The Project! How to Alleviate the Pains of a Countdown Clock UPDATE: 11/11

[OverHeat]

(or, something new to divert your attention from the countdown timer every few days)

This is my personal way of trying to help the community deal with these last few weeks before the release of KoFXIII. Please enjoy it for what it is, or tell me how pathetically revolting it is. Either way, your mind will be distracted. You're welcome.  

OK! So lets start with the background on this. I've wanted to do my own custom art for my stick for a while now, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I knew that I didn't want the "usual" (i.e. official art with a Photoshop splash background). Don't get me wrong! There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's just that I have always wanted to do something unique, something that was wholly my own. Something that I could point to and say, "You know what? Thats all me right there." I thought you guys might enjoy seeing the process as I go/went through it. I figured by staggering the release of info and artwork, it would give you guys something to kill time with until KoFXIII comes out, if even for only a few minutes at a time.

On the hardware side of things, I was going to be putting this art on my Madcatz TE S series stick. The S series has more room for art than the TEs I own, so I figured it a prime candidate. I will be changing the colored button's configuration to match that of the original Neo-Geo MVS cabinets. The bottom-left button being "A", going up to the top-left button as "B", top-middle-left as "C" and the top-middle-right as "D". The plastic stick protector and dust washer will be replaced with the clear variety so as to look cool and not hide any of the artwork, respectively. The four non-colored buttons I will be replacing with the brand-spanking new clear Sanwas. This is so that I can do the old you-can-see-the-art-through-the-buttons thing, thus further minimizing any loss of the art. Finally, I will be replacing the ball top with the Seimitsu clear-red-with-bubbles kind for reasons that will be explained below.
Also note that when I started to get a better idea of how much art was going into this and where it would need to be, everything would need to be flipped. So although everything is facing right in the drawings, it will be facing left in the final product.

So after quite a bit of brainstorming, I fleshed out what I was going for. I laid down these ground rules for myself.

1) All Original Artwork.
  I would use nothing that already exists. Everything that would be put onto this thing would be from my own little digits.

2) No Photoshop Airbrush Stuff.
     Look, I know it's 2011. I understand that it's all the rage right now, but just go ahead and call me old-fashioned. I knew I would be putting this through the computer-wringer in some way. But I also knew whatever I did, I wasn't going to go with what's the norm right now. So I decided instead to use Illustrator to trace out my original drawings. That way I could take advantage of the benefits that vector art provides (resizing and reshaping with no loss of integrity to the original work).I also decided that I wanted to do a more, old school comic book look for the coloring. It takes more time and ultimately lacks the WOW factor that the airbrushing technique has. But this is what I was going for.

3) Terry B. Is Central
      So hey! Terry is my favorite character and this project is being done for the release of KoFXIII. Naturally then this would center around him in someway. I am also much too big of a fan of Street Fighter to deny all the great characters that series has. They would feature in a prominent way as well.

4) It Has To Be Big
     I am notorious for biting off more than I can chew. I have made my grades in several art classes suffer for it. This, however, is not for an art class. I have more time to work on this than any of those classes ever permitted. So of course, I made it even more difficult for myself which leads into number 5...

5) Remember That You Are Rusty
     I haven't drawn in over 15 years and haven't used Illustrator since CS1. I was going to have to find someway to ease myself into this whole process or it was going to get frustratingly messy, frustratingly quick.

With these basics in mind, I knew without the pizazz of uber coloring that I was going to need something else to create a striking visual impact. I also knew I needed someway to make Terry clearly the main interest in this piece. At a house-warming party at a friend's house, I was explaining the basics to a group of like-minded fighting game nerds, smoking a little w**d (SHHHHHH!!! Don't tell!   ) When inspiration struck. I dashed out to my car and grabbed my dusty art book and pencil (which I kept close to me when I knew this project was going to go) and immediately began sketching out the idea before it vanished from my drug influenced brain. Remember kids, winners DON'T use drugs. I was able to get the gist down before I forgot what I was doing and it looked a little something like this.

