In previous chapers i already noticed the steam or clouds that Luffy wears like a scarf while in G4.
In his snakeman form it looks almost physical never disperses and reminds me of son gokus golden cloud. It hardly looks like normal smoke to me and although it may just be there to look cool and show power i wonder how luffy does it. Is it sweat induced with haki to harden or maybe a start of his awakening where he turns steam coming of his body more rubbery.
I would love to hear your ideas.
Seems to be the case since he can use "Jet" techniques. King Kong Gun apparently combines Gear 3 with Gear 4 so I don't see why Luffy shouldn't have tried G2+4 as well.
It seems he's discharging steam from areas not coated with armament.
It's important to note the following.
1. From his waist below is coated, so we don't see any steam discharge in that area.
2. We dont also see steam discharge from his arm because they're coated. Now, from the part of his arm that isn't coated, we start seeing the steam, it emanates from his neck area and basically areas not coated with haki.
Now, gear4 works by blowing air into his muscle and compressing it with haki. A Kong gun even works by compressing the air in his fist before releasing on the oponent. When air is compressed, it gives off heat, his body discharges that heat in the form of steam. The steam he seemingly wears doesn't look like it ever disperses but it actually does, it's just that his body keeps producing more, that's why it'll always be there.
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Though not related to your question, but in case you're wondering why he also uses armament around his eyes in gear fourth (all forms)? It's because he doesn't want the compressed air inside of him to "pop out his eyes".
In Snakeman, he deemed it necessary to use the advanced armament haki design (the flamy design) around his eyes (even before he started pumping air into his body), which means the air pressure (or the compressed air in him) is higher in snakeman than it is in boundman.
This makes sense because it explains why he became faster in snakeman. Think of it this way, a basketball that has more air pressure ''inside of it'' will always bounce faster and higher than a less 'air compressed one'.
That's why after he compresses his arm, upon release, his arm moves faster because the ''air pressure Resistance'' that he overcame to compress it is higher than that of bound man.
At first look, we get the impression that bound man is stronger than snake man, but it actually isn't. The reason why it seems that way is because Luffy decompresses the compressed air (in the form of a punch) directly on his opponent. That's why even amongst boundman's attacks, a kong gun carries more power than the culverine.
The power gap between the two boundman's attack actually depends on whether you get hit when he's decompressing his fist (directly receiving the full stored compressed energy, as is the case with Kong gun and KKG) Or much later after his fists has already been decompressed (as is the case with culverine).
So in essence, Katakuri never received snakeman's full compressed energy because Luffy never decompressed any snake man punch directly on him (keywords 'decompress on katakuri'), that's why it seemed like boundman carries more power, but it doesn't, really.
In snakeman, all he used were culverine attacks and it's variations, and we know culvarine attacks are much less powerful than the direct air decompressing punch.
In bound man, this direct "air decompressing Punch" is called a Kong gun, but in snake man, we don't know what it's called yet because even after compressing his arm, he didn't go to discharge it on katakuri's body (which would've been more powerful), but instead, he sends the less powerful culverine (because of reasons quite obvious).
Though, I must say, Luffy's quite the genius, he went for a more compressed form that produces more power in order to propel his fist faster.
In much straight forward terms, as an instance, if I throw a stone with force, it'll move faster if I throw it with a higher force than a lower one.
It's the case here, only that the principle differs.
The main power/force of gear fourth is the "RECOIL force" OR simply the "built up air pressure by fist compression".
In snakeman, It's because of it's greater force that his punch moves faster, and apparently why he needed the " advanced flamy haki design pattern" around his eyes so it won't pop out of it's socket.
Luffy is actually stronger than we think. Katakuri's "intangibility-deception" actually made him look good against luffy, lol.
