Rusted's Ringers, Gallery I: SoulCalibur Cast Designs

You mean, as in a handlebar mustache in terms of the reinforced beard, rather than a goatee?


well seen for the 2 options, I would say that the classic beard or even why not the mustache in the form of handlebars are, I think, attributes inherent in this culture of the Nordics. Either would work, but I have a preference for the former because your character looks very elegant. But your character looks more like a Greek than a Viking, the handlebar-shaped mustache for a Greek ... I don't really know. To be honest, maybe this mustache isn't that bad for Haocules in the end ... Anyway, sorry this mustache story makes me migraine ...
 
well seen for the 2 options, I would say that the classic beard or even why not the mustache in the form of handlebars are, I think, attributes inherent in this culture of the Nordics. Either would work, but I have a preference for the former because your character looks very elegant. But your character looks more like a Greek than a Viking, the handlebar-shaped mustache for a Greek ... I don't really know. To be honest, maybe this mustache isn't that bad for Haocules in the end ... Anyway, sorry this mustache story makes me migraine ...
Yeah, it may well be that the original version with Haohmaru's default short quasi-beard is the better option. It's arguably at least more consistent with Greek culture heroes as represented in modern popular media (where they very frequent are clean shaven), though of course Greeks of the classical era were beard-crazy. But in any event, I did want to create a beaded variant here and there are limited options if you want to do that with ExEq and make it look solid. Since Heihachis mustache had just been released, I decided to use two of them to construct a goatee to see how it would look enhancing the normal level of semi-bearded stubble on the base Haohmaru face.

I do understand what you are saying when you state (if I am reading you correctly) that the particular goatee style this replicates doesn't look super consistent with the typical image of a beard as we would expect of Homerian Greek warrior: the goatee stands out a little bit too much next to the much shorter length of the rest of the beard, and the blonde colouring I chose for Haohcules at the start doesn't help in that respect. So as you say, it may be that the original version works better. But I was happy enough with the goatee effect even jsut as a proof of concept for doing beards in this fashion with the new mustache object that I decided to share the variant: I do like it, whichever version feels more period-appropriate.
 
I love your azwel edits especially, it's always good to see a cool bald CAS bc the style is under-utilized. All of your creations are great!
 
I love your azwel edits especially, it's always good to see a cool bald CAS bc the style is under-utilized. All of your creations are great!
Thank you ChipSprites, that's nice to hear. :)

Yes, my original concept for a bald Azwel was going to be a kind of sagely character: a while back, my friend @VILARCANE challenged me to do a "Wizardman" design. Because we communicate 50% in puns, I should have recognized this for what it "Use a Lizardman base to create some sort of magic-user design. But I misinterpeted it (because I had done a few female designs along similar themes, despite the fact that, as a gameplay/moveset matter, I often criticize the new whimsical magical styles) as a challenge to do a male Wizard character of some sort. And never one to shirk from a challenge (and unable to choose between the many different character design options that fall under that broad descriptor), I promptly announced that I would make nine (only about half way there even now). So bald Azwel was actually going to be a kind of 'Sage' character under the motif: you know, the kind of character you would find standing around talking about the balance of the elements in the Kingdom of Zeal, in Chrono Trigger? That kinda character design aesthetic. I thought a bald pate, making those forehead symbols (which I had just figured out you can make to seem glow) even more pronounced, would be a perfect start.

But then I happened to try matching mirage long with a white hair to match that which I had already assigned to the goatee and then the rest of what became 'War Mage Azwel' fell into place piece by piece pretty quickly. And by the time I got back around to bald Azwel, I realized there was another opportunity to be had: I've created recently a number of designs that use regular roster characters as the base, but are not the straight-up custom outfit designs, but rather designs which cross the main roster characters with designs of characters from other franchises.* So bald Azwel instead became not 'Sage', but instead 'Dark Interloper Azwel'. And I honestly thought the character he had been hybridized with would get recognized immediately, but now I'm beginning to wonder if I should bring in Dante as a ringer on this one, as she would certainly know this one. :D Anyway, excuse my rambling--thanks again for the compliment!



