Brawl Style Redesign - King Character (Tekken)

millyparkes

I'm currently redesigning and modelling the KING character from Tekken. Pretty excited as I loved the BRAWL contest (yes I know it's finished!) - I foresee this being a challenging project!

The character should be realistic in appearance (not stylized) and the end result should be suitable for game cinematic.

Let me know if you have any crit or pointers. All comments welcome.

Inital concept sketches.

fearian

love head designs! I think I prefer him with the skinnier legs - the thick cat legs seem out of proportion because no feline animal has that kind of proportion to their legs. The thicker paws might come out as more soft and cuddley than the scrappier claws you have on the left. But I do like the idea of baggy boxxer shorts, so I'm sure theres a middle ground.

ChrisBolton

Hey Milly,

The initial sketches look great! I'm not a character artist but I thought I'd throw in my thoughts anyway XD

In my opinion, the features you've adjusted from the original have made the character look less agressive, and more docile.

Whilst this is fine, the clothing and build of the character suggests otherwise, so we have a bit of a potential miss-match here, which may confuse the player.

I like how you're trying to make the character look more human, whilst retaining the feel of the cheetah. One possible way to do this whilst keeping the same level of agression the original character put out would be to focus on the elements that make the face look human which would be around the eyes, muscluar composition and skull features whilst I think the ears, Jaw, and Teeth from the Cheetah could be kept. They seem to be the most dominant feature of the character.

I rekon it would be a good idea to get some sort of iconic/dominant feature in that would show agression and will automatically draw the players eyes to that part of the character, with the eyes showing the intent. Whether this is the original mouth/jaw, or something else. At the moment I think it's lacking that dominant feature.

If you then tried to make the other elements as human as possible, it would balance out, maybe add some hair perhaps?

If you want to keep the features as they are, I'd reccomend squaring off the jaw alot more and enphasising the brow.

Looking awesome, keep it up! :thumbup:

millyparkes

Thanks Fearian, totally agree with you on this. I think the big fluffy legs would actually be incredibly hard to pull off without delving into fur simulation. It would be great to get some really realistic looking cat legs with prominent bones and muscles. I'll work on it! Great feedback, thanks.

millyparkes

Thanks again Chris, Your feedback has re-focused and defined the direction I originally intended. Back to work

Texelion

Chris said what I wanted to say, so, +1 ^^. You should really keep the beast "mouth", it's more agressive. Here he looks like a cat, not a tiger.

Impala88

Have you played bloody roar? you might be able to take alot of features and designs from that, there are two tiger fighters in there, Long and Shen Long, and both look pretty decent The design looks alot different from what you're going for but i'd just suggest taking some pointers from their heads.

millyparkes

Thanks guys
This is just a WIP sketch from some of the upper body and head feedback. Legs will be revised soon too!






I tried to make the mouth less kitten-like and more aggressive with a stronger jaw-line. Let me know what you think? Also any opinions on human teeth vs. cat teeth?

millyparkes

'n Thanks Impala88, haven't played it but I will investigate!

millyparkes

millyparkes

New sketch! Sorry about my non-existent art-style but if your eyes can ignore the chicken-scratch then feedback would be much appreciated

I think once it hits the modelling stage the shoulders and neck will become broader and the arms a bit more muscular.. He's not quite beefy enough here.

ChrisBolton

Hey Milly,

Awesome! Looking much more agressive, I really do think the ears needs to be moved up though, that will balance out the cat/human ratio lol.

All I've done is select the ears and move them up, shorten the jaw (duno about that though) and added whiskers XD

If it helps, it helps, if not no worries! it's just my little take on it!



Again - keep it up, looking really good!

millyparkes

Thanks Chris. I definitely think your suggestion makes it more cat-like. The only problem I really foresee with that idea is the contrast in anatomy between human ears and cat ears. That area of the head is solid skull - so demonstrating how large bucket-shaped ears fit into that anatomy would be difficult. I think I may move the ears up slightly above the normal area to try and get some of the same effect. I'm sure it'll be an easy enough thing to test out later on when it hits zbrush!

nathanbarrett

This is super cool, I love Tekken. Your sketches are awesome.

millyparkes

Thanks Nathan Glad you like.

TigerGD

The trunks make me think boxer instead of wrestler, but then I was reminded of John Cena. I hate the guy, but his upper body build would be a good fit for your character.

millyparkes

Yeah that's a good point. It wouldn't take a lot of information away from the silhouette to make them more fitted and crinkled instead of baggy. Thanks for the reference, it's great - the expression as well the build. The veins in the arms are super gross but a great detail to include!

millyparkes

millyparkes

millyparkes

Quick teeth =

millyparkes

millyparkes

SirCalalot

Looking fantastic!
The only crit' I'd make is that he's still fairly human-looking.

Have you thought about adding any non-organic cat features, such as cheetah body/face paint? Or cheetah print gloves?

millyparkes

Yes, I quite agree! My main focus is improving the lighting but I think a stronger link to the cat element is needed. Someone stated that a tattoo would work well too. Paintover coming soon!

Aga22

i thought of leopard print tatoo when i saw your last render. also i believe he is too "soft" ...if you see the photo of cena that was posted , more sharp contrast in muscles, more ridges, more veins...that's what it needs to look menacing in my opinion. love the shorts too!