I haven't done any pixel art in ages, but I do tend to draw a bunch of fighting game related stuff, so I guess this forum is as good a place as any to share it. Considering my activity here is on kind of an on-again, off-again basis, this thread might not always be kept up to date, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway. If you want to make sure to keep up with whatever I draw, feel free to follow me here:deviantArttumblrAnyway I thought I would start off with sharing some character concept sketches for some game I might like to make... some day. The concepts are not very fleshed out and I don't really have anything set in stone in terms of game mechanics, or storylines or anything - basically just taking the first steps in exploring some ideas for character designs.My basic principle for all these designs (and the "game" in general, as such it exists) is kind of an old-school approach mostly inspired by SF2. I'm not so much interested in storytelling or narrative, but moreso character archetypes and a sort of iconography based on recognizable aspects from various cultures, fighting styles, etc. At the same time I want to do my own interpretation of some well-worn tropes, or subvert some stereotypes by taking kind of a different approach. That's the idea, anyway... Well, as I said, none of these ideas are particularly well fleshed-out at this point, and everything is subject to change. But I'd like to create a universe that feels familiar to fans of classic fighting games but still hopefully is more than just a tired rehash. Anyway I guess noone came to this thread expecting to read a novel, so let me post some actual art. Name: NiklasOrigin: SwedenFighting style: MMADesign notes: Since I'm from Sweden of course I wanted to come up with a Swedish character. Scandinavian FG characters are pretty rare, and the few that do exist seem to be either vikings, or not Scandinavian whatsoever (like Chris from KOF). I wanted to come up with something more believably Swedish so with the growing popularity of MMA that seemed like a sensible choice.Name: FelipeOrigin: BrazilFighting style: Brazilian Jiu-jitsuDesign notes: Brazilian characters seem to either be jungle beasts or capoeira users, I wanted to create a character who's perhaps a bit more respectful to Brazil as a martial arts nation. Name: ReinaOrigin: JapanFighting style: Shôrinji KenpôDesign notes: I definitely want a typically Japanese character, but I wanted to avoid the usual tired Ryu clone cliches. So I made her female and based her design on festival attire and such that's less commonly associated with this type of character.Name: YuenOrigin: Hong KongFighting style: Dragon-style Kung FuDesign notes: Not much to say about this guy. I wanted a kung fu character who is not a clone of Chun Li/Bruce Lee/Jackie Chan, or a stereotypical old master. Trying to go for a bit more of a modern feel that wouldn't seem too out of place in a game like Tekken or KOF.Name: haven't even thought of one Origin: ThailandFighting style: Muay ThaiDesign notes: Muay Thai is a mainstay in fighting games but rarely represented by young girls. Wanted to do something a little different than the typical ring attire. Obviously strongly inspired by Jeeja Yanin Name: N/AOrigin: HawaiiFighting style: Kapu KuʻialuaDesign notes: I was inspired by a documentary about this old Hawaiian martial art, it's an interesting piece of history that doesn't seem to have made it into any fighting game (none I can think of, anyway). I tried as best I could to keep his design faithful to a traditional Hawaiian warrior style.Name: MichelOrigin: FranceFighting style: SavateDesign notes: Savate is another "national" fighting style that hasn't seen much representation despite a fair amount of French characters. Definitely the design I'm the least happy with at this point, he's way too plain and it seems like every one of my characters wear the same colours...Name: ArielOrigin: IsraelFighting style: Krav MagaDesign notes: In older drafts I had ideas for a Russian soldier guy, but that seems extremely tired, so I tried to come up with a female replacement. Since I didn't have many "villainous" characters I thought I'd try and give her a bit of a mean streak.----Feel free to give any kind of feedback on my designs. Let me know what you like, dislike, if your country is represented by horrible offensive stereotypes, etc etc.
Wow! You got some really nice designs there, the only one that i dislike straight up is the japanese girl, from the waist down her design doesnt fit her top. The thai girl however looks both sexy and strong holding a very nice design. She's my favourite of those you posted.Since you have no Portuguese fighters that means you get a D minus. >:C
Kendrick Malamar said, October 19, 2013, 09:22:45 pmThe Hawaiian dude looks awesome. 10/10 would main.Same here. These look pretty awesome.