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/OriginalLayoutIdea.jpg

The idea is, Terry will be creating a Powah Geysaa! so huge, it takes up a large portion of the page with various SF&KoF characters running away from it. But these guys are all bad ass fighters in their own right! It doesn't seem that one big geyser would really be enough to have them all turning tail! So thats where my visual contrast,or, oomph came in. While all the characters themselves would be hand drawn, the geyser itself would be an actual picture of a geyser from one of the games. I would blow it up so that it is rather pixilated but still very recognizable. The area immediately around the geyser will be a black void and slightly outside of that will be the effect of burnt paper; The geyser is essentially ripping a hole through their reality! Yeah! That should make anybody run, right?

The next morning while showering and shaking off the slight hangover from the night before I began to run ideas and characters in my brain. I already knew I wanted to do slightly-american-comic-book style chibi characters. But who? How many? The fleeing-in-terror aspect of all this certainly let my imagination go...
Settling down at the kitchen table, the now-sober-me began the task of making things genuinely difficult for myself. I didn't want any one side to be favored in terms of quantity, so the character count had to remain even.
I settled on a paltry 18 characters. *gulp* Yes, 18 characters, 9 for SF and 9 for KoF. I then began actually trying to draw after being as rusty as I was. I decided to start with Terry and establish the overall style I would be going for. I also got some rough ideas out on some of the other characters, got a few pieces of how I wanted Rolento to look, and got Dan Hibiki done as the idea for him didn't take too much skill to get across. So then I had this;

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/1stCharacterFleshout.jpg

As you can see from the checklist, things evolved as the project went on. I had never really wanted to do a background until it became painfully apparent that the whole ripping-through-reality thing wouldn't really be as solid if there were no background. A few character choices changed as I came up with different ideas for what they should be doing as well.

So I hope you enjoyed this first installment of;
The Project! How to Alleviate the Pains of a Countdown Clock

Please look forward to the next installment;

UPDATE 10/30/11

*update: fixed broken link. Sorry about that.

[OverHeat]

Shaking Off the Rust: The First Batch of Characters

So in this drawing I wanted the entire quartet of Shadowloo. For those of you entirely un-initiated in Street Fighter, the "Shadowloo Gang" generally refers to the four bosses from Street Fighter 2; Balrog(Boxer), Vega(Claw), Sagat and M.Bison(Dictator). Part of the reality that has been burned away by Terry's geyser will be larger to accommodate this group.
I intend to have Vega being pulled into the void, with only a scant portion of his upper body still in their reality. The other three will be doing their best in impossible circumstances to keep their pal from slipping into the oblivion. Bison will be hanging onto his right arm, Balrog his left with Sagat holding onto both Bison and Balrog's legs.
With these four power-houses (just don't tell SF4 Vega this) put in such a pathetic state, it helps further solidify just how scary this geyser really is.
As you can see in the drawings, I drew them separately so as to make my life much easier when it came time to trace them out in Illustrator.
Also you may notice certain things missing, such as one of Vega's eyes and one of Sagat's legs. I was having trouble getting the opposing items to match up when I realized the easiest solution would be to simply keep the one that I liked and clone it, then mirror it in the program.
I was doing pretty well for someone who hadn't drawn in such a long time. I was doing so well in fact, I completely forgot that I was drawing them in the wrong style! Such is the wondrous fortune of using vector art. It is an easy task to just trace the heads and body individually, then resize them as needed. After a few work lunch breaks and a few hours to kill while waiting for my car pool I had the Shadowloo gang done.

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/ShadowlooGang-1.jpg

I suppose a bit of explanation is in order for why the faces look the way they do. Vega will be having anime-style waterfall tears shooting from his eye-holes, landing on Balrog and Bison's heads. Sagat will be having the same shooting from his eye and...erm...patch-hole, with the waterfall tears landing on Balrog and Bison's crotches. Thus I gave Balrog a sort of "I'm screwed, humiliated and there's not a damn thing I can do about it" face, while Bison is sporting more of a "wholly S**T!! I expected this from Vega, but you too Sagat?!" look.