* I sometimes call them 'cosplays': I know my friend @HappyColour has recently adopted the same term to describe all CaS designs which replicate a character from outside the Soulcalibur franchise for the purposes of his new portfolio site, but I prefer to reserve the term for my more narrow purposes where one character is obviously dressing up as another; in the case where you are leveraging every bit of the editor to create a design from the ground up, I just call them 'non-soulcalibur reference designs', or 'non-SC simulacrums'; kind of cumbersome and not very catchy, I know, but I think the distinction itself is useful, in any event. Anyway, I'm adding this fotonote because this is not the first time of late I have found myself thinking we have gone a long while without a truly standardized set of terms talk about the classes of design, and with Happy's site up, where he has his own scheme, he might have an opinion. Personally, I see a continuum of five types:


1. Soulcalibur Cast XPs: These are express recreations of the 1Ps, 2Ps, 3Ps, whatever-number-Ps of rostered characters of Soulcalibur game (or for that matter, secondary characters as they were represented in an official mode of any SC game). Basically the subdomain that Gatsu is especially keen on and successful with. This would also pull in a recent a trend: recreations of designs found in official concept art.
2. Soulcalibur Cast Custom Designs: Any of the above characters, but with the outfit and other additional design elements (beyond the base model) being largely down to the creativity if the CaSer--sometimes hewing closely to the cultural and other artistic elements of the core design in concept, sometimes going in radically different directions, but in any event distinct from any classic/official XP design.
3. Soulcalibur Cast Cosplaying as Characters from Other IP/Hybrids: The base model of a roster character, either influenced by the design of another (typically non-SC) character, or outright replicating it to the point they look as much or more like the target character than they do the Soulcalibur character whose model is being used as the base.
4. Non-Soulcalibur Character Reference Design: Using a custom, ground-up build to try to replicate a character from another franchise. Typically the goal here is to recreate a certain design (often an official and classic design) for a certain such character as accurately as the tools will allow, but there are cases where people combine multiple designs or throw their own little idiosyncratic stamp on top.
5. Original Character designs: These are the designs which are most untethered from the objective of replication, but rather utilizing the tools to create something as original as possible. Often they will leverage actual specific cultural, historical, or artistic references, archetypes, and motifs, of course, but they are by far the designs which most leverage the CaSers ability to design from the ground-up.
 
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To me all these categories are quite accurate, but I think 1-3 are subcategories to a larger area, I don't know if we want to go this specific a categorization due to the most common creations being category 4 and 5 I believe.

To me:
  • Alternative Costumes: Would cover both 1, 2, and 3 but these would be subcategories within this sphere.
  • Cosplay: Would cover 4
  • Original Character: 5
  • Modded would be another category.
Interestingly when I was asking the Japanese players what they use, they seem to have a very clear definition of Alternative Costumes in this way, as Original Characters. But Modded not so much because modding isn't that common, and Cosplay they classified as "Copywritten Character Creation" and I think they consider it a sub-category of Original Characters.

With my definitions though, I realize that a costume could technically be classified as both Alt and Cosplay at the same time based on your category 3.

Regardless, I would like to align the terminology with what the community wants. Here were the definitions I wrote and have built the website around, but can change it if required:

Creation Categories
  • Alternative: Commonly referred to simply as alt costumes, costumes, or player two, these creations are simple costume designs for main cast characters. These costumes in general are most popular with competitive players that are concerned about modifying their characters hitboxes. From my own estimate these are the 3rd rarest form of creations.
  • Cosplay: One of the more common forms of creation, these set out to replicate a character from an external medium as recognizably as possible. Likely one of the most common types of creation, they are very difficult to create accurately.
  • Modded: Creations in this category have utilized modding to achieve their design. Modding can be as subtle as editing the skin tone of a character to as dramatic as importing unique clothing not available in the game. Most definitely the rarest form of creations.
  • Original: Functionally an entirely new character utilizing the move set of one of the primary cast. These characters are completely unique and require a great amount of precision to create in high quality. Likely the most popular form of creation due to the vast variety of customization options available to creators.
 
To me all these categories are quite accurate, but I think 1-3 are subcategories to a larger area
Yeah, I almost arranged the list above such that items 1-3 indented as sub-types of a more general 'Soulcalibur Cast Designs'.

I don't know if we want to go this specific a categorization due to the most common creations being category 4 and 5 I believe.

Well, the advantage you have with your site is that since these labels (as far as I have seen thus far) are only used as part of the profile itself to designate which areas the the CaSer works within, rather than labeling individual types per photo: if the collections ever get more extensive such that you want to allow that kind of granularity, then I'd reconsider using more than 4 items, but given the overview purpose to which the labels are presently applied, it makes sense to paint in broad strokes.