All of those designs are so goddamn sexy. I´m really fond of the Hawaiian guy, the Muay Thai gal and the mercenary gal. In general, they are all pretty good. I think the Japan girl is missing something on her waist, it seems a piece of clothing similar to her top should go there.
Awesome designs!!! Some of them looks like others I did(not shown there, so not a problem) this summer.
I always love seeing your designs. They're very reminiscent of classic Capcom design mentality, which is exactly what you're going for. Straying away from cliches while embracing the clean simplicity typically associated with them is a tough balancing act. Jeeja expy is especially nice. Ariel is probably my favorite of the bunch, though. Hawaiian strongman is pretty high up there, too. Pretty much any of these would be welcome additions to the rosters of SF, KoF, or Tekken, which says a lot considering their conflicting design mentalities. You've found that magic overlap on the FG Venn diagram for gold.The only one of these that leans toward generic fighting game trope territory is Michel. Something almost too plain. It's hard to put my finger on it. Of the bunch, he's the most boring to look at. Still better than a lot of what has made it into fighting games over the last decade (or more), but lacking when compared to the rest of the cast you've assembled. He strikes me as more Buriki One or Virtua Fighter. By that, I mean he's absolutely believable and grounded in reality, but ultimately not very exciting. Silber, Jean Kujo, and Dural notwithstanding.
I need to learn better creativity. These are just cool! Yuen is by far my favorite. Keep up the good work! ^^
the hawaiian guy is awesome well done on the other to aso for a name maybe Kalakaua, Kailua or Makaha
Hawaiian guy looks tough.I like the defined colors on the Swedish and the French guy (how they represent their nations), I think that's an underrated part of design.The French guy does need something to make him look more cool, same for the Jpn girl.
THANK YOU!!!! ALWAYS LIKED YOUR WORK FROM DEVIANT ART! you should start doing pixel art of your character! Draw their stances and PIXEL IT!Good to see more originality coming like Me,Seanalty,Diepod,Hades and a few other people who have their own thing going on =P
Wow, thanks for all the positive comments, everyone. It's really fun to hear everyone's opinion on their favourite designs.Iced: Japan girl's design is kind of in flux... it started off from kind of a vague notion of what I wanted, and was originally extremely boring, but through playing around with some ideas it became a little bit more interesting at least. I'm not really satisfied with the design either, like you point out it's a bit disjointed. But the fundoshi will stay! Portugal, huh? I guess I can try to think of something Aldo: I agree, the balance and proportions of her garments is a bit unsatisfying. This is better (=more interesting looking) than what I had before but I agree I need to iterate more and come up with something stronger. She is one of my favourite characters but I still haven't been able to put anything on paper that quite matches the ideas in my head...Felo: You should show your designs, man! Judas: I respect you very much as a designer and artist so I consider this high praise coming from you. I really don't think any of the designs are quite there yet, but it's relieving that people don't think they all suck at least I guess, haha! I'm glad you can see where I'm coming from with my design philosophy, let alone that you apparently think I'm doing a good job of it.Michel definitely IS the most boring design, no two ways about that. What's interesting to me is that I can easily pin that down to the fact that he is the only character who hasn't gone through any kind of iteration; everyone else at least existed in some kind of sketched out form, in some cases a couple of different drawings, but he is the only one who has no prior history outside this one drawing. Iteration really is a crucial part of the design process, looking at drawings you've made before going back to improve on it really helps a lot with analyzing what isn't working or why a design is boring. In Michel's case the design was really born from nothing but the idea of "Hey, Savate is a French martial art, I should come up with a Savate character" - I looked up references to come up with a pose to communicate that, and then sort of filled in the blanks from there. I think that's a fine starting point for a design but it's filling out those blanks that needs more work.One thing I thought about (that applies to everyone as a general principle) is that his head/face needs more distinguishing features. If you look at SF2 for example - every single character either wears something on their head, or has a unique and instantly recognizable hair style. It's why you could draw an immediately recognizable headshot of any SF2 characters even if you get all the facial features "wrong". I haven't thought about it too hard but I would bet the same applies to just about any ensemble of characters that's