Basics of foil fencing? (For fantasy webcomic)

[BloodKnight]

I'm a script writer for a dark fantasy webcomic called Chronicles of Garas.

For the people who aren't informed, a webcomic is bascailly a comic that is on the web. The majority of them are free, some of them are also subscription only.

Although my fantasy storyline is fake, what with all the elves and dwarves running about, I want to make my sword fighting authentic.

One of my characters uses a rapier as her primary weapon. I'm not going for historical accuracy, but I do want the reader of the webcomic to get a general idea on how "good" these characters are.

Anyways, since the rapier is a piercing weapon, would it be suitable if this character used foil-style fighting? I want to know the basics of fencing, so when she fights in the comic, she will act like a real rapier fighter should

If anyone knows any sites dealing with spear combat, short sword, archery, and axe, that would be welcomed also.

For the character in question, you can see her here

The webcomic is located at http://garas.keenspace.com, which is only a few pages old.

[Von_Moss]

Foil would apply more to the gentlemanly smallsword than the Rapier. As we all know, the rapier (or "ropera" in Spanish) was often accompanied by a dague, or wielding one's cape to tangle the enemy's sword.

The stance was quite different than in foil, more facing the opponent, with more circling around involved. Parries were scarce, as the unwieldy rapiers were usually too heavy and unbalanced for adequate parrying, so they usually preferred attacks in preparation, or parries with the dagger.

For rapier fighting, I would refer to the Destreza rather than foil fencing, especially not modern fencing.

[wflaschka]

Foil would certainly be a reasonable starting point for a character. Today's fencing is very different from the fencing that was used to kill people, though.

You can search online for classical or historical fencing.

Good starting point for reading: http://www.martinez-destreza.com/

Historical Fencing society: http://www.ahfi.org/

Some excellent articles here: http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles.shtml

Great link: The movies at this website show how movement can go: http://www.novascrimia.com/ (flash stuff takes a while to load, but the movies are worth it)

One of our guys, C.Umbs recommended this site to me long ago: http://www.scherma-antica.org/ (There's a link to English; you might find some useful stuff or links off it.)

Good luck! And, good start! Comics sure have come a long way... I saw from the first page (with the birds in the tight frame) that you guys have a good imaginative process in place.

[swordsen]

Your best bet for making it seem "realistic" is to get the terminology right. And to remember NO ONE can keep "a web of flashing steel" going for very long.

[wflaschka]

The Nova Scrimia website has gotten really slow, and all the videos are gone. Here are some videos that I had saved locally:

http://www.oxfordfencing.com/media/BM_05.mpg
http://www.oxfordfencing.com/media/BM_06.mpg
http://www.oxfordfencing.com/media/BM_08.mpg
http://www.oxfordfencing.com/media/BM_09.mpg
http://www.oxfordfencing.com/media/BM_12.mpg (grappling?)

They're under 500k each. They show some interesting movement.