Nevertheless, I do think it's useful to (without any more effort than just generally adopting the use and using it in interactions), try to have some more precise terminology worked out:
  • I think 'XP', for example, is a great shorthand way for describing any design for a main roster character that attempts to recreate one of their legacy outfits.
  • Also, on the topic of terminology broadly, I'd like to make a strong case that 'Cosplay' isn't really the ideal term to use for the category you are currently applying it to for the portfolio system:
    • That word implies one person masquerading as another (which is why I have recently been using it for SC Main roster characters "dressed up" as someone else; I'm not sure if I am the only one who does this, since I couldn't point you to any others but mine, but I imagine I can't have been the first person to get in a habit of occasionally doing this);
    • Whereas the category you are talking about is that of plain simulacrums of characters that happen not to originate in SC--but they are (ideally) only a representation of the character they are meant to emulate. "Cosplay" just doesn't provide a tight semantic match for the category your are describing here, to my eye;
    • Regardless of the overarching label, there's another set of considerations regarding sorting if you use a three category system:
      • do secondary Soulcalibur characters (Ashlotte, Revenant, main roster characters like Li Long when they don't have a playstyle in the current game, ect.) go in category 1 or category 2?
      • Or what about the ones I call cosplayers/hybrids, category 1 or 2?
      • Again, you don't have to worry about this with your system for now, but if down the line you start allowing notes on designs including discrete categories, it might make sense to augment the options up to the five discrete categories I listed above.
  • As for "Modded", we've shared this impressions with eachother before, but for the benefit of the public discussion, I'll reiterate my thoughts: I don't think this is really so much it's own discrete category of character that can be represented as just another class in the list:
    • it's really more of a meta-notation on how the creation was developed as a technical matter than a classification based on the represented content itself.
    • Again, with your current site's mechanics, this works perfectly well, since people just toggle that box as a binary choice whether they do or do not use such tools in some designs.
    • But if you ever get to the point where you want to have individual designs classified, this would have to become an option that is separate from the category you classify the content as, as a thematic mater. Because otherwise you are forcing people to choose between calling a character a modded or original character (or a modded vs. alternative costume character, ect.), which isn't very accurate: many designs could be both, and it doesn't make sense to force the creator to choose between one label over the other, when really only one is a content category and the "modded" cosistently a separate technical designation. I hope that makes sense: it's a nuanced point to try to get across in this format, which is why I broke the points down as I did.

So the categorization and terminology I would recommend--at least as an over-arching matter: I don't know that I would try to get you to change anything with your current set-up, other than further urging the case on changing "Cosplay" to some term that captures the basic meaning of "non Soulcalibur reference designs" but it is also something catchier than that mouthful. So basically, this is the structure I would urge for the mental ones we try to adopt for distinction purposes, along with what I think are the most rational labels (or placeholders for such):

  • Soulcalibur roster designs : For shorthand, let's go with your term 'Alternative Outfit Designs', since I can't really think of anything better that is as short and punchy.Actually, let's go with 'Soulcalibur Cast Designs', since it best covers the entire span of characters below. Not super catchy, but we may be able to find something better with time, and this way we can add a fourth category below which is otherwise hard to categorize elsewhere--'Alternative Outfits' would rule these guys out, since they aren't reskins of main roster models.
    • Legacy outfits for SC main Roster Characters: for shorthand, I still like my 'XP Designs' (or just 'XP') label for these, meaning recreations of oldschool 1Ps, 2Ps, 3P, ect.
    • SC Main Roster characters with original design elements in their appearance: maybe call these 'Original Outfit Designs'? I don't know, open to suggestions on this one.
    • SC main Roster character whose designs are hybridzed with that of another character (typically not a SC character): these I really do feel are the ones that should be labelled 'Cosplays'.
    • Designs replicating secondary Soulcalibur characters who have either never had their own moveset or do not appear as main roster characters in the game for which these designs are created (So, in this game, Li Long, Arthur, Kamikurimusi, Keres, and Beserker would all qualify), for example. 'Mooks'? I don't know--open to suggestions!
  • Designs which replicate a non-Soulcalibur (or at least a non-main roster) character: even though I am strongly urging you not use "cosplay" for these guys, I don't have a great replacement term, and I am just calling them 'Non-SC Simulacrums' for now: I definitely think they need a catchier label, but I just don't think it's "cosplay" and I'm searching for something different. Anyway, these include obviously not just characters from other properties, but historical figures, culture heroes, mythological figures, anything sourced from fiction, and so forth--so long as they are a distinct character (so 'Leonidas' would be in this catregory, but 'Spartan Warrior' might fit in this category or the next one, as a close call).
  • True original characters, built from the ground up, conceptually the work of the CaSer, though they may borrow some elements from a classic archetype of historical precedent or artistic design; I think for shorthand we just call these 'Original Designs' or 'Original Characters' (with my preference being the former of those two).
  • 'Modded Characters' should be considered a classification that is separate from the main thematic categories/a meta-class that can be applied on top of any design that is already sorted into one of said thematic/content categories.