considered well-designed. Looking at my own designs I think I have managed to do this to some extent - albeit without much conscious thought - and while most of my characters still need a little work in this department, noone comes close to looking as generic as Michel. The design is lacking in other areas for sure, but it is definitely not helped by the fact that his face is more or less completely devoid of distinguishing features.SageHarpuiaJDJ: Practice makes perfect! I have been drawing since forever, but I actually started not just drawing, but also think more consciously about character design and improving as an artist, over the past 6 months or so and I think I've improved tremendously because of it. Study the stuff that inspires you, try to set realistic goals for self-improvement, and just practice a lot! LordSinistro: Thanks for the suggestion. I need to spend some time studying Hawaiian culture before making too many decisions for the character.-Red-: Thanks for the detailed feedback, lol. Seriously though, I appreciate all comments. Niitris: Characters draped in their country flags is a bit cliché, but it can work in the right context. I think it's OK for characters with kind of a sports connection, though in Michel's case it was mostly the result of Savate uniforms (and frankly those of most martial arts sports competition) almost always adorned in some combination of red, white or blue. If anything I think that contributes to Michel's generic feeling, so I suspect the design and colour scheme for his uniform will change drastically. For the Swedish character, I thought since there is nothing inherently Swedish about his fighting style, I needed to overemphasize his nationality through his design. He's tall, pale, blonde, wears his country's colours, and even has the national three crowns emblem tattooed on his chest. He seems like he would be a huge asshole in real life, but these exaggerations make sense in this context. Incidentally, most early incarnations of any of my designs have the common issue of being too plain or boring, I always find myself having to come up with ways to make designs more exaggerated and extreme.C.v.s The Abstract: Thanks for the compliments. Right now I am still in the process of designing the characters, I don't feel like any of them are 100% yet. But once I'm more satisfied with the actual designs I'm planning on drawing out proper model sheets for the characters and further flesh out their personalities and fighting styles. I'm thinking about making the characters in 3D in the future (which I could easily translate into sprites), but that's still a ways off.----Right now I'm kinda busy with some other engagements but I do have a couple of other ideas for characters ruminating in my head that I definitely want to put to paper when I have time. I want to iterate on these designs too of course but first I want to get more ideas into some concrete form to help me figure out which ones are the best and most worth developing further. Thanks once again everyone for all the feedback, I really appreciate it.
I'm glad you think so highly of me, considering how much I respect your work. You've been leveling up like crazy lately, and it's fantastic to watch that creativity in action.Some thoughts: As you said, iteration is definitely key. First draft designs and final design choices rarely resemble each other, and that's good. Coming back to a design after some time to think is always a good way to go about really nailing a character. On the rare occasion that first drafts make it through the redesigns unscathed, a sort of super weird magic has happened. That's almost never the case in my personal experience, though. I typically throw something together based on some idea that seems great at the time, then sit back. I'll work on other stuff, or I'll just look at other people's art/play games/watch movies/read books for inspiration, or whatever. The time away from something typically works in its favor. Sol, for instance, started as what can best be described as KoF Sawyer from Lost. Then he became Zakk Wylde with light powers. Several redesigns later (some slight, others drastic), I arrived at something I was happy with. The same give-and-take and trying out ideas that are potentially stupid tends to lead to gold. If they don't pan out, they might inspire something else you like. It's weird like that.If I were trying to nail down Michel's design, I'd probably try a modern-ish French action star approach. Maybe take cues from either of District 13's protagonists, Cyril Raffaelli or David Belle. Consider adding parkour elements to his movement to spice up his repertoire. A command throw where he flips over the opponent, only to rebound with a savate kick to the back? A parkour take on Guy/Maki run set-ups? Maybe that's not the way to go. Maybe go the obvious route and incorporate elements of Jean Reno's visage. Even as a starting point, Jean Reno is iconic. Reno in his prime, or a more modern Reno clone "old badass" type? Mix it up and combine Jean Reno's facial structure with a