HappyColour Soulcalibur Custom Costume Reskins

How likely would one who has not played SC be to think my designs are base game character costumes?


  • Total voters
    16

HappyColour

[12] Conqueror
Howdy all!

As per the trend in this forum, I will be using this thread to share my custom costume creations.

A little bit about myself before I start posting, I have been playing Soulcalibur since its origin only missing 3, and have been obsessing over character creation since 4. I have played Soulcal on the Dreamcast, Xbox, Xbox 360, and currently play on the Xbox One with the same gamertag (feel free to message me if you want to brainstorm, chat, or collaborate). : )

In general, I tend to only make costume modifications of base game characters (i.e. I don't build new characters, just create costumes for main game characters). I do this as I want to know I can play with any of my characters in a ranked or tournament situation with the knowledge I am not impacting game balance. Although I will never mind playing against a character of this sort, just not my preference when I am playing one myself.

Following are my criteria for success when designing CAS:
  • Quality Equal or Superior to Base Game Costumes: When I make a costume, I create all costumes with the objective being that a layperson to the game, who knows you can create custom costumes in it but who doesn't know what costumes exist for base characters in the game, would be convinced my costume creation was a base costume in the game based on its quality and not its characteristics (i.e. it was not created by a player, and instead created by the game developers).
  • Aesthetic Maintained Across Breakage: Due to the costumes commonly breaking in Soulcalibur, it is my priority in all my creations that my costumes maintain their intended aesthetic across stages of breakage (i.e. if a costume is missing any or all parts of its components it must still be coherent with its intended theme and design and maintains its aesthetic quality).
  • Diverse Theme Acceptability: Despite Soulcalibur having a soft fantasy game theme, I do not want to limit my costume designs to this theme only (i.e. a costume of a sci-fi, insectoid, mecha, horror, or other genre design is still deemed acceptable as long as it fulfills the two criteria listed above).
Let the creation sharing begin! : )
 
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First off, is it easier for you to share your designs as videos than as images? I imagine you might spend a lot of time editing. I ask because I actually prefer images. If they're taken at appropriate angles, I find them much more efficient for seeing the design as a whole as well as for zeroing in on details.

Anyway, you said your design philosophy is based on making something that fits in with the designs of the base game. Though I don't think you quite meet that, you've put yourself in a shoot-for-the-moon position, so to speak; even though your designs currently don't mesh with those of the devs, they're still generally very good in their own right.

One of your biggest problems is pattern overuse. Though I encourage the use of patterns where appropriate, overuse makes the textures look too busy, making the end product look messy. Even the base game's designs have some plain textures here-and-there. Despite that, I can't recommend going patternless most of the time, because it really does look plain. Instead, try using more low-contrast patterns, in which the component colors of the pattern are just a few values different in saturation and/or lightness. Other than that, your color choice is mostly sound. I also like that you have a very clear idea on your designs' archetypes; they come through without having to say that they're bandits, commanders, etc.

My favorite of your CaS thus far is the druid. The color palette is vibrant and appropriate to the character. I would like to highlight the pattern-matching on the top and the skirt. That's a clever way to blend the two items together.

Hope to see more of your work soon!
 
Mina Royal Guard: I really like how you merged the Valkyrie top with some kind of shiny underwear to extend the armor for a nice streamlined look. Very clever trick. I’m gonna need to incorporate that technique later. The makeup effect is also very interesting. Normally I prefer rougher looking stickers on warrior characters, but it works very well with the Valkyrie theme. I like the detail on the top.

Mina Warrior princess: Love the bold yellow/green color scheme. Very difficult to pull off. I like how you toned down the saturation to avoid overcrowding the design.

Mitsu Rough Ronin: Great use of the earth-tones on this design. Goes well with the tough, gritty ronin theme and the classic straw hat. See if you can use Special Equipment to add like a drinking gourd (two apples or the container and maybe a halo for a rope to bind to his waist.)

Taki Tundra Assassin: Very cool modern soldier design. The makeup definitely reinforces the camo/military theme.

Yoshi Samurai Shaman: It’s kinda hard to tell what’s going on without static pictures, but I really like the haphazard, grungy look. Especially that rooster helmet. The cogwheel SpecEq looks like a plume while the voldo chin looks like the beak. Maybe you could play up the theme with some random feather stickers or SpecEq.

Mina Chimera Warrior: Great use of fur equipment like the scarf and legs to play up the chimera angle. One of the things I like to do if I have the special equipment is to make subtle hair extensions with horns.



More reviews forthcoming!
 