Or, more briefly:
  • Soulcalibur Cast Designs
    • Main SC Roster XPs ('XPs')
    • Main SC Roster Original Outfits ('Original Outfits'?)
    • Main SC Roster Cosplays ('Cosplays'/'Hybrids')
    • Secondary SC Cast Designs ('Mooks'? 'Bonus Characters'?)
  • Simulacrums of Non-SC Characters (??????)
  • Original Designs/Original Characters ('Originals'/'True Originals')
(and then "modded=true/false" binary function for each design)
 
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forcing people to choose between calling a character a modded or original character (or a modded vs. alternative costume character, ect.), which isn't very accurate: many designs could be both, and it doesn't make sense to force the creator to choose between one label over the other
I don’t believe it’s been forced to choose one label as if none of the others apply. I agree with the notion that a character being modded doesn’t prevent it from being one or more of the other things, but that’s always been pretty readily understood. A character can’t simply be modded and nothing else, unless it’s something like it’s just Siegfried with Geralt’s style, or something basic like that.

My modded characters are all minor recreated characters (“mooks”), but that’s also my general majority as well. I employ modding because the developers cheat, and so rather than my recreation just being wrong, I don’t mind cheating myself to get the accuracy, like getting the unobtainable weapons, such as Setsuka’s umbrellaless sword or the Elysium Soul Calibur variants from SoulCalibur V, or unobtainable creation parts like Han-myeong and Arthur’s unique hair / face items.

But that’s about all I use it for, I don’t do things like break proportions, make parts invisible, mix and overlay multiple parts on top of each other, cross gender parts, make things glow, and the countless other things I’ve seen over time, as those things aren’t interesting to me, and I think, go too far, but then again there are some ultra creative creations that I also wouldn’t do, both insane (literal helicopters using Yoshimitsu style, for example) and obscene (lewd extra equipment like massive dongs and faked nudes), but a lot of that comes back to the creator, and their main goal.

I guess my bigger point here is that if it’s tagged that you use modding, it could also stand to be specific what exactly you use it for, if it’s not readily apparent. It doesn’t necessarily belong mixed with all the other tags, as it is more of a meta thing, but the purpose of it being identified at all, I feel we agree, is for the purposes of the one viewing the portfolio, to know that one or more of the shown characters can’t be recreated exactly as shown without some unnatural tinkering.

Simulacrums of Non-SC Characters
Cameo Characters?

I do feel like you’re perhaps being a bit too literal here, though. I think we understand that we are using the system to recreate an existing design, that we are either making a main cast character cosplay or are making a blank slate or original character cosplay, the one doing the cosplay isn’t important, but the fact that the costume in question is a cosplay, not that we are turning a main cast character into a cosplayer.

I’m not saying there’s virtually no difference, but about the only reason you’d do one over the other, for the purpose of the cosplay, is to use a main character voice to fit the character more than a generic custom voice, by my own estimation anyway. And you used to be able to accomplish this with modding, but for some reason, SoulCalibur VI forbids using main character voices on custom original characters, though you could do it in SoulCalibur V for sure.
 
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but the purpose of it being identified at all, I feel we agree, is for the purposes of the one viewing the portfolio, to know that one or more of the shown characters can’t be recreated exactly as shown without some unnatural tinkering.
Yes, but again, this distinction is different from the others in a practical sense as well: it only really operates as a functional distinction in a situation like Happy's site--and at present it is a non-issue/works perfectly well: it merely flags that some portion of the given artists work involves the use of mods. But as I tried to make clear above, the reason I am raising the technical distinction is because it doesn't hurt to think prospectively here: if HC does one day enable image-specific tagging, there would really only be one realistic way to do it that would not create an awkward choice for the CaSer: i.e. have two parameters--one for the content category, with 3-6 options, depending on how you break it down, and a second, simple binary value for the modding.

Cameo Characters?
Hmmm, not bad, but I think there might be a tad too much potential for confusion with formal guest characters? Please keep pitching though--it would be nice to get a one-word label that works.

I do feel like you’re perhaps being a bit too literal here, though. I think we understand that we are using the system to recreate an existing design, that we are either making a main cast character cosplay or are making a blank slate or original character cosplay, the one doing the cosplay isn’t important, but the fact that the costume in question is a cosplay, not that we are turning a main cast character into a cosplayer.
When we're talking about a label that has to accurately describe roughly around a third of all creations, I think some attention to what the word 'literally' means is somewhat important. And I'm sorry, but I disagree with you--it's not just a little off, in my impression, but suggests something fundamentally different from the actual contents of the class, as a kind of category error. A 'cosplay' in this context implies a layering of the image of one entity on top of another, and as technical and literal matter, that's not what is going on here and the semantic extension just does not make sense. What is happening here is not a build upon a base, which means that even if you are using the term 'cosplay' in reference to an abstract, the metaphor doesn't track. Id o think we need a one or two word punchy label here, but whatever it is, I feel it should capture the sense of a reconstruction/homage, not cosplay.

