Lord Forgon's CAS Compiliation

Preface

This be my attempt to portray the CAS I hold and their story. Forgive me for my pathetic attempts at mimicking characters, I am far better at originals then I am at existing ones.

I have many, many more but they are all too incomplete/poor/in testing for me to actually show them yet. I also plan to add full bios for my OCs once I actually write it out.

Be aware I plan to update and continue my work for all sorts of outfits. I am humbled by the talent and skill of everyone here in the community and am cautious to add any more until I am completely satisfied with even presenting them to the rest of you.

If you have any requests for certain poses or pictures of my works that you feel need certain angles or details made seen, please feel free to tell me, I will do it. Also, if any one wants any formulas for these, just tell me and I will write them up and make them available as soon as possible.

Thank you

--Forgon
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Recent Updates*Updated 6/1/12*

4/10/12

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5/5/12

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5/15/12

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6/1/12

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7/14/12

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First up, Lord Damnation, the noble heir of his forefathers for hundreds of generations. May Damnation be inherited by every firstborn son of his blood so that the noble lord of his house may never die.

Damnation Updated on page 3

But the undying corruption that does plague the youngest one to assume the name Damnation be too much for him to handle. Servants hear him murmur the name... Lostoru... Lostoru... The Deity of Lust and Power does speak to him. War must come down upon him. War must rain! To gain the unholy power he seek, war must be chosen for the Deity does speak.

Damnation (War Armor) Updated on page 3

And so were many subject to experiments of the most unkind and chilling. So exist Damnation's army of genetic tampering and immoral splicing. And so the Karagga were born, men grown in vats and cloned in droves to serve their lord and fight like beasts. This army has been sometimes known as the "the Damned" with only fear and terror known to follow their march.

Damnation Soldier

Yet Damnation did have one friend. A childhood cohort who would play with him and was always there. Of different kingdoms on the planet of Hordat, perhaps, but Genos was distressed once Damnation's land showed storm clouds abound.

Genos

But his one weakness, the one he loved. Dearest Emily, a quite young one. Stolen from him, by Damnation she was. A blind prisoner to the corrupted lord. Genos must save her, his dearly beloved.

Emily

And so many noble soldiers of Hordat, deployed to Genos's kingdom, are under his command and readied for the battle to free his dearest friend and darling beloved from the grip of the evil Deity who hides beyond mortal realm in the Realm of Worms.

Genos Soldier

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Now for some Final Fantasy cosplay. Disclaimer: I am actually not a big fan of Final Fantasy. My friends are. I did these because some of the characters were fun to make. I am actually a Kingdom Hearts fan myself, but what does that matter, they are hated just the same here! :)

Kefka

Kuja

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Now onto more originals.

Voiiarraka, Deity of Sadness and Misery. The crying lord of endless tragedy who resides in the Realm of Tears. Of the Ten Lords, she is both the least and the most vengeful. Rarely does she come out of the endless rains of where she resides to oversee the realm of the sentients; however, when she has, it has been to let others feel the wrath of her grief.

Voiiarraka 1p

A member of the Grand Ten within the famed mercenary organizations based at the camps of Kisare, Gewdes is a master craftsman and has fashioned many masks to compliment his feared face. Grand Ten Rank 7.

Gewdes

Another member of the Grand Ten, the partially insane and definitely skilled Subtala was an agile and swift assassin before slewing her traitorous predecessor. She is Grand Ten member, rank #10.

Subtala

A proud and brutal warrior, Svaka holds the title of earning his place in the Grand Ten by killing hundreds of warriors on one of his particular mercenary missions. He is a proud and hardy soul of a proud and hardy race. Grand Ten member, rank #9.

Svaka Updated on page 4

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Now onto another imitation. Well here is the Azure Nightmare in all his glory, using White Knight armor (ironically) and his SC2 helm. The only notable thing really is his character card, which unintentionally came out amazing.

Nightmare SC2

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And now the tonarelyan Quichaka. A famed mercenary of his home planet of Jakkeina, a planet that has suffered through an irregular amount of ice ages in the last 20,000 years, Quichakka migrated offworld to help widen his services to the galaxy of Shadark and is always seen wearing his temperature regulating bio-suit along with the fyrax furs and white garbs of his home.

Quichaka

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And finally, my last imitation pieces.

Here is Kakuzu from Naruto, my very first work and the one I am very proud of completing.

Kakuzu

And finally I used Viola to make an Amy outfit for her, as a nice 3p or bonus costume. Here it is.

Viola (Amy 3p)

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Again, Le Bello must commend that Amy. Genius!

Your other designs are all nicely executed, though perhaps the colours are a little bright? Le Bello (and doubtless other people after me) suggests you play with de-saturising them, to create a more.. 'realistic' look. It certainly darkens them and can make them more believable and menacing.

