Ardent's SCV CaS-Fest

Ardent

[08] Mercenary
Hello there everyone, and welcome aboard to this humble youngster's thread! So, with the existence of SCVI, I thought I should make a return to the series after....quite a while, and, after discovering 8WR, to share with you all what I've made :D Now, I'm not up-to-date as much as I've wanted myself to be so, until I get my hands on VI (and a PS4, for that matter), you'll see my crew from V.

I look forward to all kinds of responses/feedback/criticism, all is accepted :). Without further ado, let's get this festival going!

First up; OC's









-As you all may have figured out already, the theme behind him was steampunk. I have a soft spot for such themes :)
-For his hat, I had the idea of making it appear like it was made out of machinery gears and metal scraps/pieces/plates, hence the scale pattern on it and the gear ExEq.
-The addition of 2 kinds of glasses (namely, the ExEq goggles and the small pince-nez, otherwise known as smart-ass glasses) was done so because I pictured him as wearing the goggles when in conflict, riding a machine etc. and then switching to the small ones when fighting normally. I also used some makeup to portray dirt.
-For the rest of his design, I used one pocket sticker applied on his coat to achieve a leather-like look, the kanji pattern+light orange on his scarf to make it look kind of withered and the thief belt was chosen to hold any gadgets he could use in battle. The gloves and boots were customized on-the-fly so, not much here.









-Lynette was created as a mix between Ivy and Viola, I wanted to combine the former's scholarly, alchemist nature and the latter's kind of enigmatic vibe. Also, I opted to associate her with light colors and a floral/feather theme to give off a high-class noble vibe, and that the combination seemed cool :)
-The artist beret and round glasses were chosen to reinforce a bit further that image of hers. The choker is purely for decorative purposes.
-For the main part of her design, I used the gradient pattern and angelic feathers to deco her dress, a lotus sticker on the jacket for the same reason and 2 ExEq flower hats to make custom sleeves for said jacket.
-Her skirt uses a European pattern as texture and a pocket sticker for a bit more detail. I also wanted to use another belt originally but, the only compatible one with the skirt was the dancer's one. I wasn't feeling it at first but, it grew on me.
-Lastly, I chose to go with the jewel pattern for her boots to emphasize her theme a tad more.







-Will was a pretty straightforward creation as I didn't have a solid theme in mind when building him. I only came to realize after finishing him that I somehow ended up with a pirate, traveller-like mix. I thought "Hm, that went well. I'm keeping him". Well, other than the ExEq centurion accesories posing as fur for his clothing, not much to say here, simple CaS really.









-This here is my main OC, a mix between the Vermillion Bird (guardian of the south and one of the Four Symbols of China), the fenghuang or Chinese phoenix (even though they're oftenly mistaken for being the same, they're actually different entities) and how I envisioned myself in SCV, a fiery over-the-top warrior monk, combining the bird's many vermillion hues with the fenghuang's palette of yellow/gold, red, orange, green and black for his color scheme.
-Guang was intended to have a battle-hardened look from scratch (hence the scar across his face, the bandages on his arms etc.) as the warrior monk's role is a tad more aggresive than others. The obligatory headband couldn't be missing too.
-The main part of his shirt was decorated with the gradient pattern (black on top, crimson on the middle and lighter red down) and the Taoist letters sticker colored in highly saturated orange to make them glow, much like Taki's symbols in VI when entering SC mode.
-On his prayer beads, as @VILARCANE correctly noticed, 3 yin-yang symbols were applied to match the red one on the shirt.
-Now, I wanted to decorate his shoulders and arms with something different, something slim yet good-looking. Most of the available shoulder pieces in V are awfully bulky so I thought to myself, why not create my own? So I used the ExEq goddess feathers and colored them to look like phoenix ones.
-Lastly, I added a flame sticker on his pants and eguipped him with the Menghu boots.

Last: Main Souls 3P's



That's about it! Many thanks for stopping by and paying a view! If you see something you like, don't hesitate to steal/borrow right away (that is, if some things still apply to VI the same way they used to in V)! More than glad to share and contribute to the community in any way possible, be it a small thing or something bigger :) 'Till next time, take care! :D
 
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These are very nice, i'm loving the use of stickers in all of them, especially the pocket sticker (one of my favourite stickers).

Out of the OCs Marshal is my favourite, i love how the coat looks and the steam-punk style hat works well.

And out of the 3p costumes i liked Patrokos the most due to the nicely detailed cape.

I hope you'll be able to try SC6 soon, it's a lot of fun even with less CAS parts.
 
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Great work, Ardent!!! 😄 I love Marshal's hat and the sticker usage on William's bandana!! Also Mitsurugi's samurai general looks fantastic, I'm a fan of the colors you used for him too! 😉

I can't wait to see what you create with VI in your hands!
 
I love the patterning on Nightmare Pyrrha and the detailing on all your original characters! Can't wait to see what else you share with us.
 
Finally! I was curious to see your insight in practice and I must say that I am very much quite impressed. Personally lean towards William (nice use of the pockets as a pattern) and your alt Patroklos. He looks completely different but it’s interesting how you brought together both the samurai and the Greek warrior.
 