I’m not saying there’s virtually no difference, but about the only reason you’d do one over the other, for the purpose of the cosplay, is to use a main character voice to fit the character more than a generic custom voice, by my own estimation anyway. And you used to be able to accomplish this with modding, but for some reason, SoulCalibur VI forbids using main character voices on custom original characters, though you could do it in SoulCalibur V for sure.
Actually, as the only person I know of who does this (again, I'd be surprised if there aren't others, but none I have previously seen), the last thing I am concerned about is the voice selection. I don't often play with my creations, outside the rare session of shop talk with fellow CaSers--and anyway, you almost never get a particularly good match, no matter how much you leverage the tools, so while I do apply some edits to the voice settings, they are not a priority concern for me. Rather, the purpose of these hybrid designs is always to leverage some advantage or quality for purposes of visual design. So, to take one particularly obvious example, there's no other base model but Maxi's that I could have used for "Maxifeid" in order to get him anywhere near as close to Fei:

MaxiFied3.jpg

Similarly, there's no facial model but Zas's that gets anywhere near as close to the target character's face for Zasalamel'c--not that it's a staggeringly good likeness, but certainly by far the closest option:

Zasalamel'c V2 (1).jpg

Other times, it is subtle commentary upon classic character designs which you feel themselves have influenced the main roster characters, either in terms of their costume design:

Azmerciless01.jpg

Or moveset aesthetic:

ShawKilik06.jpg

And then, finally, sometimes it is just about juxtaposing two different reference designs in interesting ways which don't at first seem obvious but actually end up feeling like they do go together quite well:

Champion15.jpg

So it's all about synergies in one sense or another: playing two designs off eachother for either contrast or to emphasize/leverage their similarities--or sometimes both at once. I'm actually surprised we don't see a lot more of it, actually, considering the paucity of base model options.
 
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if HC does one day enable image-specific tagging, there would really only be one realistic way to do it that would not create an awkward choice for the CaSer: i.e. have two parameters--one for the content category, with 3-6 options, depending on how you break it down, and a second, simple binary value for the modding.
That makes perfect sense, but I feel like it would have been that way anyway, if such an image-by-image breakdown were to be implemented. The choices, at present, are already binary, it's just that they apply to the portfolio at large instead of addressing each image individually.

Hmmm, not bad, but I think there might be a tad too much potential for confusion with formal guest characters? Please keep pitching though--it would be nice to get a one-word label that works.
I said "Cameo Characters" because that's the terminology that we used back on BaneWolfSC3/Another Stage of History, if you were aware of those sites. I felt like it fit the idea well enough, because "Guest Characters" is already pretty much understood and firm as the coined term. "Bonus Characters" was used previously by the games themselves, to refer to the Tales of Souls and Chronicles of the Swords folks in SoulCalibur III and the five girls from SoulCalibur IV. I think it works, but other possibilities would be "Non-SoulCalibur Characters" or "Other Franchise Characters", nothing else really encapsulates the idea in simpler terms, I don't think.

other reasons to use main cast characters for cosplay
I can see where you're coming from with your reasoning, but I think the only one that really sticks for me is moveset aesthetic and/or the character themselves inspiring the design. I personally feel like the main cast are just... the main cast, for lack of a better way to put it. It's like, when you're using main cast parts in a custom character, when it's so obviously the main cast character's parts being used, I can't help but think of whichever character the parts come from, because they're so uniquely qualified for use for the main cast character, most often all of the time. The exceptions to this are when some interaction of parts covers up the original form of the part itself, or otherwise extra equipment, patterns, stickers, something advanced is being used to "hide" the fact that you're using a main cast character's parts.This was less true in SoulCalibur IV 2ps, since almost all of those parts were more generic, but in both SoulCalibur V and SoulCalibur VI, all of the parts can't help but stand out against the more basic parts for creation. It takes a lot of skill to blend them in, not that it's not possible, but... I think it's almost troublesome, in a way, that it just looks like another character or an original character wearing the main cast character's clothes more than anything that's an original design.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that, for me personally, for someone who does play with their custom characters quite often, is that unless the design is specifically meant for the character in question, it just feels wrong to me to use a main cast character as a base for a creation, in mostly every case. For SoulCalibur VI, aside from the obligatory "put the character in their unofficial 2p" creations, I've made one original costume for Talim and my two Shenmue custom creations for Ryo and Shenhua on Kilik and Xianghua, and since I've been replaying Shenmue I-II, especially II, I'm likely to make a creation soon for Ren on Maxi, but that's only because those three characters fit the three SoulCalibur characters so well, it's almost like they're using just about the same archetypes or something...