That's it for today's installment! I hope all 8 or 9 of you who tuned in last time enjoyed this short piece and look forward to the next one:

[OverHeat]

Pluggin' Along: Almost Half Way There

So with the rust nearly gone, I continued to plug away at the 18 character roster I had beset myself with. I made some slight mistakes with proportion or angle, but since the actual drawings themselves were very sound, these didn't matter. With the program that I would be using it is a simple matter to resize and reposition things as I need them.

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/AndyRobertZangief.jpg

I knew I wanted Andy in there, but I also knew I didn't want I'm in direct line of fire. So I decided that it would be funny to have him losing a bet with another character. He will be standing just behind Terry, paying off a very satisfied looking Rolento.
Zangief is in full-on OH F****CK mode as he careens toward the ground. His foot will be lodged firmly in the back of the skull of a trampled character (who will be seen in two updates from now ). He will have action in the sense that his arms are busting a windmill as he futilely tries to stay balanced. A character who was riding piggy-back on Zangief will be being propelled through the air, who will also be revealed in two updates.
Robert will be in the direct line of Zangief's fall, hence the look on his face.

I am going to make Zangief's hands going green-hand (unless it look super terrible).
Yes, I just invented a new move for Zangief; Windmill Greenhand. MAKE IT HAPPEN CAPCOM

So that's it for yet another installment. I hope you are enjoying these as much as I have been enjoying making them. Please look forward to the next installment;

[OverHeat]

Breaking Through the Midway Point: The Kusanagi-Yagami Team

So this happened kind of by coincidence. As you can see from the pictures so far, I had been outpacing my KoF characters a bit, mainly because of the Shadowloo Gang. I decided I would do a page of nothing but KoF characters, and somehow it ended up being the team from KoFXI. Purely unintentional I assure you, but, kinda funny when I realized it after the fact.

So Kyo is not interacting with anyone, he is just bookin'.

Shingo, the other "joke" character I have here, is the second closest to the blast. Dan has been shown earlier and is in a rather poor state. Shingo will be running with eyes bugging, pixilated fire on his ass. As you can see from the picture, I kind of forgot he was supposed to have his eyes that way as I was drawing. If you look directly above Shingo, you can see his "replacement" eye.

Finally is Mr. Yagami; ol' chuckles himself. If he seems that he's over extended for a run pose, it's because he is. He is actually vaulting over another character whom he has shoved to the ground to make more room for himself. You will also notice he has a hand directly underneath. Why does he have a hand this way?? All will be revealed next installment!
So without further ado...

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/KyoIoriShingo.jpg

Next time will be full of reveals! WHO is Iori plastering to the ground? WHO is Zangief tripping over and why? WHO got chucked from his shoulders? All these questions answered in the next installment;

[OverHeat]

Unnecessary Reveals: The Abused Characters

Here we have it; the reveal that absolutely no one insisted upon.
Here they are, your abused characters:

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/BaoCammyKula.jpg

So there you have it.
Bao is being flung from Zangief's shoulders in Zangief's mid-trip. Since I am following my rules for this project, I would not be using any form of transparency effect for the flapping that his arms will be doing. So I drew inspiration from the old comic books. They didn't have fancy-pants transparency back then, so they used "action" lines and slightly less detail to imply movement.

Iori has placed Cammy flat on her back. He will be just partly vaulting over her, a freshly planted "Kick Me" sign on her back.

Poor Kula was the first of Iori's victims, as a highly mangled "Kick Me" sign on her back will indicate. As you can tell, all characters that have passed her have trampled her quite badly. You can see the spot where Zangief's foot will be buried in her skull as marked.