Regarding ThePascuzzi feedback.
  • Well thought out and fair feedback. Specifically:
  • I think overcrowding patterns has been something I did on some of those costumes for sure. I didn't discover utilizing patterns such as Basic 15 with only subtle shade differences to create more realistic looking textures till recently. I will keep this in mind going forward, and will revisit some of my older designs.
  • One thing I didn't consider when I set the objective to make my costumes look as if they were base game costumes, was how they fit into the game theme itself. I haven't been considering this, and have been focusing on costume quality over coherent game theme. This is another aspect I will start considering.
  • Regarding photos, I will start doing this going forward, it is definitely easier to do than video for sure, but I really like to showcase the costumes in motion from all angles as this reflects the actual usage of them in game-play more accurately. Hence why I have used that method, but I'll def include photos in the future based on your feedback.
Regarding brucege feedback:
  • Thanks for your feedback overall. Specifically:
  • Great idea for Mitsu, I threw a few objects on his costume haphazardously just to use them but the details they contribute are so subtle I think that alternative detail would be more valuable.
  • The Samurai Shaman is madness, interesting how you picked up a rooster theme. It was not intentional, but he is definitely looking like a rooster now that you mention it. I may modify his colours as you suggested, it would completely change the vibe and I would have to drop a few items but I think it would be worth it.
  • The Mina Warrior Princess is honestly still a bit too much for me, specifically I struggle with her under wear (Taki's unform) and the dancer belt. As in Soulcharge Taki's uniform activates all the crazy writing and makes the entire piece just so poppy, like Burning Man costume crazy. As well, a detail that drives me crazy about the belt is it looks great on the costume until the mid is broken, but once the mid costume is broken there is a notable gap between the belt and her waist and that just drives me bonkers.
 
Costume Showcase Video # 8 is here!!! Now adding supplemental pictures as per suggestion. As well, I have changed my criteria of success based on feedback from ThePascuzzi. My definition of success will be based on level of believability from a quality perspective only, not from a fits into the universe perspective (i.e. one of my costumes is successful if a layperson to the game universe unfamiliar with the genre could look at it, and think that it was a pre-made costume built into the game by the developers outside).



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I was just gonna ghost here, but you need to be commended on the use of 2B's outfit here, I've been trying to find a way to use it or cover up the top so it wouldn't look so 2Bish. I was looking at this and I didn't even notice it was 2B's outfit until I saw the boots and I thought "how did he separate the boots!? Was there a patch?" Lol.
 
Wasp Mina is intersting, especially the use of the helmet / face mask combo and the sting portion. I did a custom wasp in sc5 and went for a stingy style, raphael instead. Yoshi or Taki could be candidates as well for all the flying, or Voldo, so why Mina if i may ? Also i think the rose sticker is not adding any wasp vibe. Instead you could go for black joints using eye stickers fully darkened, cover rest of skin with yellow maybe. Why not add a gradient to the wing ? The use of different patterns is interesting tho ie. the octogonal on the weapon shaft. Good CAS i wasp stunneg by its beauty :) Welcome to the (in)sect of 4 legged CAS freaks...
 
Kyoju, thanks for that feedback! It is definitely a distinct piece of armour making it look not 2B like was challenging. And, in my eyes, it mainly came about after blackening the skin of her chest.

Vilarcane. So much feedback! Thank you, let me address your questions in order.
  • Why Mi-na? Honestly, just because she is my main character. I prefer to make costumes for the character I play frequently as I like to use them. In the last two Soulcals that equated to a bazillion Hilde's. All that being said, after deciding on this and finishing the costume, I really like the concept of the spear as a weapon a wasp would have, I think it makes sense in terms of the parallel to the physical stinger. A challenge I have, is most of the costumes I make for Mi-na do not accurately reflect her personality. Really I think I only 2 out of the 8 I have made reflect her bratty nature accurately.
  • About the Rose? Haha! I am not used to being positively critiqued by such CAS experts as I am new to sharing them in this, as I know see, vastly experienced CAS community. So I will provide a quick write up with more detail of my vision in the future, because that definitely sticks out. The reason I chose a rose, was my vision was to showcase a humanoid wasp warrior not a literal wasp (hence why I didn't give a snout and opted to use the mask instead), as the costume evolved it became less about the realism and more about the hybrid. As such I was imagining what a wasp warrior of renown might have as a platoon insignia, and I decided on a purple rose. Purple because of the colour of royalty, and a rose because of the fact that this would be considered an elegant and dangerous form of pollen gathering.
  • Regarding the eye for black limb joints! This is genius, I believe I used up all my stickers but will consider this for a future design for sure!
  • Why not add a gradient to the wing? The wings were a challenge, and I did add a pattern to them, but I wanted its purpose to be blending. The biggest difference from wasp wings (in reality) and dragonfly wings (the CAS object) is that wasp wings have many fewer defined borders/shapes within the wings themselves. Based on the constraint of the CAS object I utilized colours and textures to focus on realism, by highlighting the borders subtly and attempting to make the inner pattern of the wing a consistent single state as best as I could. But I could actually perhaps throw in a different pattern, as I believe you suggest and modify the size and angle to improve this effect perhaps.... Hmmm... I will have to go look!
Thanks for the feedback and observations! : )
 