...but back to my thing about voices, when a SoulCalibur character does have a voice actor (English, because I play with English dub) that shares a voice with the character I'm creating for a cosplay/cameo creation, which did happen with some frequency in SoulCalibur V, I loved using the voice of a character to add that much more legitimacy to the overall character, even if the personality and dialogue wasn't quite right, it's still just nice to be able to do so. I did this in SoulCalibur IV as well, but with the default custom voices, since many of them were from quite prolific voice actors. But a problem you run into when you're using a main cast character for a base when making a cosplay, is that you can't make changes to the proportions of the body, that's my biggest problem doing it, with a lot less freedom for the facial options (eye color!) as well. So unless the face and body for the SoulCalibur character lines up almost perfectly with who you're trying to make, I just don't feel like it's worth doing. You've pointed out some cases where it works, and that's fine when it does, but unless that, and also the voice, worked just so, my feeling on the creation as a whole would just be that it's <main cast character> wearing a silly costume, kind of like the bizarre choices that happen in the Tales RPG series, if you're familiar with those.
 
That makes perfect sense, but I feel like it would have been that way anyway, if such an image-by-image breakdown were to be implemented. The choices, at present, are already binary, it's just that they apply to the portfolio at large instead of addressing each image individually.
Yeah...or, in other words, what I said to HC from word go, before you responded.

I said "Cameo Characters" because that's the terminology that we used back on BaneWolfSC3/Another Stage of History, if you were aware of those sites. I felt like it fit the idea well enough, because "Guest Characters" is already pretty much understood and firm as the coined term. "Bonus Characters" was used previously by the games themselves, to refer to the Tales of Souls and Chronicles of the Swords folks in SoulCalibur III and the five girls from SoulCalibur IV. I think it works, but other possibilities would be "Non-SoulCalibur Characters" or "Other Franchise Characters", nothing else really encapsulates the idea in simpler terms, I don't think.
Well, nothing else we've thought of so far. But English has, you know, a lot of words, and I'm confident there is a handle we have not hit upon yet that would suit quite well, or at least better than the options proposed thus far.

I can see where you're coming from with your reasoning, but I think the only one that really sticks for me is moveset aesthetic and/or the character themselves inspiring the design.
Well, you're wrong.

I personally feel like the main cast are just... the main cast, for lack of a better way to put it. It's like, when you're using main cast parts in a custom character, when it's so obviously the main cast character's parts being used, I can't help but think of whichever character the parts come from, because they're so uniquely qualified for use for the main cast character, most often all of the time. The exceptions to this are when some interaction of parts covers up the original form of the part itself, or otherwise extra equipment, patterns, stickers, something advanced is being used to "hide" the fact that you're using a main cast character's parts . . . I guess what I'm getting at here is that, for me personally, for someone who does play with their custom characters quite often, is that unless the design is specifically meant for the character in question, it just feels wrong to me to use a main cast character as a base for a creation, in mostly every case.
Seriously, Dante, I hope your OCD is at least fully diagnosed: you don't have to live this way. This is art, homes, at least as most of us approach it. Maybe not the most elevated form of art ever, but art nonetheless, and created with a very limited technical palette. For those of us with ambitions beyond just rotely re-creating background Libra/Soul Chronicle characters exactly as they appear in those modes, we sometimes need to leverage additional tricks, or feel inspired in certain directions that aren't going to be beholden to the kind of arbitrary self-restrictions you are suggesting value to here. If a base character's model has the right face and muscle tone to emulate someone else (vastly better than those available under the custom list) then a CaSer using them is an innovative design choice, not some unpermitable transgression which offends the soul of the base character. Likewise, if a look just works (for whatever aesthetic reason), there is no purpose in handicapping yourself because you've put some models in a certain mental category that you can't bring yourself to vio9late, for reason that have nothing to do with how well they would actually function in a given role.

For SoulCalibur VI, aside from the obligatory "put the character in their unofficial 2p" creations, I've made one original costume for Talim and my two Shenmue custom creations for Ryo and Shenhua on Kilik and Xianghua, and since I've been replaying Shenmue I-II, especially II, I'm likely to make a creation soon for Ren on Maxi, but that's only because those three characters fit the three SoulCalibur characters so well, it's almost like they're using just about the same archetypes or something...
Well, it's a start: hopefully it breaks you out of this stagnate, rigid thinking you imprison yourself with and guides you towards greener pastures of more creative and impressive fair.

...but back to my thing about voices, when a SoulCalibur character does have a voice actor (English, because I play with English dub) that shares a voice with the character I'm creating for a cosplay/cameo creation, which did happen with some frequency in SoulCalibur V, I loved using the voice of a character to add that much more legitimacy to the overall character, even if the personality and dialogue wasn't quite right, it's still just nice to be able to do so.
Well, clearly this is a "your mileage will vary" kind of thing, but for my money, you almost never get a voice that is tonally consistent (in either the literal or figurative sense) from that extremely limited, extremely goofy, and extremely hammy set of voice tracks, for a target character. I mean, I guess there may be a marginal improvement by virtue of the fact that some of the main cast get better known voice actors. But I challenge you to find me twenty lines in that entire pile of voice work that aren't campy as f***, even with the "higher" quality of the talent for main roster characters vs. the generic ones they've been recycling for custom CaS characters for more than a decade now.

