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View Full Version : Horses' feet in OotS



Idhan
2012-02-10, 02:18 PM
I was just thinking about how horses have somewhat weird looking feet and hooves in OotS, as in 350 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0350.html) and 373. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0373.html)

At first I thought it was just, hey, stick figures. However, it's interesting to note that camels (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0682.html) and zebrafolk (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0791.html), as well as devils with hooves (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0826.html), have feet that look more as might be expected.

I'm wondering if this is art evolution, and if we ever see horses again, they'll have more realistic hooves, or whether horse feet are just unusually stick-figure like in OotS.

fergo
2012-02-10, 02:33 PM
My guess is art evolution. On the other hand, all of the non-horses you mentioned usually only had a panel or two appearance, while horses are quite common, so upgrading the art for them would require much more work.

Xapi
2012-02-10, 02:45 PM
Yep, you're comparing art from over 300 strips apart.

Most likely culprit is art upgrade, unless you find a newer horse in the comic.

martianmister
2012-02-10, 03:32 PM
There is also that donkey (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0574.html) from a more recent strip.

ThePhantasm
2012-02-10, 06:42 PM
Eh, doesn't bother me. Horses in OOTS world have stick feet and other four legged creatures don't.

t209
2012-02-10, 09:55 PM
Something to do with Uncanny valley if the OOTS horse have hooves?

Cazaril
2012-02-10, 10:03 PM
Something to do with Uncanny valley if the OOTS horse have hooves?

I think that only really applies to humans.

t209
2012-02-10, 10:24 PM
I think that only really applies to humans.

I mean like stick figure riding on horse with no stick legs makes it more weird.

Savannah
2012-02-10, 10:51 PM
Well, on the practical side, my fancomic has horses with non-stick legs and hooves, and I can tell you that they are not easy to draw when you need to have the horse moving and legs changing position a lot. I'm somewhat regretting the decision to go that route...

Hironomus
2012-02-11, 01:24 AM
There was a thread recently discussing how goblins either have toes on their feet, meaning they are barefoot, or they have the more traditional straight line, which it was decided probably meant they were wearing shoes.
In addition at one stage during the comic Elan mentions that even though his feet are a straight line, he is in fact wearing shoes.
Therefore I propose that horses have that style of foot for the same reason. They are wearing HORSEshoes. :smallamused:

FujinAkari
2012-02-11, 01:31 AM
In one of the books, Rich explicitly said he absolutely hated trying to make Horses look correctly and took them out of the strip for that exact reason, so we practically have Word of God that it was just that he was just bad at drawing them back in the day :)

Hardcore
2012-02-11, 01:35 AM
I think it is cool the way they look:smallsmile:

CharityB
2012-02-11, 09:17 PM
I wonder what this strip would be like if he had liked drawing horses more. Would we have a major recurring horse villain? A 'My Little Pony' parody or two? Would Roy have picked up the Mounted Combat feat?

Grey Watcher
2012-02-11, 10:38 PM
There was a thread recently discussing how goblins either have toes on their feet, meaning they are barefoot....

Or maybe toe shoes (http://birthdayshoes.com/why-toe-shoes) are just really big among goblinoids? :smallwink:

Idhan
2012-02-11, 11:03 PM
It is interesting to note that, with the exception of actual paladins and that one death knight, essentially everyone in OotS fights dismounted, and even paladins sometimes prefer to fight dismounted and use their mounts as independent combatants rather than riding them.

You also don't really see stirrups on the horses. Maybe OotS world doesn't have stirrups (yet?), so all major fighting is done by heavy infantry as in classical era (leaving aside Persian cataphracts), and cavalry are just light scouts and skirmishers like the Roman auxiliaries?

Or maybe stirrups do exist, but aren't shown due to the schematic art style, but magic has somehow altered the non-magical infantry vs. non-magical cavalry balance of power. I'm not sure why that would be -- it's not like mages have lead to the widespread deployment of long pikes or arquebuses (although that one dwarf assassin did have a handgun), as far as I know.

