[FIGHTER] Arcana Heart, CATHERINE, kouotsu

kouotsu

Hey guys, this will be the first character model I'll be posting progress on here at Polycount, so nice to meet you! I started a thread in the sketchbook section a while back but got preoccupied with school and work.

When I saw this contest, I flipped. I love fighting game characters. I think they're the most charming and memorable characters of any genre. That said, I am crazy about cute and goofy characters, too.

This character wasn't my first choice, or even the top 3. My #1 choice was Momo from Rival Schools. Other Arcana Heart characters followed behind her. The difficult part is taking a character you love because they're so cute, and reinterpreting that. I honestly can't think of a way to change a character like Momo without breaking her charm and personality. I thought of turning her into a "cool" character rather than a "cute" one, but that just made me want to do Zaki instead, haha.

So I chose Catherine mainly because of her giant mech "suit" (dunno what else to call it). I'm thinking of giving her more of a Metal Slug-like theme. I guess you could say half-steampunk, half-militaristic? But still with the fun cuteness that makes characters like these great. I'm also very experienced with creating cute character and very inexperienced with creating mechanical stuff, so this will be a nice blend of inside and outside my comfort zone. I'm also going to try to push the art style in a slightly more Western direction. Probably not too far, though. I just tend to ditch the cliche shiney eyes for something more stark and simple.

Sorry for all the text and no concepts yet, lol. I'll try to get some drawing done tomorrow between my finals and stuff.

Daven

Haha, max this looks like it's gonna be a lot of fun. What a wacky choice lol. Good luck with it dude.

this is davenport btw.

JR

Great choice. I didn't know this char or this game. Good luck!

kouotsu

Haha yeah I'm surprised it seems like nobody knows Arcana Heart but everyone knows BlazBlue. Given Arcana comes off as an anime babe game it's a current series in its third iteration currently. Lots of neat characters.

I should be able to start sketching in an hour or two, getting pumped.

kouotsu

Doing some research on all the things her mech can do because I've only played the first Arcana Heart and Cathy isn't in it. Gonna ditch some of the more impossible things, but I would like to have her little minibots able to come out. Probably will simplify it into a mini hangar or something.



I also want to make the robot arms less noodley and do something more mechanical. Found some good refs on it. Tricky though! Also amazed at Metal Slug's concept art.



I had some bad birthday pizza last night so I didn't draw after all but I'll definitely be concepting it up today haha

kouotsu

I've never drawn this character so figured I'd do a quick sketch of her original design to get a good feel of her before I start changing her up.

kouotsu

Alright, got my first concepts going. Please feel free to offer any criticism, especially for the mech half since I have very little experience with designing them. Not experienced with BSing little details either, lol.





At first I thought about keeping her original leotard or whatever under her clothes but I am liking the one with the goggles on her hat more now. Happy to hear suggestions for the character, too. Also not sure if I wanna go so anime with it, I dunno I'll mess around some more.

Modeledcitizen

This is a rad character choice, props to you good sir. I really like the goggle on hat design as well, though I would keep her leotard under the clothing or at least put a star on her shirt. I would also love to see some of the Cheshire Cat design on her mech come back into your redesign. Lovin it, will be watching

kouotsu

Ahhhh now that you mention it I see what you mean by Cheshire Cat haha. Yeah I'll definitely be doing a good amount of iterations of the mech. I made the classic mistake of trying to work out smaller details before I figured out the main shapes. I also think I'm trying to hard to make it blocky. I may also decide to keep the noodley arms too and just give them more detail.

Thanks for the input!

praetus

Cool character but the design looks more like an alternate costume rather than a redesign. I would push this a tad further than what you have right now.

kouotsu

Yeah I feel the same way, I'll see what I can do. Thanks.

Calabi

Interesting. But why do they always have to ride in the mechs middle, why couldnt she be seated in say its foot or something?

theStoff

I like the idea of changing how Catherine rides the robot. An idea could maybe be to make catherine herself somewhat mechanized and then have it so that she hooks up to the machine or something. (I also thought of maybe role reversal would be interesting, where Catherine is a robot of some kind riding a big monster thing - but I don't want to make decisions for you). Looks cool though, keep at it.

kouotsu

Some more sketches of the mech. I tried going back in the direction of the original. 6 might be my favorite out of these. They look a little too much like the original here but I just want to find some interesting major shapes before I go into little details.