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Thanks for the explanations, i see there is some deep design thinking behind your CAS and i like that :)
Regarding the insectoids, i won't pollute your thread with pics but you can get some reference here in my old SC5 thread (wasp, but if you browse through the later pages you can find mantis, ants, flies, bettles and whatnot...)
You can start from there with the wasp :
https://8wayrun.com/threads/a-tale-of-souls-and-swords-eternally-retold.11292/page-13
 

Now those are bugs! Haha. I really like the purity of that Red Ant Warrior. As well, I see how you used the eye stickers on the wasps knees. Quite cool! I will definitely leverage that in future ideas.

I keep on updating my first post on this thread with my personal criteria for success as I realize, despite them being so clear in my own head, each of the CAS creators in this forum have different angles of which they are approaching their creations. Such an experienced community!!! Exciting!!!

I have committed to finding a way to get my old CASs from a 360. I saved all my old content on the cloud so I am hoping it is still available. Expect an update regarding my legacy content in the future.
 
Thanks for giving my old gallery a second glance. The one i am most proud of is actually the praying mantis, if you saw her/it as well. First because it was a challenge in the design process, but also because the combo creepy looks + Voldo style kinda paralyzed my online opponents, giving me some pretty easy wins :)
Of course, the alien head Eq made it possible to do those, even though i made a Yoshisquito (revealed in one pic in my main thread, mostly done for R&D purposes) and an ant inspired 2B which is still WIP, waiting for more parts for the body. I might attempt to recreate Mantis if we get all the Eq back from 5 though.

Btw feel free to steal anything worth your while in my SC6 main thread, as long as you drop a comment or questions and not carpetbomb me with facebookey "likes" : i am always (try to) provide more support than critique to fellow CAS enthusiasts :)
I watched your vids and i really like the presentation with editor moves and comments, i probably should try to do that for a few of my most complex SC6 CAS if i find the time, deconstructing the finished CAS, or recording the actual CAS making maybe, but the latter would probably prove too time-consuming.

About creative angles, i agree with you, to each his own tastes, but i personally always try to think outside the box and push the editor to the limits, and sometimes beyond, exploiting weird bugs (again!) and whatnot to create both canonic and uncanny creations, be it in RC and OC formats. I agree about the fact that this community is exciting too, it just has its ups and downs, sometimes it's like you are alone on the board for a while, then all hell breaks loose as soon as a new patch, character, eq are made available.

I will be waiting for your legacy CAS, and if my critique is too harsh, you are always welcome to a counterattack with something like :
Well, Vil, sorry but i bug to differ :)
Welcome to the 8wayrun com-pun-ionship haha !
 
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Thanks for giving my old gallery a second glance. The one i am most proud of is actually the praying mantis, if you saw her/it as well. First because it was a challenge in the design process, but also because the combo creepy looks + Voldo style kinda paralyzed my online opponents, giving me some pretty easy wins :)

I agree that the Mantis is as well an amazing CAS. I think I actually played you online in the days of old, I remember vividly fighting a really good Mantis Voldo. And I doubt there was more than one solid Mantis on 360 haha!

That 'alien head' mask you refer to was a great CAS item, so versatile! Excited for the extra parts soon to come!
 
I agree that the Mantis is as well an amazing CAS. I think I actually played you online in the days of old, I remember vividly fighting a really good Mantis Voldo. And I doubt there was more than one solid Mantis on 360 haha!

That 'alien head' mask you refer to was a great CAS item, so versatile! Excited for the extra parts soon to come!

haha, thx well in case you are on the one, we can still have CAS show-off (albeit laggy...probably, considering i am in EU and you in beautiful Canada :)
 
Inspired by the work shown on these forums, I decided to dig up all my Soulcalibur V costume creations. Alas, the internet deceived me and I was unable to find a way to take screenshots without a separate capture card, so I captured them the ghetto way.... with my phone.

Apologies for the poor quality, but I really wanted to ensure that I didn't lose these precious creations.

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