Probably getting way to speculative about the relatively simple fact that Rich doesn't like drawing horses, though :smallsmile:

NerfTW
2012-02-11, 11:40 PM
You're thinking too much.

Also, calvary isn't the instant win most people think. In tight areas (like, say everywhere the Order has fought so far) calvary is useless. It just provides a larger target that is far easier to take down and block routes.

The only invading army we've seen was Hobgoblins, who likely don't have horses. The Azurites wouldn't have used them inside the city walls, and they were counting on those walls for defense. There was no purpose in sending mounted troops out. Calvary in real life is used for flanking, not some magical unstoppable stampede that wipes out non mounted units. And they certainly wouldn't be used in any sort of siege situation.

In combat between small groups (six people), they wouldn't be used at all. The risk would simply be far too great. A horse isn't nearly as maneuverable as a human, and falling off one that just got stabbed is not a simple "duck and tumble", it's likely to be a major injury. Not to mention you've just lost your mode of transportation.

And as for the Empire of Blood, again, we haven't seen any situation really where that would be useful. (except the wolf, which again, is far more maneuverable than a horse)

But the biggest reason, and really the only one, as pointed out in the commentary for NCftPB, is that the horses take up too much panel space.

Bulldog Psion
2012-02-12, 01:57 AM
The only invading army we've seen was Hobgoblins, who likely don't have horses. The Azurites wouldn't have used them inside the city walls, and they were counting on those walls for defense. There was no purpose in sending mounted troops out. Calvary in real life is used for flanking, not some magical unstoppable stampede that wipes out non mounted units. And they certainly wouldn't be used in any sort of siege situation.

Actually, they're extremely useful for sorties by the defenders during a siege, because they can attack a weak point quickly and then withdraw before opposing infantry can muster a good defense.

But then again, the hobgoblins have a magic high-speed infantry army that can withdraw with a fight at one end of the city and run at 50 mph to the other end of the city to make an overwhelming horde attack on the breach there -- a process that should actually have taken several hours.

So against that kind of situation, cavalry would probably be useless, since the infantry can be shifted anywhere in a matter of moments with no command and control problems whatsoever, apparently because hobgoblins are just that awesome.

(Yes, in case you couldn't tell, I have an extreme dislike for that last scene, regardless of the fact that I enjoyed most of the siege arc immensely.)

t209
2012-02-12, 02:10 AM
And as for the Empire of Blood, again, we haven't seen any situation really where that would be useful. (except the wolf, which again, is far more maneuverable than a horse)
No, I think they use Raptor (dinosaurs) as a mount! Western Continent have dinosaurs.
What about Horse archers or heavy cavalry?

Idhan
2012-02-12, 01:51 PM
Whoops. Looks like OotS-world does have stirrups after all (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0141.html), just to update the hypothesis that lack of stirrups might make cavalry's role more auxiliary.

veti
2012-02-12, 03:20 PM
Actually, they're extremely useful for sorties by the defenders during a siege, because they can attack a weak point quickly and then withdraw before opposing infantry can muster a good defense.

There's no sign that AC actually has any cavalry, apart from the paladins.

And they were being commanded by Hinjo, who was really not a very good general. He focused monomaniacally on static defence, which is always a recipe for disaster unless you're overwhelmingly stronger than the enemy. Even if they did have cavalry, I would expect him to haver and hesitate to send them out at the right moment to do damage.

It's also worth mentioning that the most powerful effect of cavalry is on morale. Their size, combined with the terrifying speed with which they can get around your unit's flanks, means that it takes a lot of guts for infantry to stand and fight them - it becomes very tempting to run away as the charge closes in. But the hobgoblins were well drilled and reasonably well equipped, and with excellent morale. Against infantry like that, a cavalry charge is a very chancy proposition.

Cavenskull
2012-02-12, 05:17 PM
Actually, they're extremely useful for sorties by the defenders during a siege, because they can attack a weak point quickly and then withdraw before opposing infantry can muster a good defense.

But then again, the hobgoblins have a magic high-speed infantry army that can withdraw with a fight at one end of the city and run at 50 mph to the other end of the city to make an overwhelming horde attack on the breach there -- a process that should actually have taken several hours.

