I start today’s article with an anecdote. About five years ago, I was still honing my skills as a dedicated Nerf Modifier. By that time, I’d made a few pretty interesting designs, but it was certainly not my prime. Still, I always proudly paraded my latest completed pieces around for my friends to see and play with. One day, I completed a gun that I called The Unforgiving Claw of Selkis, an under-slung Nerf Magstrike modified for slightly increased distance and extreme rate of fire even by Magstrike standards. I showed it off to everyone, and one of my friends looked at it closely and simply said, “What’s it supposed to be?”. I was dumbfounded. It was a gun, of course! Vaguely claw-like, alien-inspired Egyptian Steampunk! I didn’t care that it didn’t make sense; it was conceptually awesome. So I told her straight out: “It’s a vaguely claw-like, alien-inspired Egyptian Steampunk gun!”. She simply replied, “Really? It doesn’t look like that at all.”
The Unforgiving Claw of Selkis, circa 2010. Remember this, because this is what you’re trying to avoid.
At the time I had been mildly insulted, but in retrospect her words make sense. The piece lacked (among other things) a clear sense of direction, composition, or identity… which wasn’t shocking since I had quite literally just stuck hunks of plastic to a Magstrike without much thought as to the final design until I had finally arrived there. Whereas I had been shooting for a very complex concept (Vaguely claw-like, alien-inspired Egyptian Steampunk gun… a la Stargate or something similar, so, quite doable), I had neither followed nor developed the Form Language to communicate that concept.
The term “Form Language” refers to an overarching scheme or style that guides the design of a product or set of products. In layman’s terms, Form Language is a set of features that one should adhere to in order to achieve a desired overall look and feel. This is achieved through the streamlining of Material, Color, Shape, Pattern, Texture, and Parts Layout, among other more nebulous factors.
Fellow Nerf Modder Faustus is a master of Form Language. Here he shows three different brilliant pieces in the same custom language; Stumpy, Big Daddy, and Big Bertha.
There are many day-to-day examples of Form Language in action. In a Chess Set, there are a variety of different pieces (Pawns, Rooks, Bishops, Knights, Queens, and Kings) but they all adhere to similar shapes, colors, lines, etcetera. Another example is in the Automotive industry. Companies like Volkswagen and Corvette and Porsche spend millions upon millions of dollars creating visual continuity between the cars of their respective lines. Possibly the master of modern day Form Language is Apple. Everything from iPods to iBooks to iPhones to iHomes is distinguishable immediately as an Apple product thanks to a highly developed yet deceptively simple form language.
“Lack of Structure” proves an effective piece of Form Language for Post Apoc pieces like these Scratchbuilts from the web series Paradox.
How does Form Language apply to us, the propmakers? In some situations, it applies very directly. Say that a client asks for a set or a pair of things- similar, but not the same. Suddenly you’re thrust into the role of industrial designer. What will each piece look like? What visual cues will tip off viewers that the pieces are related? How can certain lines and forms and motifs be replicated?
These guns by me, made for the Full Steam Ahead web series, follow the same form language, but are very different both in concept and execution.
In other situations, for more complex one-off projects, it can be useful to develop a Form Language for a single item. How can you make sure that the pistol matches the barrel? That the body looks enough like the bipod to convincingly belong to the same gun? If it’s not supposed to belong to the same gun (i.e. Post-Apocalyptic pieces, Dieselpunk pieces), how can this fact be expressed in an effective yet still-visually-pleasing way?
My latest creation, the Stormthrower, follows the most outlying aspects of Steampunk Form Language to create an iconic shape that still firmly fits within the genre.
Another reality of form Language is that it exists before you even start your project. In fact, if you’re making a prop, chances are that you’re already trying to adhere to a widely-accepted and named form language that you’re not even aware of, and that form language is dictated by your genre. All Steampunk guns are going to have a very different Form Language than all Cyberpunk guns, and so on. Be aware that in situations where you are trying to match a genre’s form language, your job becomes to add to that form Language in a meaningful enough way that your product looks distinct and iconic, while identifying and keeping the parts of the pre-existing Form Language that are necessary to convey your genre. This is also very helpful when trying to replicate the look and feel of movies, comics, videogames, and other media.
These Zombie Post-Apoc-Theme guns b Billy2917 use Form Language to work as a set even though they are very dissimilar as individual pieces. Note the use of materials and color.
So now that you now how to identify and use Form Languages, how do you go about making one? Everyone has their own method, but for me, nothing beats physically writing it down:
- Material
- Color
- Shape
- Pattern
- Texture
- Parts Layout
This pair of Cyberpunk revolvers uses Contrast as part of Form Language to create striking 3-tone looks that define them as a set despite many differences.
For example, steampunk’s Form Language might look like this:
- Material: Brass, Iron, Copper, White Metal, Wood, Leather, Glass, Paint
- Color: Gold, Bronze, Metallic black, silver, Brown, Tan, Clear, Muted Primary Tones
- Shape: Rigid, linear, angular, mechanical, anachronistic, furniture-like
- Pattern: Rivets, Brushed, hollowed areas, gauges, bolts, hardware
- Texture: Clunky, speckled, patina, grit, sandy
- Parts Layout: Standard, handle in back, barrel in front, single barrel, large body, exaggerated forms
Note that you don’t need to use all of those things in every pieces; you can pick and choose. A buffet-tasting from every category will more than likely yield something that looks steampunk.
This interesting pair by Dr. Otto Destruct uses muted green and a ton of exterior modification to differentiate his Nerf Mods from everyone else’s… and from each other!
If I was remaking the Unforgiving Claw of Selkis today, it wouldn’t be without a far better understanding of the direction I was going and how to get there. In fact, I did learn from the experience and started to assemble Form Languages for every single piece I did after that point. The results, as they say, speak for themselves (pun totally intentional).
