wavmostudio

Now, Maharlika Chronicles sort of sprung forth during my studies about pre european phillipines and pilipino martial arts. it just blew me away as to how incredibly brave and resourceful they where back then. i dug into many reference books and found out that my perception about Pinoy history was distorted by misinformation. so i continued to delve into this body of work and looked beyond the spanish advent and thats when Talim and his world started to take shape. in the next few posting i'll write about the reference books that influenced me as well as the process that i'm using in developing this project. in the mean time, enjoy more of datu Talim. These are preliminary sketches that has the quality i'm going for. All of the elements that datu Talim's clothes has are indigenous to the island before the spanish arrival (hence to be refered to as btsa). the malong (the "sash" across his body) and the sarong (the "kilt") are common to south east asia so there are a lot of over lap in terms of clothes, language, martial arts in the area, because of the proximity of the neighboring islands. there are no "borders" to speak of as well, so the whole area has ample opportunity and time to crosspolinate with each other wheter it's through trade, intermarriges or warfare. what makes the elements unique to each area would be how one wears the acoutrements, the patterns in the textile, and what is left out/added to.
however, that is not to say that each has no style of their own, these cultures were and still are dynamic and alive. those common threads in the cultures of the phillipines, indonesia and malaysia were evident, but they still retained their individual flair and aesthetics.

The sword datu Talim is carrying is called a Kalis. some call it keris, kris et. al. but for datu Talim, i'm calling it Kalis. this is also indigenous, uniquely pinoy. the malaysian/indonesian version of the blade is more like a dagger and is not really considered a sword proper.