Artist's commentary
Space Vagabonds: Battlesuit
Done for Space Vagabonds [ [link] ] © Gregor Theado 2009
Once in a while you get those crazy passionate clients that actually have vision and know what they want. Gregor is certainly one of them and it was a blast doing these characters and mechanicals for his RPG universe.
This would be the Battlesuit from the Colonial Defence Squadron. They are basically zero G trained rapid response/SWAT teams.
This one is the beast of the lot. He is only called down from the dropship in absolute crisis moments. Or if they need to give terrorists in the colonies a hard time. One idea I had initially was to have a WSO (weapons Systems Officer codename: Wizard) ride with him in tandem. That idea was scrapped, but it would be cool to somehow imagine him having a second pair of eyes from a remote location in the form of a Psionics officer. Maybe there could be a signal amplifier/transmitter to link a Psionic WSO from the dropship to him, letting him focus on combat while she takes care of the weapon systems and other critical functions of the suit. It would basically be like what the crews of twin-seater fighter aircraft do. One pilot and one
gunner/assistant.