Barsoom Colour Schemes

[cheetor]

(Does Barsoom stuff go in VSF Adventures? Pulp? Something else?  Anyway feel free to move this thread if it doesnt go here.)


Does anyone out there know of a colour reference for the various Barsoomian city-states and other factions?  As well as being obviously split up by skin colour presumably the various cities have their own colours for their uniforms (a red man from Helium wears different colours to a red man from Ptarth or Zodanga for example).

Is there a simple reference for this anywhere that you guys know of?  I got an order of lovely Bronze Age figures this morning and want to do a little research before I commit to colour schemes.  I would rather not trawl through the books to see if I can find uniform info if there is an easier way.

Thanks in advance for any help


 

[flooglestreet]

I don't believe there were uniform colors. Martians were distinguished by the metal they wore. "A warrior may change his metal, but not his heart." Helium, as I recall was distinguished by Gold, while Zodanga was perhaps silver. I think there was a guide to city states and their metal in one of the old Heritage rules books, but I think it was largely conjecture. Also they had flags for the different armies, again I believe it was conjecture. I think painting one lot with a yellow metal and one lot with a white metal, eg gold and silver, will be good enough. You could ask at the Barsoom and Baroom gaming yahoo groups for a more detailed answer.

[Heldrak]

Good point, Floog'

If you go strictly by the books, everyone on Mars is nude all the time except for weapon harnesses and jeweled ornaments (a fact that has been largely ignored by illustrators and figure manufacturers over the years, for obvious reasons... ).

That being the case, there really are no uniform colors (as no one wears a uniform). I suppose that the flyers of the various Martian city-states might have individual color-schemes, though.

For my own part, I'm saving silver ornaments for the Black Martian Pirates and giving the Red and Green Martians Gold ornaments. I gave John Carter a dark blue tabard in my LPL entry because that's the way he was portrayed in the Marvel Comics adaptation in the seventies, and that seems to be the visual inspiration for the Bronze Age Dead Earth Imperial (Barsoomian) line.

In the figure that I identified as a Panthan (mercenary) in my LPL entry (The guy with the "Bazooka Joe" scarf around his face), I tried to give him much plainer harness, with much less metal and fewer gems to help distinguish him from the others.

[cheetor]

Thanks for your help guys.  I am currently on the fourth Barsoom book and without having them spoiled I dont really want to paint myself into a corner by commiting to colour schemes that will eventually conflict with some faction or other.

I like the idea of using different metals to simply denote factions, thanks flooglestreet.  The green Martians will probably end up with gold just because it compliments the green skin tones.  Silver for the black Martians sounds like it could differentiate them quite well too, although again their skin colour alone will be sufficient.

My mental image while reading the books is that most Martians wear nothing but bling: sometimes John Carter seems to spend half the book wearing nothing bar the occasional flawless disguise.  With that in mind I dont know where to go with the scarves etc as I want each of the handful of factions that I get around to to be easily distinguished.  I fear that I will running a knife edge with regard to gaudiness however.  I may make the cloth areas fairly mute although I definitely dont want the to be bland.  Barsoom seems like a very colourfully decorated place to me.

I think painting one lot with a yellow metal and one lot with a white metal, eg gold and silver, will be good enough.

This is probably the route that I will take.

Thanks for your help again.  I didnt know that Marvel did a JC comic.  Does anyone know if they ever collected it or made it available anywhere else?

[Heldrak]

Thanks for your help again.  I didnt know that Marvel did a JC comic.  Does anyone know if they ever collected it or made it available anywhere else?

I don't believe that the Marvel Comics John Carter series has ever been collected into a graphic novel, but individual issues or even full runs are not expensive (I picked up a full run cheap on eBay a while back). Here's a link to some issues listed on the Amazon Marketplace for visual reference:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=marvel+comics+john+carter&x=13&y=16

If you decide you want to buy 'em, don't get 'em on Amazon, you can probably get 'em much cheaper on eBay. Plot/story-wise they tend to deviate too much from Burroughs for my taste, but you might find them a good visual reference for paint schemes. For other visual references I recommend the classic spot illustrations and cover paintings by Frank Frazetta, and Frank Cho's work for the Capital City Panthans (he's done covers and spot illustrations for a well-regarded Burroughs fanzine).

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=frazetta+mars&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=frank+cho+mars&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0

[kalebdaark]

There's a new comic book out there by an independent called "Warlord of Mars".   They also do a book called "Warlord of Mars Dejah Thoris".   In those, greater heliumatic troops wear a red cape and lesser heliumatic troops a yellow cape.  Troops of the city-state of Yorn wear purple capes, though I think that particular city state isn't in Burroughs's books.

Burroughs writes more about the distinction of "metals" which is often interpreted as the decorative/armor items on harnesses.   You'd probably do well to make up your own.  Rich primary cloth colors and variants would probably work really well.   Always think in terms of contrasting or complementig with reddish skin tones.   

Metals of gold and silver will serve  you well, with the golds/bronzes going with the warmer colors like red and yellow, and the silvers going with blue, green etc.   Why not dark gunmetal "metals" with white cloth?    That'd be a great contrast and look good.   Or how about black leathers with bright silvers?

You may even add designs onto the cloaks but I'd keep that simple and alien looking.

[Red Orc]

There is a Barsoom PDF for D&D available by clicking here which I think has some info for heraldry for different city-states.

There may be something in the notes to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, found by clicking this link here.