I like to think of logos (whether flags, crests, insignias, and so on) as the unsung heroes of art within the BattleTech books. They usually don’t blow people away, nor get them excitedly discussing this or that scene, and so forth. However, from the start BattleTech made heavy use of insignias to help accentuate the military feel of the universe.

That aesthetic has been heavily continued ever since. In fact, a little while ago I decided to see how many new logos (again, taking into account world flags, academy crests, unit insignias and so on) had been added to the universe during my time working on BattleTech…and I gave up as I passed over 500. You’re wondering how that’s possible? 10 Field Manuals, 4 Handbooks, and let’s not forget the 96 logos in A Guide to Covert Ops alone…15 years and it all adds up.

So while logos are not the MechWarriors of our universe…PBIs (or in this case PBLs) are still important to the action of what makes BattleTech work on a visual level so well.

While there’s been a lot of artists generating logos over the years, the absolute lion’s share of that work has fallen on Chris Lewis’ shoulders. Not always glamorous work, he’s generated literally hundreds and hundreds of logos over the year, fleshing out that unsung part of BattleTech…a big shout out for his work over the years.

[Note: Please note that the following text is taken directly from an internal word document and was never meant to be published publicly, so there’s not the “editing/grammer” care taken that a public document would go through, while the direct sourcebook excerpts are from documents that have not yet gone through final proofing.]

Handbook House Liao Logo Art Notes

The following art notes cover all logos needed for Handbook: House Liao. Corresponding to these notes, the “House Liao Logos” folder has been uploaded to the ftp site in the Handbook: House Liao folder.

USE LOGOS AS IS

This isn’t information needed for the artist, but just as an FYI we have a certain number of extent logos that will simply be used as is. Those are found in the “House Liao_Use Logos As Is” folder in the “House Liao Logos” folder.

31 NEW LOGOS BASED UPON PRE-EXISTING REFERENCES

The following are logos that are needed, based upon pre-existing art (or in one instance, text). Pre-existing art reference scans can be found in the “House Liao_Logo Reference Scans” folder, in the “House Liao Logos” folder; they’re separated by sub folders for world flags and corp logos.

WORLD FLAGS
Ares
Geifer
Ingersoll
Necromo
Liao
Sarna
Wei
Grand Base
Hustaing
Menke
Brighton
Denbar
Texlos
Warlock
Victoria
Drozan
Turin
Ward

CORPORATIONS
Capella Commonality Bank
Bithinian Ballistics
Earthwerks, Limited
Quickscell Company*
StarCorps Industries**
Trellis Electronics

* Use the pre-existing logo from Handbook: House Davion (see “Corp Logo Scans” folder) and change out the “D” for a an “L”
**Remove sword and include some Chinese characters and change gold to green to “Liao-it”

MAJOR TRAINING CENTERS

The following logos should follow the more ornate style crests of the previous Handbooks: appropriate excerpt PDFs are found in the House Liao Logos as reference.

Regional Training Centers

This should be done almost as a ‘generic’ logo that will then have various parts adapted depending upon what region an RTC is attached to.

Capella War College

Logo must have a jian sword as part of the element.

Sarna Martial Academy

See the Sarna Martial Academy Cadre logo; the Academy logo should not be identical to this, but should be a variation (i.e. that is the Sarna world flag inside the shield; see the world flag references)

St. Ives Academy of Martial Sciences

See the St. Ives Academy Training Cadre logo; as with the Sarna Martial Academy above, the Academy logo should not be indentical but a variation.

Sian Center For Martial Disciplines

The center’s insignia is a gold, inverted triangle on a green field

Victoria Academy of Arms and Technology

This was founded after the start of Xin Sheng and so should be “very” Chinese in flavor; for example lots of Chinese characters.

UNIT BRIGADE LOGOS

St. Ives Janissaries (no pre-existing illustration)

A sword crossed with a spear, set over a shield emblazoned with a stylized stallion.

20 ALL NEW LOGOS (NO PRE-EXISTING REFERENCES)

The following are logos that are needed but have no pre-existing reference; artist can reference the text to help determine appropriate logo. The following documents have been uploaded to the ftp site, in the “House Liao Logos” folder for such referencing:

  • HandbookHouseLiao_Economy.pdf
  • HandbookHouseLiao_Military.pdf
  • HandbookHouseLiao_TouringTheRealm.pdf

WORLD FLAGS
Gan Singh
Highspire
Westerhand
Rollis

CORPORATIONS
Firmir Commercial
Iveco Corp
Lebedev Nautical Enterprises
Lustrix Commodities
Mótuö Chë Shang
Aldis Industries
Bergan Industries
Hildco Interplanetary
Hollis Incorporated
Menke Armor and Armament
Saroyan Special Production
Shengli Arms
Tengo Aerospace
Texlos Miltronics

MAJOR TRAINING CENTERS

The following logos should follow the more ornate style crests of the previous Handbooks: appropriate except PDFs are found in the House Liao Logos as reference.

Liao Conservatory of Military Arts
Sian University

ART REFERENCES

As usual, there’s numerous references pulled from various sources that are provided for ease of use to the artists. Unlike other art in this book, though, often while a new logo is generated (to either increase quality, or simply to have a logo as the electronic of the original is no longer available), it needs to closely match what’s gone before. [The name below is the file name I gave it for clarity, while the information in brackets is its original source; again, no page references].

Ares [House Liao Sourcebook]
Barras [House Liao Sourcebook]
Brighton [House Liao Sourcebook]
Bithinian Ballistics [Objective Raids]
Capellan Commonality Bank [House Liao Sourcebook]
Denbar [House Liao Sourcebook]
Drozan [House Liao Sourcebook]
Erthwerks [Objective Raids]
Geifer [House Liao Sourcebook]
Grand Base [House Liao Sourcebook]
Hustaing [Field Manual: Capellan Confederation]
Ingersoll [House Liao Sourcebook]
Liao [House Liao Sourcebook]
Manke [House Liao Sourcebook]
Necromo [House Liao Sourcebook]
QuickcellCompanyDavion [Handbook: House Davion]
Sarna [House Liao Sourcebook]
Sarna Martial Academy Cadre [Field Manual: Capellan Confederation]
SL Page [Star League sourcebook]
StarcorpindustriesDavion [Handbook: House Davion]
St. Ives Academy Training Cadre [Field Manual: Capellan Confederation]
Texlos [House Liao Sourcebook]
Trellis Electronics [Ojbective Raids]
Turin [House Liao Sourcebook]
Victoria [House Liao Sourcebook]
Ward [House Liao Sourcebook]
Warlock [House Liao Sourcebook]
Wei [House Liao Sourcebook]

FROM ART NOTES TO FINAL ART

Because of how logos work, there really isn’t a sketch’ stage. The logos come in pretty much in a final form and then if there’s any tweaking that needs to occur, notes are passed back to the artist and he makes the appropriate changes and passes the logos back.

BT-HBHL_Capella-War-College.jpg

CAPELLA WAR COLLEGE CREST

BT-HBHL_Highspire1.jpg

HIGHSPIRE FLAG

BT-HBHL_Shengli-Arms.jpg

SHENGLI ARMS CORPORATION LOGO

See ya next time!

Randall

 

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