Genos is my favourite, perhaps because he is the most different, though he does remind Le Bello of a Final Fantasy spin-off character, but it is still a solid design, and one of the rare cases in which a brighter palette works. The operatic mask and white hair lend a certain tragic look to the character - Which of course tells his story from the get-go.

Kudos to the Kuja. It's disgusting how good it is!

I MUST mention the clever use of the Voodoo Breastplate and the Eye sticker on Voiiarraka to create something particularly creepy and demonic looking, easily the most striking aspect to her design, and yet it still looks unbalanced. Did you build the character around the eyeball, or add it for dramatic effect? Because I think centering it around her nightmarish chest (Cease the gutter-mindedness!) would make for a more powerful and memorable design.

The rest of your (non-female, non-Kefka) characters all seem a little bit samey, lots of heavy armour and a large use of the scaled fold makes them all less impacting then they clearly deserve to be - Again Le Bello suggests playing around with their designs a little, try to make each character a little less different from the others.

Otherwise a strong and promising start - There's a lot of potential here, and your remakes show you know how to use the parts well, so I look forward to seeing how they're utilised even further as time goes on.

Best of luck, you have Le Bello's full support and most of his attention. Godspeed!

In order for Le Bello:

Some are indeed too bright and others feel like they came out better in their brightness, indeed. This is in stark contrast to my TV screen, which indicates that my brightness and what the game data detects are not in sync. Perhaps I should tinker with it?

Would Le Bello believe this design was given pointers from another inspiration? I took heavily from a friend who inspired me to make this character and who heavily influenced this work. The most unique portion of this work with my hand was his portrait which became his character card (one that came out to my liking). However, I am impressed with how Genos became fully fleshed out, as he was far more whimsical when my friend fully created him in SCIV.

Fun fact: Genos and Emily was a spin on Raphael and Amy as Genos evolved over time for humor. Genos forever searches for his beloved, especially in the forest because "EMILY'S IN THE RIVER!!!!" leading to many ringouts.

Le Bello's brutal honesty is strangely heart warming. I appreciate.

I believe it was added as an afterthought as my process often goes in the order of body>face>Body Coloring>Body Marking>Equipment>Equipment Coloring>Equipment Marking. Likely I, like you, recognized how perfectly it fit and how striking it was when looking through Motifs to add and hastily placed it without doing the proper measurements (how embaressing!).

I will check, confirm, and update if needed to correct this oversight. My thanks.

Agreed. This is partially rooted in the fact I like cultures to stay with similar designs or influences to show they are from the same area (such as the residents of Hordat all sharing similar clothing and armor pieces such as Damnation with the G. Soldiers who in turn share similarities with the D. Soldiers). However, you are correct in that I find it hard to branch away from certain pieces due to the face I feel few other pieces flow or work well (Svaka and Gewdes are not from the planet of Hordat yet I feel there are few other items to work with their outfit).

Gewdes did not have that fauld or anything like it in his SCIV outfit and I drew heavy inspiration from there when redesigning his new outfit. Svaka and Subtala took hasty redesigns of their original outfits (#9 of the Grand Ten has never been cemented in my lore and Subtala's outfit was radically altered once Talim was off the roster) so Svaka could use some editing. I agree, I should focus Svaka on a mix of barbarian and medium armor, maybe add more sci-fi in the mix, distinguish him and his culture since he is the one that is obviously the most alien of the Grand Ten currently shown.

My other works have generally more variation but you are right, I have a lot of experiments to try on characters and even more I need to upload onto my USB in order to have them reviewed. My experiments with alien species provided good results but my male characters obviously need to diversify. So many ideas, so little space.

There is so much to be uncovered and tinkered with in CAS, my mind races in awe at the possibilities. How exciting. I have an ample amount of data to know how I should proceed. My thanks, Le Bello. You can expect the fruits of my research very soon in future, new creations.

--Forgon

It's possible that's true - What saturation level (0-9) do you tend to use on your CaSs? Le Bello finds that anything ranging between 3-5 seem to work best on armour and leather.

Genos IS the most unique design, so Le Bello can see that. I'm glad he's less whimsical however, it seems to fit his story to be more down to earth and humanised. And Le Bello must say, you're the most skilled at Character Cards Le Bello has seen, bravo!

Le Bello finds that a lot of characters start by being based blatantly on other characters, before evolving into their own unique personas, and it's a method Le Bello finds appealing - It's rare that a CaS with no pre-thought comes out well, so having something in mind, something to work for and from, always helps to create more satisfying designs. Le Bello didn't mention Emily before, but on a second look I do find her design to be very nice, and less generic than most. Perhaps a bit heavy on the patterns however, they affect the "innocent" look Le Bello assumes you were going for?

