Rusted's Ringers, Gallery I: SoulCalibur Cast Designs

[Rusted Blade]

Hey folks, I've been meaning to do this for a while: this is the beginning of my effort to share various of the CaS designs I've developed across the numerous editing suites, starting with SCIII. Because I have hundreds of such creations to share, I'm going to break them down into three groups: 2Ps/expies, non-SC referential designs, and my own original character designs. This first category is going to be by far the smallest, as for the most part, only a very small portion of my creations are 2Ps--its also going to be very SCVI-focused, since very few of my past 2Ps in earlier games have been very involved, nor did I bother to preserve their formulas.

Alright, let me know what you think!

 

[Rusted Blade]

Amy:

I've logged more hours with Amy's playstyle than any other since the SCIII/AE days, but I've always been lukewarm at best on her default rorita/Victorian doll aesthetic. So I've made numerous 2Ps for her over the years to try to give her a more mature and tasteful design, two of which I make time and again: 1) A kind of dark gothic look, and 2) a design based around practical training garb that looks to be made of tough fabric and leather. For now I am just adding the SCVI variants with a couple of SCIV reference images. I've also included the only one of the new SCVI designs I have created thus far that I really care for, which pulls in a kind of Alexander Dumas action/adventure vibe, albeit with a bit of a anime-fantasy twist.

Black Widow Amy:

Devil Child Amy:

Just a variation on the above design, which seemed to be almost begging for a demon motif, now that those assets are available.

Training Session Amy:

Maison de Roi Amy:

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[Rusted Blade]

Astaroth:

Ambassadoroth:
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He's an Astaroth for a more civilized age. Sure, may still tear a few heads off now and again, but the canapes he'll serve you first are amazing. This is definitely a work in progress: the clothing still needs some subtle pattern enhancement to pull things together. Still, I like the overall effect of the statesman-like attire matched with the monstrous physique.

​

 

[Rusted Blade]

Azwel:

Azwel the Merciless:

I've got a lot of mileage out of the observation that Azwel looks and sounds like a 1950's stage magician who later became better known as a sex offender--a joke which first occurred to me when watching his trailer for the first time, and an observation I stand by. But actually, more than anything, Azwel has always felt to me like he is carrying a vibe reminiscent of the classic villains of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and other early sci-fi serials of the 1930s and 40s. And in fact, it only takes a relatively modest amount of subtle editing to bring him pretty much fully in line with the image of that genre.

War Mage Azwel:

Dark Interloper Azwel:

 

[Rusted Blade]

Cassandra:

Void Slider Cassandra:

Cassandra is another main/secondary character that I've put a significant amount of time into over the years. For her SCVI 2P, I decided to create a character that combined elements of design I've been making for since forever that utilizes a red and gold variation on her traditional colour scheme, and the Astral Chaos Cassie we meet in the Soul Chronicle. I don't so much think of her as the character we see in that narrative (an alternate reality version of SCVI), but rather an alternate of the alternate: another Cassie bouncing back and forth through alternate realities trying to get home to rescue her family: a kind of tragic take on a classic sci-fantasy theme. I'm really pretty happy with how this one turned out: the gold threading on the doublet, the headgear that incorporates the soul chronicle mask, and the facial nuances all came together pretty well, I think.

I tried to establish a kind of duality with this design: on the one hand, there's a bit of that beserker/leveled up Cassie vibe that is implied in the half-mad version who comes into the past in the soul chronicle. However, when the mask comes away, we can see the toll that her journey has extracted on her: the sunken eyes and unhealthy pallor of the face are meant to speak to the physical strain of being bounced back and forth between timelines via the Astral Chaos, as well as the psychological toll of being unanchored from a consistent reality, the many hardships she has endured, and the things she has done to get home--a foggily-remembered but intense desire to save her family being the only thing holding together a core of her otherwise disintegrating mind and sense of identity. I admit this all clashes a bit with her nice digs, but...meh!

I'm just noticing that I neglected to change the rest of her skin tone to match the face a little better.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Cervantes:

De Leon:

This one obviously is not a 2P, nor an expy exactly, but rather an attempt to create a version of Cervantes from before or just after the point in time in which his obsession with acquiring Soul Edge begins. I couldn't imagine that Cervantes was exactly an easy going person or captain even before his descent into proper madness and malevolence, so he's still got a bit of...weell, frankly, a dick look about him, but he is more or less healthy and human looking.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Haohmaru:

Haohcules:

A work in progress, this one just jumped out at me as I was experimenting with alternate hair styles on Haohmaru. Needless to say, the weapon is a bit of a thematic mismatch for the classical demigod, but I think Haomaru's buff physique otherwise suits the concept well. There's still some need for tinkering to bring this one together, and the way the patterns work on that piece of garb is frustrating to say the least, but I think it has potential with some more experimentation.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Hilde:

Foxey Hildé:

I really couldn't tell you why the first thing I thought of when trying to create a Hilde CaS was a kyubi/kitsune, but that's what happened. I couldn't resolve which hair style worked best, so I've included numerous variations here. I'm only just realizing that virtually all of this pictures fail to capture the fact that she has multiple tails back there, an effect that I crated by using the centurions plume object, with the bristles turned white. The result is only so convincing unfortunately. I ultimately ended up creating a very similar design for an original character who you will see in my original creations gallery when I get around to that, with a colour scheme that I think works a bit better. Still, I think there's a certain degree of charm to this take on Hilde, though i will grant that the mischevious, mercurial theme that is associated with kyubi lore isn't necessarily a great match with Hilde's character or bearing.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Inferno:

