Reverse engineering is actually an important point here, Paul. The fundamental idea “future = past” is the underpinning of the Iron Empires. When you think of something in the IE, imagine how it would work in the past and determine how it would translate forward. Example: Who builds cars? Now: big companies. In the past: guilds. So guilds build cars in the IE. That’s a crude idea of it, but my love of history comes from its alien-ness, and the flavor of the IE comes from projecting that alien-ness forward.
The banners in my sketchbook were inspired by the same thing that 40K was inspired by, I imagine: the war films of Kurosawa. What’s cooler than 2000 samurai charging over a hill with those bamboo back-banners waving? I tend to visualize my armor the same way I do everything else in the Iron Empires… it’s culturally back-engineered: The Karsan are “samurai” influenced. So their helmets are vaguely samurai-ish. They have loose-fitting pants and their leg armor is “bound” on with bands. The Darikahn are medieval France, with lots of decorative heraldry and a serious cult of the aristocracy. The Dunedin are a blend of Vikings and Tolkien-Dwarves (oops, the secret’s out!). If you look through the sketches in the brick, the Dunedin Iron has beard-icons moulded onto the front, their anvil has a “draped” chin covering that is vaguely beard-like, the Dunedin being into facial hair. It’s all like that.
My fundamental inspiration for the Iron Empires, the thing it sprang directly from, was Traveller. Iron is my visualization of Traveller’s Battledress. Beyond that, boiled down, my core visual theme is future = past.
I’m actually fine with raw realism. The Iron Empires (and beyond them, the endless Void) has room for it all. The Iron Empires themselves are going to follow canon more or less. Outside of them, the sky’s the limit.
Chris