It's certainly an outfit that would be difficult to swim in =|;}

Lying never got anyone anything, Le Bello believes. Honesty is the path to righteous and poverty.

Le Bello meant that the design should be built around the chest-eye, being her most distinguishing feature. The rest of the outfit should strengthen this aspect and draw attention to it, without being too in-your-face about it. As for the maths, Le Bello isn't certain whether it is correctly lined up or not. But it's good to triple check everything regardless!

Le Bello feels your pain that there's not a lot of variation in armour. However there are enough stylistic features to create two heavily armoured, similar but separate cultures. Consider one wearing the more ferocious looking armours, whereas another could have the simple, more practical designs?
Regarding a barbarian look, Le Bello finds that the simple armoured arms and legs work well with fur shoulders and scarves, but this may take away from the Sci Fi nature of the character. Hmm... A tricky one.

You certainly have race variation down to a 'T', whatever that means, so a little more experimentation into the clothing and styles and you could become one of the best CaS's on the forums. Le Bello suggets reading Gatsu's CaS thread. That man is the Edge Master of CaS.

How long have you been using SCV CaS? I agree that it is much deeper then perhaps it first appears, especially when you begin playing with the Extra Equipment and textures. Le Bello expects many great things, considering the impressive groundwork that you've already set.

Best of luck in your ventures!

Very, very interesting fantasy world you've created ;) Reminds me for some reason of the 'Deltora Quest' series... Errr... never mind, you probably don't know it ^^;
All I'd say is to consider reworking Damnation's costume and the pants on Subtala 'cause she's my favorite right now ;) Good work!

This happens to me as well, TV =/= computer monitor. Because of this, I can't complain about anyone's color choices and assume the colors looked fine on their TV

That Nightmare is incredibly awesome.

Thank you. Its an extremely particular time period of relatively minor characters in a larger universe but I have a habit of trying to fill every gap in the universes I made. I am humbled by your compliment all the same.

I only request for more specific suggestions so I can understand where you dislike my direction. Would you like the corrupted noble to have a more humble appearance? Perhaps Subtala's camo clashes too much for your eyes? If I do not implement it on the characters themselves, it will still provide adequate data for future creations.

'Tis a pitty. Still, I agree I am too attached to making my characters look "clean" and need to rectify that in at least my future works although I have already worked on at least making the subtle details of some of my posted works more "gritty" per say.

You make me blush. I find only the character card worth eying; the Nightmare itself needs work. Perhaps once a Character pack DLC releases Nightmare's armor I will return to this work and "spruce" it up.

--Forgon

I just realized, I completely overlooked Le Bello! Forgive me!

--Forgon

Forgon, i read your contribution in the other thread about tips and tricks, you seem to be the master of CAS R&D, yet your CAS failed to impress me...i really like the words you pick, very amusing, in a sorta Pocky Yoshi way...
BUT I am sure you can do better with your knowledge of the advanced techniques, give it more time and hear my humble advice...and ask yourself : is a blue ninja with balls in the back worth posting ?

I am more interested in a CAS with persona that catches the eye at first glance than a wall of text...as the saying goes, the soul's emphasis is always right ;o)

sorry if i am being too harsh, but i was really captivated by your research (and others')...but you should not ignore basic tips 1, 2 and 5 for your collection to come...

Recipe on how to make a good/great CAS :
1 - get a fresh idea (i get mine from movies, comics, own sketches, mythology, whatever...), or a theme, preferrably one that has not been done 1000 of times (or just for practicing the editor, then don't need to post it, right ?)
2 - see what style fits the idea best / and then if a weapon in this style fits your CAS (ie. my Caligula with Hilde's trident, or My Fake Ashigaru Hilde, two very different souls with same style)
3 - start working on the first layer of work to make sure your CAS will look good once partially naked (armor break), meaning skin tone and stickers, underwear (nothing worse than a pristine looking feral CAS with pink underwear, hey !), stickers, textures, hairstyle, face tatoo, eye color and so on and so forth...
4- pick the right equipment pieces (with all the tips mentioned before) and assemble before working on colors and patterns individually...if you stumble upon incompatibilities, you are very very unlucky (looooooooooooooool)
5- pick up realistic colors and patterns, give additional texture work to CAS parts you want to stick out (ie. the arms of my War)
6-add stickers as you see fit
7-add special equipment (if you think you lack one slot, think outside the box to save one slot, there is almost always a workaround)
8-do not forget to pay special attention to the voice before you finish editing (the voice dictates what quotes your character will say, so if you do a fierce looking female warrior, don't give her the preteen voice
9-take time to make a nice thumbnail that is pleasing to the eye

if you are unsure to be able to undo (you can undo only one step), finish editing to save, edit again and only quit with b if you messed up ;o)

In order:

I approve of your criticism; it is welcome. It is obvious we don't have similar tastes but I am a compromiser and a seeker of advancement. I shall take this into consideration. However I have many more that I have yet to show and I am sure they are not to your standards. Oh well, I might as well post them so I begin collecting data from you all's observations.

