Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Blade & Soul - Dragon Knight (Yun Outfit) Mod

Soon after I made the Gon Dragon Knight mod, a patron requested for the Yun version; and a little later, another requested for the Jin version. Since the Yun request preceded the Jin one, I decided to do for the Yun first.

With the ending of the recent trove event, the chance to obtain this outfit has also gone 'poof' in the wind... at least for then next few months, until NCWest decides to put it up for sale again in whatever form, such as event outfit or outfit in a chest. 😢

Just as an information for non-players, outfits in Blade & Soul are normally character-bound except for some special ones, for example the Dragon Knight. Such outfits are account-bound and can be sent via mail, using outfit transfer stamp, to other characters in the same account.

Although I got the Dragon Knight on my Jin, I am reluctant to send the outfit with the free outfit transfer stamps, which came with the free premium compensation. If you do not already know it, premium players get twenty outfit transfer stamps for free each month. So with the free premium, I quickly grabbed the stamps and let them stay in the Received Items until I need them in the future.

The free premium came as a compensation for a bug which caused weeklies raid to reset too early, causing some players to loose out on their weekly rewards. By the time of this post, there had been four such compensations (in the form of free weekly chests on the online Hongmoon store). Each of these chest give two days of free premium, so by now, there is a total of eight days.

But the eight days can be 'extended' to sixteen days by logging into the EU server and purchasing the same chests on there. Although the chests remain in the Received Items in the EU server, the premium is shared with the NA server. Therefore, eight days each on NA and EU servers together give a total of sixteen days. I am not sure whether this is intentional or some bug but since it can be done, why not make use of it. 😅 Someone even made a YouTube video on this.

Well, so much for some in-game information. Let's turn our attention back to the outfit and take a look at the original Yun Dragon Knight in the images below.

Front View - Original Outfit
Dragon Knight share the same appearance across all three races.

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit
The same outer armor over the tight inner layer, the thick belt and the spine-like structures that wrap around the legs and run from the waist to ankle.

Rear View - Original Outfit

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

Side View - Original Outfit

Side Close-up View - Original Outfit
Since the requester did not specify any detail, I figured that I should do the same mod as the Gon Dragon Knight.

Similar to the Gon mod, I recolored the dark inner layer on the legs, side torso and back into skin tone. Likewise, I made a G-string for the Yun. 😅

Unlike the Gon model, the lower back of the Yun looks much smoother and can be recolored to skin tone too. However, the Yun's butt area has more angular surfaces that disrupt the smoothness. 😰

Let us view the finalized Yun Dragon Knight mod below.

Front View - Modified Outfit

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit
As seen above, the thighs and knees region have been recolored to skin.

Rear View - Modified Outfit
The same goes for the back and butt region. But notice that unlike the Gon mod, The mid portion of the Yun's lower back can also be recolored to skin.

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit
The butt with G-string looks all smooth and great from the direct view, but when viewed from the sides, sharp edges can be seen (warning it cannot be unseen 😧 ).

Side View - Modified Outfit
The sides of the torso have also been recolored to skin as seen in the images above and below.

Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit
Comparing to the Gon mod, the only difference is in the lower back as mentioned above. But prior to the finalized version, I had actually trimmed the armor on the outer thighs, from waist level down to thigh level. Unfortunately, that version reveals even more angular surfaces so I settled for this version. 😥

With this, we have reached the end of this post. Catch the video, which is made in the Monkeystone forest in the Moonwater Plains map, for a better look at the mod.

Just for some fun facts about the Sacred Beast Ogong. I belief Ogong is derived from the Monkey King or Monkey God - Sun Wukong, from the Chinese mythological tale "Journey to The West". The west here refer to the realm where the Buddha resides and not the western part of our world. The party which sets out from China travelled west, through the Silk Road, to seek audience with the Buddha and fetch Buddhist scriptures back to the then Tang Dynasty.

For those who are familiar with Dragon Balls animation and manga series, you will probably know that the young Goku is also a derivation from the Monkey King - Sun Wukong (Goku's name in Chinese comics is actually the same as the Monkey King).

These derivations of Ogong and Goku from Sun Wukong is evident from the fact that they are kind of monkey related (tail in Goku's case and his transformation into a giant monkey at the sight of the moon) and that they all use an extendable magical pole for weapon. They even has the same ability to ride cloud as in Sun Wukong. It is even much more obvious in Ogong's case where he actually wears the same circlet and similar clothing; and had traveled to and messed up the Divine realm - stealing and eating divine peaches.

Sun Wukong is known to be a monkey born from a piece of monkey shaped stone after being extensively exposed to divine energy of Heaven and Earth. So he is also lesser known as the Stone monkey and that is where the forest's name - Monkeystone came from. 😅

And that is not all. If you have ACTUALLY played Blade & Soul right through, including all the mini quests, you will come across a series of mini quests (in Silverfrost Mountains) where you help a monk form a party to battle evil. You helped him recruited Wulong (any Dragon Balls fan recall this name and who owns it? 😆 ) - a pig type NPC and Sally - a fish type NPC. These two NPCs are also derivation from the other two disciples of the monk in "Journey to The West" - Wujin (a.k.a. Zhu Bajie, 猪八戒) and Wuneng (a.k.a. Shaseng, 沙僧). Needless to say, Wujin is a pig type being while Wuneng is a water type being. In the quest series, the last one that you helped the monk recruit is, of course, Ogong. Although in the "Journey to The West" story, Wukong is the first to become the monk's disciple.

Looks like I have drifted off too much, so I will stop here in case I start talking about Dorothy and her friends from Oz. 😅

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