So against that kind of situation, cavalry would probably be useless, since the infantry can be shifted anywhere in a matter of moments with no command and control problems whatsoever, apparently because hobgoblins are just that awesome.

(Yes, in case you couldn't tell, I have an extreme dislike for that last scene, regardless of the fact that I enjoyed most of the siege arc immensely.)

Several hours?! We're not talking about armies on opposite sides of a city. The northern and southern forces are attacking different sections of the same wall (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0450.html). They're maybe a few hundred meters apart. Plus, it's not the southern force we see charging the breach--it's Redcloack's force--the one that had been loitering to the rear the whole time (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0452.html) waiting for Redcloak's command. We don't know for a fact that the southern force is even visible in the shot. For all we know, they're running north alongside the wall off-camera to join the main force as it hits the breach. Nobody ever said the southern force had to lead the charge; if they're slow to move, they could just come in behind the rest of the charge. The breach is going to be enough of a bottleneck that there would be plenty of time for the southern division to join the main force.

t209
2012-02-12, 05:18 PM
There's no sign that AC actually has any cavalry, apart from the paladins.

And they were being commanded by Hinjo, who was really not a very good general. He focused monomaniacally on static defence, which is always a recipe for disaster unless you're overwhelmingly stronger than the enemy. Even if they did have cavalry, I would expect him to haver and hesitate to send them out at the right moment to do damage.

It's also worth mentioning that the most powerful effect of cavalry is on morale. Their size, combined with the terrifying speed with which they can get around your unit's flanks, means that it takes a lot of guts for infantry to stand and fight them - it becomes very tempting to run away as the charge closes in. But the hobgoblins were well drilled and reasonably well equipped, and with excellent morale. Against infantry like that, a cavalry charge is a very chancy proposition.

The problem is that cavalry is limited (either paladins or aristocrats' luggage) or he was hoping on ghost matyrs for defense.

Skavensrule
2012-02-23, 01:09 PM
Several hours?! We're not talking about armies on opposite sides of a city. The northern and southern forces are attacking different sections of the same wall (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0450.html). They're maybe a few hundred meters apart.

Actually in pre-electronic times just getting the units to stop doing what they were doing and getting them organized took an enormous amount of time. One reason the Romans tended to be so succesful was the endless drills to practice reforming at a horn call. The "barbarians" could not duplicate this because most of Rome's opponents did not follow "one" leader with "pre-set commands", Carthage and Persia being the major exceptions.
Now with the :redcloak:"military this, and discipline that.." hobgoblins we can assume that they would allready have pre-set commands (probably given by using "dancing knights lights" but this still takes time.

That is why as you also pointed out it was the reserve force used to break through. Getting a reserve force on the move is easy compared to re-assigning an engaged force.

edit: it took so long to read through the post and then form a responce that I forgot to put in this about the topic of the thread- I like the way that Rich made the horses. They fit in better to the art as stick figures.

ThePhantasm
2012-02-23, 01:16 PM
No, I think they use Raptor (dinosaurs) as a mount! Western Continent have dinosaurs.
What about Horse archers or heavy cavalry?

YukYuk rode a dog/wolf. That's probably what NerfTW was referring to.

Tulya
2012-02-23, 01:19 PM
I wonder what this strip would be like if he had liked drawing horses more. Would we have a major recurring horse villain?

The Thoroughbred of Sin. He got the application that you just sent in.

FatJose
2012-02-23, 01:27 PM
The Thoroughbred of Sin. He got the application that you just sent in.

Heh, he would make everyone his mare.

So, horses aren't super common because even in stick form they're a real ..uh...mare to draw?

psijac
2012-02-23, 06:56 PM
Well, on the practical side, my fancomic has horses with non-stick legs and hooves, and I can tell you that they are not easy to draw when you need to have the horse moving and legs changing position a lot. I'm somewhat regretting the decision to go that route...

Sidenote: I LOVE your avatar, She is the only one in this ENTIRE forum smart enough to bring a chair. My dogs are barking