Coming here was an exciting experience indeed. I approve.

--Forgon

not similar tastes, how so ?

and please keep posting, i will follow up with criticism...or praise i hope !

I shall clarify. At least in my opinion (correct me if I am indeed wrong)I find your inspirations are more heavily drawn from more photo realistic sources such as live action or comic styled, while mine appear to be more heavily influenced by brighter, more cartoon-like sources.

While I admit, the coloring is a bit darker in a majority of my images than what my images do show, that does not hide the fact that they are generally brighter and (I reuse this term again) "cleaner" in their coloring and approach than some of your works which are clearly more focused on making them appear "grittier" and more in-line with real life.

Pulling out random images for comparison, I find our styles differ in that I focus more on something like this compared to this and this compared to this. As a disclaimer: I do like the style to an extent, but it is clearly not the direction some of my works have gone (hence my view of an apparent dissonance but once again correct me if I am wrong).

This does not exclude me from your argument, of course. You are correct, there are places I feel I need to improve and details that I feel I should add to give it a more "realistic" flare as my work could indeed use some work. However, I require specifics if I am to collect the necessary data. Disect my works, isolate variables, provide observations of appearance and flow so that I, Forgon, may improve the quality of my work.

--Forgon

ok, i understand...
But...your wrollicks and your toranelyans (sorry if i misspell them ;o) look like pre-alpha CAS, concept work at best. There is some substance to it, don't misunderstand, fly theme for the first one, and 5th element sort of theme for the second one, but they lack depth and details. The choice of the leathery texture for the fly body for instance is kind of lazy, if you ask me...you could do so much more with that good start...

Cartooney for sure, but not in the right sense. Take my Ewoks, they are very cartooney, yet very intricate, in terms of design and texture/paint work.

The groundwork is there, taste is one thing, but should not be an excuse for throwing half-baked CAS at the community...watch and learn from Chobek, Murasame and Gabe, and show us what you are made of...Forgon the uberlitterate ;o)

Ewok (is not gritty and...) says : Add some MEAT (yummy) to your CAS ! ;o)



last pic i post on your thread, no attempted invasion there, keep cool ;o)

Ah, some specifics. That is most helpful, thank you. Yes, actually, the species themselves are in fact alpha designs. If they offend you, my apologies. I put them there for a visual of my earlier response to Le Bello's thread for some tips I stated (being the upside down heart being used as a walrus mouth and the leather suit with the snake skin making an insect like body skin).

The Tonarelyan (don't ask about the name) is supposed to be human like with its body proportions and head supposed to distinguish it, so it was virtually finished. As for the Wrollick, I am curious as how I could have made it better, as its direction was just to get the general idea before I developed a character from it. Any particular suggestions? It is not supposed to deviate from the human skeleton too much but I am curious as how I can distinguish it more.

Your ewok is an example of something I would judge a little closer to where I want my work, however the eyes alone are something that is not within the boundaries of my style, (excellent work by the way, I like it).

Also, don't feel discouraged from posting pics for comparison if you don't want to simply post links, I encourage debate and discussion; this is a learning experience as much as it is a sharing experience for me.

Am I really that literate? :D Thank you for the compliment, but there is something about those eyes that unsettle me. Its as if they have seen the deaths of thousands of faceless white men as some sort of cruel twist on an adorable teddy bear... I must be imagining things. Onto more important matters...

...like my Shade! The hollow husks of men: the servants of Dyakka, Deity of Vengeance and Bloodflow. It was said that dying men who died in liquid fire fell to the Realm of Blood where Dyakka does reside. Pierced through their mind, heart, and gut, the souls of men fall from their skin and the Lord does claim what remains.

Shade

A quick self critique of mine. I feel the skirt and pants should have a certain texture but I am stuck between choosing a net pattern to make it look like woven thread or something more subtle.Any suggestions are welcome.

This one was a test of several experiments I have done and techniques I have learned but have not used. I felt it came together quite well but who cares what I think! What do you think?

--Forgon

I think the blood on his head should match the color of the blood on the body. I know that color happens to be pink, and I know it's frustrating not being able to get red on undergarment layers (believe me, I'd fought with this conundrum before >:( ), but matching makes it that much more believable.Maybe even make it green or black blood, if the pink is too much of an eye sore.

Other than that, the main features/details look good (the spikes & blood look fantastic!), but I'm personally not a fan of the huge skirt/samurai pants.