I wanted. >.<
The hauberk was dyed black in the above images so the phoenix and design are not sufficiently highlighted. It would probably look much better with a bright colored dye. >.<"
Well.... Hope you guys like the mod. Check out the video for a better view.
This week we are going to look at the cloth version of the Indigo Phoenix armor. Similar to the breastplate and Jerkin, it follows the black color scheme. However, as compared to its plate and leather version, the tunic features a whole phoenix (finally!) right in front of the torso area, which can be dyed. And it would look amazing if you applied an appropriate color. :D
The tunic is a sleeveless, full length dress with open front-bottom, bare-shoulder, and half bare-back design. One interesting design is a chain net which covers the front torso, from the tummy area to the upper thighs. However, the tummy area and legs are all 'dark-out' with dark colors, so this design isn't very obvious unless we view it at close range. Not sure if that's some kind of censorship or something. >.<
So, let's look at this tunic below.
Front View - Original Armor
Front Close-up View - Original Armor
From the above 2 images, we can see the full black dress with the golden phoenix (I dyed the tunic to orange-yellow color) in front of the torso. As mentioned earlier, the chain net, which is just right below the phoenix, is hardly visible from a distance. ~.~
The layer over the inner bra is made of several card-like designs that open up into a fan-like structure. They don't show much from the front but offer quite some eye-candy from the top. :p
Rear View - Original Armor
Rear Close-up View - Original Armor
From the rear, the tunic looks quite simple and not really exciting. Fortunately, the actual shoulder armor does make up for the lacking. Over here, I'm just using a shoulder armor from another armor set so that we will not have any obstruction to the view of the tunic. XD
Side View - Original Armor
There are several things that I have done for the mod, including extension of the chain net design to the butt area, recoloring the tummy/leg areas and modifying the bra area.
Let's look at the images of the mod armor below and I'll describe further.
Front View - Modified Armor
Over here, we can see that the legs have been recolored to skin color.
Front Close-up View 1 - Modified Armor
With the recolor of tummy area, the chain net is now more obvious from the same distance.
Front Close-up View 2 - Modified Armor
For the bra area, I had stripped away the card-like structure and modified a little on the bra hidden below them. For some reason, the mesh for the breasts seem to be too protruding, such that a bit of the breasts can be seen overlaying the inner bra on each side. Thus, I had to draw something on those protruding areas to hide them, by making them look like part of the bra. So, for those eagled-eyes people who have notice uniformity issue on the bra... That's the reason. >.<"
Well, another way is just to strip off the inner bra and go topless (since the breasts' mesh structure was left intact), but I'm not going to do it. ( -.-)
Rear View - Modified Armor
Rear Close-up View - Modified Armor
Ah! here we can see the chain net duplicated on her butt area. Well, since we already have the net for the front, showing off the front of her panties, so why not do it for the butt too, right? :p
Unfortunately, the chain net cannot be implemented on the entire bottom part of the dress because that region of the dress is a stretchable mesh. This means that the chain net would become irregular when those areas are stretched due to movement. The butt area is safe because it does not get stretched as much as the rest of the dress.
Side View - Modified Armor
Finally, we have the side view... Hmm... Did I stripped more than necessary for the inner bra? >.<"
Other than the tunic, I have also mod a bit of the shoe so that it will match the new skin color of the leg.
Well, that's all for this mod. Check out the video below for a better look.
As a continuation of the Indigo Phoenix armor set, we'll be looking at the Jerkin this week. The jerkin looks great with 2 very visible phoenix embedded onto the chest portion, and leggings that is connected via chains to a pair of tight shorts. Also not forgetting the 2 translucent scarfs that runs down the back of the neck. There's basically nothing that I can hate about this armor, except maybe for those trumpet sleeves. >.<"
Although the feathers near the hands are nice additions, for an armor that is mostly tight fitting, those trumpet-styled sleeves just look kind of out of place. You guys can take a look at the original armor below and be your own judge.
Front View - Original Armor
This armor has a very nicely designed hot pants, if you look close enough. :p I really like it sooo much that I decide to keep it, instead of turning it into a bikini-styled bottom.