Hi Raph,

Considering you have no DLC items, i would say two things :
first, your technique is good, meaning as others said you know how to use of stickers, patterns, match colors etc.
second, they just fit right in from a lore POV.
lastly, they are thematically consistent, meaning choice of parts and Eq are good, nothing to fault here, and you are creative with limited ExEq
did you use all 3 slots for all of them ?
*the ingame pics are a nice touch..

In terms of critique, i'd say :
sometimes, it's better to leave portions of the CAS without patterns to be easy on the eye (like, why scale pattern on a top hat ?)
Pattern for a purpose :)
some colors appear muted, but maybe pic quality, like on the girl, on armor pieces, do not oversaturate, but on clothing, sometimes it is good to crank it up a notch...
**the ingame pics are sometimes confused and do not really promote how good your CAS probably look ingame (again, distance and pic quality)

all in all, good looking CAS mon ami !
My favourite is Ling Guang, just because of the use of ExEq, and the highlight, the Yin Yang prayer bead necklace, very nice touch :)

Thanks for sharing !
 
Mitsurugi samurai generall and Ling Guang are awesome my bro @Ardent! Επιτελους φιλε μου μερικα of your CaS's! You did a remarkable work! I am looking forward to see your SCVI creations.
 
@WySmash: Many thanks, you have quite the taste!! Glad that you liked Marshal and Patroklos, I'm very proud of those two! :D

@Umbra4life: Haha, thank you for the kind words buddy!! :D I'll edit my post later to include notes so, please look forward to Mitsu and the others! :)

@Alexandra: Of course you would mention Pyrrha, we all know how much you like the Alexandras! :D To be honest with you, I was a bit skeptical about her initially (well, nearly everyone, I was so shy) but, she was well-received in the end (phew). So, thank you very much and, glad that you liked her! :)

@VILARCANE: Glad that you dropped by philos, many thanks for your kind words!! Regarding the ExEq, I used all 3 slots only on Marshal to decorate his hat. The rest use either 1, 2, or none at all. :D
I see what you mean about the top hat, I mostly want to avoid over-using patterns and such but, I'd like to think this one was on purpose. I had this idea to add the scale pattern on the hat to make it look like it's made out of metal scraps and pieces. As for the pics, the colors looked fine to me before taking them, maybe it's the quality as you say. Many thanks for the critique and feedback my friend, 'tis much appreciated! :)
Lastly, happy to hear you liked Ling Guang and that you noticed the Yin-Yang symbols on his prayer beads, very good!! 9/10 (if you want that one more point, all I need is a good pun and we're deal hahaha!!) :D

@SpellcraftQuill, @WindupSkeleton and @Kostas_Greece: To quote Snake, "Kept you waiting, huh?" Haha, thank you too guys, very glad to share finally!! :D Quill, I plan to update the thread later to include my ideas behind my stuff, as I mentioned to Umbra. Look forward to it! :) (You nailed one aspect of Pattycakes, the mixture of Japanese and Greek styles, bravo!!)

Thank you sincerely everyone!! :D
 
Sorry philos, but my puns bead you farewell until i lay eyes on SC6 creations of yours.
I pray for you to find the pun hidden in that last sentence, monk-y business for you, really :)
11/10, you had me on the bead hahaha!! Tres manifique :D
 
it's magnifique, like your Ling Guang :)
I mean, seriously, with you love of asian themed CAS, did you NOT review my Pandas just yet (jjk, i know you don't have time+ there are brucege reviews incoming, so he told me in pm :)

french lesson number two :
gorgeous girl in french is "une fille canon" funny, eh ?
 
Pandas?...I sure hope I end up with some free time to check 'em out!! :)
Haha, I bet she's on fire...or cannonfire! Ahahaha :P
 
Awesome! I really like your use of patterns and colors, although its more patterns than I would probably use I think you pull it off quite well because of the color palettes you've chosen- in some cases less is not more, no?
I like Pyrrha in particular, it's just plainly nice to look at
I hope you can get your hands on VI eventually, I'm personally enjoying it quite alot ^_^
 
@tigears: I see your point, I decided to make use of patterns/stickers in...pretty much any way I could think of to compensate for the lack of DLC. Still, many thanks for dropping by and I'm glad you liked what you saw! :D
 
:sc1xia1:
Dude, stop copying my header style. I thought I got a response lol.

I am curious why William has nunchucks to be honest. Maxi’s style is hard to find a use for on a western character besides Gatsu’s one custom created with a shield that pretends the nunchuck is really a flail.
 
:sc1xia1:
Dude, stop copying my header style. I thought I got a response lol.

I am curious why William has nunchucks to be honest. Maxi’s style is hard to find a use for on a western character besides Gatsu’s one custom created with a shield that pretends the nunchuck is really a flail.
I originally wanted to use Patroklos's sword&shield but after testing it, it seemed kind of too "heroic" for William. So I ended up with Maxi's nunchucks 'cause they were exactly what I imagined for Will, a somewhat dirty with lots of tricks fighting style.
 
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