So we are closing in on the finish of the original sketches. Only two characters left and, of course, the background. I am currently working quite diligently to make sure this project is finished in time for KoFXIII. Wish me luck and tune in next time for:

[OverHeat]

And I Thought I Was Done: The Final Two Characters

So finally we are on to the last two characters. One KoFer and one SFer left. These two in fact, are interacting with one another. Of course, in their sketch form they aren't; I need them to be separate to make life easier once they are to be traced over in the computer program.

The first is Athena. Now I had originally planned for her to be Chun Li. The interaction was to be with Dudley. I realized that I was one heavy on the SF side, and I really wanted to have as many cross-game interactions as I could, so Chun Li got the axe and was replaced with Athena.
As you can see, Athena is holding Dudley's rose and screaming, facing the wrong way. This is because, despite his outwardly "gentleman's nature", given the magnitude of danger Dudley becomes a little bitch. He has given the rose to Athena as a distraction as he sees the impending disaster and then shoves her in the way of the blast to hopefully save himself.

Dudley's bitch-mode is complete with globby tears flying from his eyes as his callously shoves poor Athena into the blast radius. His front foot will also be on Kula, adding to her already trampled looks. You may also note that I didn't care too much for the way his bow-tie came out, so I just drew another one larger and separately.

Here it is;
http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/AthenaDudley.jpg

So that's it for the sketches of the characters. At this point I was ready to hit the computer and start pounding these drawings out. I had considered doing a background early on, but decided against it. I was already doing 18 characters and thats ALOT of work as it is. Plus, thats a lot going on! I didn't want to add to the confusion by doing a background as well.

I was talking to a co-worker about the project, showing him the drawings as they were and he said "Have you started the background yet?" I replied by telling him the above, essentially. He then said "Oh. Cuz I think that if there was a background, the whole reality-ripping thing you are talking about would probably look a lot better and make more sense."
So if someone with no real connection to this project and no real artistic background could spot that as quickly as he did, it just further cemented what had been nibbling at the further recesses of my brain.

Get ready for the last of the sketches as I will present;

[OverHeat]

Dammit!: Now I Gotta Do A Background

And so the background commences! Or...something like that...
Deciding I had to have a background, I set a few rules in place. The first being that with 18 characters running all over the place, the background needed to not be overly dominant. Somehow subdued, but still detailed.
I also had to keep with the style I have so far presented. I could have probably done the background quickly using just the art program, but that wouldn't have meshed with my drawings. I would have to hand draw the background and transfer it like I would do with the characters to maintain a connection.
The last thing I wanted to do was to make the background very much my own original piece, but have it be instantly recognizable as part of the fighting game universe. Given that Terry is the centerpiece for this project, I decided to use influences from the original Fatal Fury game.

So I decided to use the most iconic, memorable stage at least, to me. The stage of Hwa Jai. This particular background stuck with me all these years because of the unique perspective it had. it really struck a cord with me as a kid. I found it really interesting to look at. So I thought to myself, what if what was happening in my piece was happening was happening down this alley, between these two buildings here (look for the red arrow to the left)?

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/HwaJai.png

So I built the background around this idea. There would be a lot of wall with not much going on seeing as how its back in an alley, but there would be a thin alleyway looking out into this area. There was going to be some skyline visible above the Real Bout building, so I took inspiration from the repeated tiles in the skyline city scape of Duck King's background scene, circled here;

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/DuckKing.jpg

and it all culminated into this:

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z415/OverHeat76/The%20Project/51f9d9e4.jpg

The weird, sideways bricks are just there for me to trace later and use sparingly along the walls.

So by having the detail controlled to a small portion of the piece it wouldn't become too confusing. This Southtown Alleyway will be situated right about where Terry will be. The background should fall right about where the clear buttons are, giving me a chance to show them off.

Having pulled inspiration directly from backgrounds from Fatal Fury I hoped to give it an instantly "homey" feel to anyone who had spent time with that game. You know you've never seen it before, yet for some reason you feel like you have.

So thats it for the sketches! From here on out you will begin to see the finished characters as they've been wrung through the computer. See you next time for;

Cracking The Wrist: Getting Back In The Swing Of Things