Front Close-up View - Original Armor
In the above images, everything is nice and fitting and then... you see the trumpet-styled sleeves. o.o
Rear View - Original Armor
Here, we can see the translucent 'scarfs' dropping down from the back of her neck.
Side View - Original Armor
So when I get to the mod, the first target is those sleeves. However, I like the feathers design near the hand, so instead of removing the sleeves totally, I shortened them into some kind of arm bands.
Front View - Modified Armor
You may have also noticed that I had recolored the dark stockings beneath the chains to skin color. Thereby, giving the impression that the dark stockings are removed.
Front Close-up View 1 - Modified Armor
To make the jerkin sexier, I had also removed the slings that connect the top of the bra to the neck accessory and transformed the tummy-side area into a transparent layer. The 2 phoenix look great, guarding each side of the bra, so I kept them. :D
Front Close-up View 2 - Modified Armor
However, holes lurk just below the phoenix and any reckless removal would exposed them. Thus, the area mostly remain unmodified.
Rear View - Modified Armor
Side View - Modified Armor
Well, that's all for this simple mod. Hope you guys like it.
After spending many days wandering through familiar and unfamiliar streets in my home city, I have finally got back to continuing this blog. From the fact that not a single comment was dropped, during this duration, may be evident that no one has even noticed my absence from their busy schedules. >.<
Anyway, to continue from where I left off before, I got to work on a plate armor today and as the title suggests, it is the Indigo Phoenix Breastplate.
Just to fill in on a little details here, this particular set of armor is an upgrade from the Breastplate of Labyrinth which drops in Archive of Eternity (AoE), one of the new dungeons offered in AION 5.0. It also shares the same design as "Library of Eternity Breastplate", "Sacred Breastplate of Eternity" and a few others.
As I do not have the actual version of this armor, I needed to re-skin it to another armor. Unfortunately, the re-skinning caused the original armor to loose some properties such as glowing effect... :'( So I hope you guys wouldn't mind looking at an "Effect-less" armor. >.<"
Without further delay, let us take a look at this new armor, which is beautiful but definitely not an eye-candy. :p
All views - Original armor
So as you guys can see from the above image, this armor consists of a full plate bra armor and a full length pants armor, which are both contained in the chest armor (2-in-1 type chest armor).
This chest armor can be used to explain a feature that I loathe about when modifying plate armor, that is what I called "bulky parts that leave holes when removed". For this chest armor, my headache comes from the bra itself, because we will be looking right through the body to the other side, if it is removed. And if I try to place skin over it, it would look like skin floating inches from the body, after I removed any irregular surfaces (breasts' surface have to be smooth, you know...). >:(
Fortunately for us, the bra is not really that "bulky" and some extend of mod can still be applied. If it had been a huge lion head crest in place of the bra, we can kiss those breasts goodbye. Err... That sounded wrong... But you guys know what I mean. XD
I am sure you guys can understand the frustration when you remove the lion head crest and see a huge hole; and you can't just paint the normal body color over the lion head surface because all you will get is a lion head coming out of the torso, staring at you, in place of the beautiful smooth contour surface. :(
So what did I do for the bra? Let's take a look below.
Front view - Modified
The first thing that you will probably notice are those legs again. Yeah.... I modified the long pants to a panties-style armor... again... Even after some soul searching, I still have not change this habit. ~.~
It may not be very clear in this image due to her skin color and armor color, but I have modified the full plate bra into a frame style for her front torso. If you have looked carefully at the original bra, you would have notice that it has a wing-like design on each side, which I like a lot and decided to keep them. And if we know wings, there will be gaps in between the feathers; and that is the area which I had recolored to skin color, such that the bra now looks like a frame instead of a full plate cover.
And this is what the rear looks like now.
Rear view
The modified panties has less material on her butt cheek, as compared to the Malefic Hauberk or Malefic Jerkin, as I have used the design concept from the "Fallen Archon Greave".
So, that's all for this simple mod. Hope you guys like it.
Side note:
For the past one month or so, I have went on a search for a light or path that can lead me into my future; But sadly, it was quite a futile attempt. D:
