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Messages - OverHeat

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(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.


77
Meet & Greet / Re: Greetings from Davis, California!
« on: October 25, 2011, 02:31:08 AM »

HavenĀ“t you seen Takuma?
We old people have the experience, we have the grey hair, we still have the skill. In other words, we kick ass.

Hahaha it's hilarious that you would mention Sakazaki-sama, as he is the only other character that I have always had on my team with Terry (at least, in the versions he was present).

And thank you for the ganbatte spirit Omegaryuji. I certainly will be.

Thanks so much for the warm reception. I actually have a rather large project that I've been working on for the release of KoF13. I'll be posting the work that I've been doing soon in the Pro Gear thread. Please look forward to it!

78
Meet & Greet / Greetings from Davis, California!
« on: October 25, 2011, 12:45:53 AM »
Hello everyone! I NEVER post on any type of forums given the, shall we say, less than civilized manner that most folks conduct themselves with. After many weeks of reading these boards I was impressed with the manner in which folks here present themselves so I thought I would give it a go!

So a little about myself...
I've been playing fighters since SF1/Karate Champ days, but never thought they were truly great until SF2, like most folks. I grew up in Davis, and with the amount of foreign students (chinese, korean, japanese) that populated it, at the age of 14(15?) I knew where to go and played against folks who already knew a lot about the game. The spot where most folks played (a crappy little Safeway across the street from campus) ended up getting Fatal Fury before anywhere else in the area and thats where my love affair with Terry B. started (no homo)  ;). I enjoyed AoF  as well, but not as much as playing a guy who could punch the ground and make fire come out of it. It was just something about that and the Burning Knuckle that really spoke to me as a kid.

When an import version of KoF'94 arrived, most of the exchange students started playing that and I had no qualms whatsoever. I actually became much better at that game than SF2 and was quickly respected as "not free" at that game (i.e. the guys would actually pay attention while fighting me, rather than disgrace me by ignoring the match as they talked to their friends). A little later my family moved to a different part of town and I began to inhabit the local arcade. I spent lots of time there, ended up working there when I was old enough and stayed there until its unfortunate demise.
KoF'98 became my favorite, go to game.

I fell out of fighting games when the arcade scene died out; making your own stick was a nightmare and there weren't any affordable options for someone who barely had enough money to keep his ass from being homeless. Playing on pads just didn't cut it, and without arcades to keep groups together the pool of available players fragmented and eventually became so limited that I gave up on the genre. I would buy the latest version of KoF or SF when it would come out, have fun messing with new mechanics and such, then get bored of the CPU and never play it again. :(

Well fast forward quite a few years, and now there is a dedicated, flourishing scene and the internet for us to coordinate meet-ups. Netcode in-game to me is a joke. Take no offense, but growing up in arcades has soured me to any kind of online play for fighting games. It really feels entirely different and not being in the same room with your adversary compounds the difference. The socialization factor is yet another difference. I realize that there are those of you that live in areas where there is no scene, and online play is essential for you to enjoy the games and I honestly empathize for you. If only all of us were connected by a 20 minute train ride like Japan is...

Since Street Fighter 4 has been such a boon to the community, it really pleased me to see the response. I've been going to tourneys in my local area when time permits. I'm still shaking off the rust as its been so long since I've played competitively and my now-old-man reflexes really are NOT helping.  :(

Even though I am not a fan of online play, I am always willing to help folks in the community who want to work on match-up experience. This area has a community called Salty Peanuts that I will be participating in as soon as KoF13 is released. I will be bringing my setup exclusively for that game, attempting to hype it up at the local area and help folks who are willing to learn.

So I guess thats it! I look forward to learning and sharing with the community here at DreamCancel.

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