I don't know these voice actors well enough, on the level some here seem to, to know whether Soulcalibur's wonky English performances are more down to their own talent/approach or the direction they are getting in the booth (I suspect the latter), but let's just put it this way: I don't see a storm of BAFTAs coming Soulcalibur's direction for vocal performances any time soon. So voices have become a non-issue for me, and I don't think they factor heavily in most CaSers' design strategies, because we know the options are never going to be great, and there are no practical work-arounds in this area (other than theoretically some very laborious and technically involved modding that couldn't possibly ever be worth the time investment) so why agonize over it?

If I make a couple hundred creations for a given game, then I get maybe one where I feel the voice lines and/or timbre of the voice fit a reference character extremely well. In this game, it was (quite oddly) my very first creation: take 'Femme Fatale' and tinker with the pitch a little and you end up with something that works beautifully well with this reference design. I mean, maybe I am overselling things a little: you sometimes get lucky and finagle something that kinda-sorta works. But in my opinion, expecting to eek out aesthetic fidelity with a broad selection of designs from from those very limited (and more often than not, very cheesy) assets is mostly a fools errand.

But a problem you run into when you're using a main cast character for a base when making a cosplay, is that you can't make changes to the proportions of the body, that's my biggest problem doing it, with a lot less freedom for the facial options (eye color!) as well.
Yeah, but you're missing the point: even the sliders on the custom models provide only very basic parameters, which often cannot replicate the models of the base roster characters. Neither can their faces be trasnposed on to other models (short of modding, I suppose, theoretically). So when one of them has a particular morphology in either area that can be leveraged into a design, there's no good reason not to do it. And the fact that the main cast character may at times seem to "peek out" at you from under that "costume" isn't really a big problem for me: it just creates a distinct new class of hybridization.

So unless the face and body for the SoulCalibur character lines up almost perfectly with who you're trying to make, I just don't feel like it's worth doing.
But don't you see why that is irrational in this context? If you were starting from a place where you need a reference CaS to look perfectly like their original design, then its good that you mostly avoid these types of designs, because you are never going to get there, really. Of course, the artistry of this category of design (mostly) is to do your best to get there, despite the limited assets and many technical hurdles. But this is a problem reagrdless of whether you are using a custom base or a main roster base, and where the main roster base offers advantages, I have no problem leveraging them, and it doesn't cause my mind to go into a compulsive tailspin if one element isn't quite right: so long as the target is reached better (on the whole) by using that particular model, then that's the right call, as far as I am concerned, regardless of what technical category the model comes from.

You've pointed out some cases where it works, and that's fine when it does, but unless that, and also the voice, worked just so, my feeling on the creation as a whole would just be that it's <main cast character> wearing a silly costume
I got news for you, homes: these guys are always wearing silly costumes. Clothing doesn't get much sillier than it does for the normal wardrobe of a Soulcalibur character, in general. I'm pretty sure the Soulcalibur chareacter designers get 90% of their designs from trawling dumpsters outside of Milan Fashion Week, looking for shit that got thrown out by Gareth Pugh because, "Nah, it's too much." And then, these days, they ask themselves "how can I make this more like a Bleach character?" Then they take the product of those first two steps to a supervisor, who invariably says "50% more anime! 90% more emo!" An voila, Groh is born.
 
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Wow! This is a lot of text. Haha! Two passionate CAS creators, I love it.

I think that the points you both make regarding the profile association on the site as a higher level thing is 100% true.

And I think that if we go down deeper at a latter time it makes sense to have subcategories that people can check off multiple for an upload (i.e. Cameo Characters & Modded, Cast Designs & Cosplay, etc...).

When I initially made those categories I wanted a simplistic way for people to quickly self-categorize and that is easily searchable, which was acheived, the issue I see right now is that it would be nice if when people look at a profile if they could see which categories those individual photos were associated with.

For example @DanteSC3 and I believe each only have 1 modded example, yet our profiles are labeled as Modded in general which could lead one to believe that the majority of our stuff is modded, which isn't the case. Not that this is a bad thing, just that this is a misrepresentation for people that don't have access to these tools and want to replicate the same creation.

