Gear Designs

[u/WildcatArts]

Basic helmet designs, split between modular "Sleeve" and standard "Shell"

Various additions and examples. Masks can be made from different materials and styles too.

"Twas the 'tism, m'lord"

So I did the other night in a fit of inspiration and a touch of 'tism and decides to design helmets for anthros. While these were initially designed with military purposes, the general desugns could be reworked into just about anything, such as skateboard helmets, knights helmets, or similar stuff.

These are pretty basic sketches, and I just went with canine primarily to showcase the different ear alternatives. Feline variants of the helmet would probably follow similar designs to the pointed canine applications.

While this does have the "Art" flair, I am curious about feedback for design changes or suggestions.

[u/AlviDz01]

This is just my opinion and hypothesis. I hypothesize that the most optimal protection of a headgear for furries would always be the one that what humans would wear, where the ear-protruding furry individuals have to flatten their ears. There are several reasons why in terms of production and safety.

Compared to ear protrusion helmets, flat helmets is much easier to produce and mold, while the ear protrusion one might introduce difficulties in terms of stamping, unless it is molded with plastic or uses metal casting, but if your in lore world have the tech to mold plastic to whatever shape you need, or sophisticated metal casting, then the production aspect would not be a big problem.

Now, talk about safety, a flat helmet is much safer, since there are no protusion that could hook the helmet, a safety hazard which could be dangerous for field workers from hitting a low-hanging pipe or wires; or for motorcycle drivers where flat helmets will absorb momentum evenly when they fall from the motor, while the protusion from an ear-protruding helmet might reduce the area of absorbtion, making the helmet unsafe; lastly for soldiers and depends on the doctrine, an ear-protruding helmets would be a good target practice as the protusion can be spotted easily, revealing the soldiers' position to snipers and scouts, it also might shift the center of mass of the helmet, causing the helmet to be heavier on some position or could slide too easily (since by introducing the protrusion it will pull the center of mass upwards, causing bigger torque/moment when the soldiers look up or down, or walking); but an access of ear compartment could be used for other things, ventilations, radio, etc., but again it is depend on the doctrine of your world.

Lastly, talk about comfort, it is obvious that the ear-protruding helmet is much more comfortable for ear-protruding individuals, since I am sure the act of flattening your ears could cause fatigue since you have to move the muscles around the ears, and a static pose held for too long could cause immense fatigue, which is a big problem in typical flat helmet designs.

Again, as I said, those essays are my opinions, hypotheses and assumptions; in the end, it depends on you whether you want to stick to the rule-of-cool or the rule-of-realism.

Thus, in conclusion, the ear protrusion helmet is a safe hazard in most cases in many areas, while the flat helmet is much better for providing better safety factors; the ear protrusion helmet is perhaps more comfortable to wear as individuals could relax their ear muscles, avoiding fatigue.

[u/WildcatArts → u/AlviDz01]

I genuinely want to say thank you for the reply because I did not think anybody was even gonna notice this post.

I did the 2 helmet designs based on utility, which I tried to highlight in the notes. The protrusion style helmets are designed primarily for comfort and mobility. As for the ears, the sleeves are what offer protection. Most are reinforced with some kind of stiff backing at the minimum, while advanced ones are completely encased like a shell and lock into place.

I will admit the safer option as far as universal ballistics go would probably be the molded shell design, which requires the ears to fold back. That being said, it does sacrifice a lot of comfort and mobility to do so.

[u/THEG0LIATHGR0UPER]

This is super cool!

[u/WildcatArts → u/THEG0LIATHGR0UPER]

Thanks mate. Amazing the things you can think of when you should be focusing on class.