David Belle aesthetic. Perhaps pull a Ryu/Mas Oyama and base him partially on a real practitioner of his martial art. Gerard Gordeau comes to mind as a possible influence. Marvel villain Batroc the Leaper uses savate, supposedly. Use him as an influence in the same way Von Stroheim is a design influence on Guile, perhaps. Maybe go for an Omar Sy look. Take it in as many directions as possible, then narrow it down. Cherry-pick the design choices you like the most until you have something that makes you go "YES." Trim the fat. And so on.Personally, I've always want to design a Puerto Rican boxer using Hector Camacho as a starting point. Right down to the S-curl. Thought about switching to Cuban just for the interesting backstory possibilities, but dismissed it due to potential WTF JUDAS. That, and I'd be too tempted to make him more Che Guevara than Hector Camacho. I can't decide where my design sensibilities lean; they do what they want. Apologies for the rambling, by the way.Edit: More French inspiration: Tomer Sisley in Sleepless Night, Cécile de France in High Tension (if you're willing to really think outside the box, try a gender switch), any of the characters from Remember Me, Cheick Kongo, Jean-Claude Van Damme (Belgian, sure, but pretty much always plays French characters), Jacques Ducalis from Buriki One, Bebe from Persona 3, Jean-Pierre Polnareff, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.... inspiration can come from anywhere, man. I won't claim to be well versed in the nuances of every culture the world over anymore than Capcom was when they created Dhalsim and Zangief. Big, bold, broad archetypes are a fine starting point.
It's funny you should immediately mention Cyril Raffaelli - I guess it's not that readily apparent from the final image but I did base Michel's likeness on him. It's also funny to me that you'd mention Jean Reno... he wasn't a conscious source of inspiration whatsoever, but the way I had initially envisioned the character's appearance was actually much more in his direction.The Cyril Raffaelli connection was somewhat of an afterthought, I can't say that informed a terrible lot in the overall conception of the character - not that the fighting style or play style of any of the characters is very developed - but I like the idea of incorporating a parkour element to his style. I did intentionally go with a more conventional Savate look to begin with; Savate is undeniably a kind of dorky-looking style, and considering some of my other characters already lean towards a more cool, dare I say urban, end of the spectrum, I wanted to kind of embrace that and give him more of that whitebread feel. He ends up a big generic for it but it's a starting point as good as any. The idea of some kind of "street Savate" style is admittedly kind of fun, though. For the sake of diversity I did consider making him black or Arab, maybe I'll move both ideas forward developing Michel into more of a parkour street fighter and create an Ernesto Hoost or Remy Bonjasky-like African-Dutch character to fill the conventional kickboxer type niche. Food for thought.Boxing is another fighting game staple that I've thought about what to do with... it has the nice inherent quality of pretty much guaranteeing a unique character in the context of a game's roster since they'd only use punches, but the flipside is that boxing already has been explored in all manners of ways already, making it a little harder to come up with something unique in the context of boxer characters in general. I certainly haven't given up on the idea or anything, I'm just yet to be struck by any kind of divine inspiration for something great. Or, well, anything really I'm in a similar boat with wrestling type characters. Granted I already have plenty of characters to fit the grappler archetype from a gameplay perspective, but I like wrestling and would like to come up with something fun in that realm. Pro wrestling is even more of a well-trodden path though, so it's tricky. As much as I like them, a Mexican luchador is about the most cliché thing I can think of (not to mention Mexican characters are seemingly always either that or Native American), and even something like a Japanese joshipuro wrestler isn't something I can say I haven't seen done before. Again it's just a challenge to find an interesting middle ground in celebrating tradition without drowning in a sea of redundancy and clichés.By all means keep on rambling! I enjoy the exchange of ideas.
The only wrestler type I haven't seen done to death is the traditional-as-hell Greco-Roman type. Olympic wrestling and the like. Granted, that has the same inherent problem of being boring by default. Without considering all the possibilities, the first thing that springs to mind is a Kurt Angle expy. Someone as grounded in reality as Goro Daimon, but hopefully a little more exciting/interesting. Drawing a blank on that, actually.
Very cool designs. Niklas and Ariel look very interesting. The French guy does have the "Glass Joe" look about him though. Chinese fighters are always cool looking.