But yes, all in time, this brainstorming helps. And catchy titles are important of course, no one is going to reach a philosophy behind why we categorized something, we need them to be quickly graspable from a high level perspective. :D
 
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But yes, all in time, this brainstorming helps. And catchy titles are important of course, no one is going to reach a philosophy behind why we categorized something, we need them to be quickly graspable from a high level perspective. :D
Yes, precisely--well put. It needs to be something brief that nevertheless invokes the concept fairly universally, and stands in distinction to the other categories. At a minimum, Dante's suggestion of the older term "cameos" is probably the best suggestion I have heard so far as shorthand "designs representing non-Soulcalibur characters". I still don't know that I love that one longterm though--if I can try to give my subjective impression of it voice, it's like 90% of the way there, but not quite. But I do like it better than "cosplays": and not just because I think there is advantage to preserving that term for another category it suits quite well--because we could always call those characters "hybrids" instead--but because I just think "cosplays" is an innacurate label for this category.

For example @DanteSC3 and I believe each only have 1 modded example, yet our profiles are labeled as Modded in general which could lead one to believe that the majority of our stuff is modded, which isn't the case. Not that this is a bad thing, just that this is a misrepresentation for people that don't have access to these tools and want to replicate the same creation.
Yup, that was bascially my thinking as well: looking at the current layout, it is great--I am really impressed with how quickly you got it looking and functioning so well. But it got me thinking that eventually you are going to be adding features, and that's part of what spurred me to suggest this conversation now: because it could save you a lot of trouble on the backend to have some of this worked out now.

Additionally, there are some implications that are better acted upon relatively early on, if possible: for example, you don't want to be eliminating a term (whether for consistency with the rest of the community or because you become convinced, one way or another, that a different break-down is more rational) at a later date if you don't have to, when you are fighting the inertia of what people have come to expect the categories to be. You can always add more cats (or subdivide them) and people should follow pretty easily. But try to switch the "cosplay" label from one group to another at that time, and it's just going to be messy. Which is why I have focused on/returned to that particular subject repeatedly, please forgive the broken record.
 
Yes, precisely--well put. It needs to be something brief that nevertheless invokes the concept fairly universally, and stands in distinction to the other categories. At a minimum, Dante's suggestion of the older term "cameos" is probably the best suggestion I have heard so far as shorthand "designs representing non-Soulcalibur characters". I still don't know that I love that one longterm though--if I can try to give my subjective impression of it voice, it's like 90% of the way there, but not quite. But I do like it better than "cosplays": and not just because I think there is advantage to preserving that term for another category it suits quite well--because we could always call those characters "hybrids" instead--but because I just think "cosplays" is an innacurate label for this category.


Yup, that was bascially my thinking as well: looking at the current layout, it is great--I am really impressed with how quickly you got it looking and functioning so well. But it got me thinking that eventually you are going to be adding features, and that's part of what spurred me to suggest this conversation now: because it could save you a lot of trouble on the backend to have some of this worked out now.

Additionally, there are some implications that are better acted upon relatively early on, if possible: for example, you don't want to be eliminating a term (whether for consistency with the rest of the community or because you become convinced, one way or another, that a different break-down is more rational) at a later date if you don't have to, when you are fighting the inertia of what people have come to expect the categories to be. You can always add more cats (or subdivide them) and people should follow pretty easily. But try to switch the "cosplay" label from one group to another at that time, and it's just going to be messy. Which is why I have focused on/returned to that particular subject repeatedly, please forgive the broken record.

Yeah, for sure, I understand you concerns. And for the sake of the website, I think that as it stands now, it is acceptable, but as we want to dig down and create subcategories at that time we can modify the larger categories as required.

Luckily enough, with how the data is set-up, once the new terminology is landed on, i.e. Cameo over Cosplay, it is actually quite easy from a technical perspective to change the database labels and categories without messing up profiles (simple text field rename actually). This is of course assuming that there is at least close enough alignment with the new definitions and the old definitions, that it won't misclassify others creations, but as stuff comes in now I anticipate it will be unlikely. Further, even if it goes way off, as we are building a process for people to update their profiles, people would be able to fix it at this time. : )
 
For example @DanteSC3 and I believe each only have 1 modded example, yet our profiles are labeled as Modded in general which could lead one to believe that the majority of our stuff is modded, which isn't the case. Not that this is a bad thing, just that this is a misrepresentation for people that don't have access to these tools and want to replicate the same creation.
This is true, though I have others in my overall collection that are modded (the other ones using the same weapon as Gyobu, also my copies of Arthur and Han-myeong because they have access to hidden faces/hair styles, and also Aeon using Lesser Lizardman style, but those aren't shared per forum rules), so if you were to click my link to my 8WAYRUN thread, then you would see some other mods, potentially. If I were more into tattoos, I would absolutely use leg tattoos, too, which, for dumb reasons, require modding to accomplish, when the Ancients from Libra of Soul have tattoos all over their legs and the rest of their bodies. I think not being able to put skin stickers on legs is probably one of the worst arbitrary restrictions of SoulCalibur VI customization.
 
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