Infernal Constraint:


This is the end product of a long series of experiments that I did trying to create a set of armor that would almost completely contain Inferno's blazing body. I'll add some of the earlier variants eventually, but ultimately I landed on this kind of quasi-organic design that I think really does up the bestial factor on the base model a little--there is of course a little bit of Nightmare worked into the design for just that purpose.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Ivy:

The Duchess:

An experiment with some stickers on a doublet steamrolled into this Alice In wonderland inspired creation. I think this design emphasizes the fact that sometimes less is more: I don't think these elements would work as well if I had used as many patterns as I usually do to simulate, detail, depth, and realism. Lest anyone anyone is inclined to ask, no I did not consider beforehand what I would be saying about Ivy's personal life by giving her a spade theme, but that said...would kinda work anyway?

 

[Rusted Blade]

Kilik:

Shawkilik:

Seeing as Kilik is after-all a monk, I decided to give him more of classical kung fu film vibe (or rather it came together that way somewhat organically), playing on two staples: classic Shaw era of Hong Kong action flicks (Particularly The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and The Deadly Venoms franchises) and the blind monk trope. Another example of minimalism working best, I think--but then that was kind of demanded if this was going to invoke the simple costume designs of the media the design ultimately ended up imitating.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Li Long:

Long Li Expy:

This is my attempt to create a reasonable facsimile of Li Long's SCIII IP, using Maxi's moveset as the base, and was only my second SCVI CaS. I knocked this version out in about twenty minutes and completely from memory of the original design (it helped that logged some hours with him in SCIII/AE), but after looking a the original more recently, I can see there are some small details that could be changed for greater fidelity. Still, I'm pretty happy with this version, so I'll leave this here in anticipation of adding a slightly refined version later (and for contrast in the long shot chance that Li Long is added in Season 3).

 

[Rusted Blade]

Mitsurugi:

Looking Sharp in Red:

I went back and forth repeatedly on whether to give this design a more Japanese- or Chinese-derived attire, but stumbled upon a combination that I liked enough that I didn't want to pull it apart; even if it does look more generically east asia with a fantasy twist as a result, I think it all works--particularly with the Damascus Sword tying it all together.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Nightmare:

The Crimson Knight:

As the name implies, the concept here is alternative visual design on Nightmare's identity as the Azure Knight (think a Crimson look, relative to vanilla Nightmare's Blighted look--where are my Terraria peeps?). I wanted this to be somewhere between the levels of transformation implied by the two main varieties of previous Nightmare designs (i.e. versions with a slightly corrupted arm but human face and the full on monstrosity with the massive hermit crab appendage), so I created an effect with the corruption climbing up the right side of the torso and on to the neck, head and face. I'm still not 100% happy with the contours of that effect (that is, the angles of the edges), but I was extremely happy with how the effect of the numerous overlapping textures worked out: those look like mostly quite convincing open sores or second degree burns--I was actually quite surprised how well they turned out. There were more mixed results with the right side bracer, which I attempted to give a mottled, semi-organic texture, implying that it is being consumed as a part of the mass that will eventually compose the monster arm, with the effect in that case not quite getting to where I wanted it. This one honestly needs some more polish (the colours are a little too samesy for so many pieces, for one) but I like where it is headed.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Seong Mi-Na:

Sun Guard Mi-Na:

For SCVI, I've created about a dozen different designs which are all thematically linked and which conceptually I imagine all belong to the same fictional imperial guard: most of these are original characters I developed from scratch, who I will add to another gallery eventually, but two are 2P variations on core SCVI characters--Mi-Na and Yoshimitsu as shown below. I put a fair bit of time into working on the armour for each of these designs, trying to realitcally render ornate armour with gold and red enamel, which turned out to be a deceptively complex task. The armour itself is invariably full-plate, and I tried to avoid any repeats on using particular items between members of this group, which became a challenge in itself. Mi-na is the only one to feature the facepaint you will see here, and I'm not sure as to whether or not to keep it.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Siegfried:

Alt Reichsritter Siegfried:

This is my effort to create a more seasoned variation of Siegfried, as opposed to the barely-seems-to-have-aged/still a generic fantasy heartthrob version we got in SCV. His attire is really just a palette swapped version of the 2P armour we got in the first season pass, with a couple of other minor tweaks, and this really just comes down to changes to the hair, helm and fauld...but the hair in particular does make something a difference. Still, I hesitate to even call this a proper CaS.

The Champion:

One of a series of hyrbid designs I've developed lately, in which I fuse a Soulcalibur regular roster 2P with the design of a non-SC character. But don't think that will cause me to be any more direct than usual as to which character is providing the inspiration!

 

[Rusted Blade]

Sophitia:

SCIII 3P Reconstruction:

This one has really not worked out as well as i had hoped and I may ultimately give up on it, though there are some newer assets I've been meaning to apply to the task to see if they may improve things. As the name implies, this is an effort to reconstruct the very sharp 3P design for Sophie in SCIII. But so far, each aspect is really just not quite there. In addition, the overlapping layers on the upper torso only further accentuate just how much this character's...physique has been...augmented over recent games, to the point that it almost destroys the effort at fidelity to her previous design (its a more obvious problem from some angles than others). I'm hoping it will shape up in time with new CaS tools, but for the present time it is half-done at best.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Talim:

TaLeone:

On the other end of the spectrum, I am pleased as punch with this one: in fact, of my 2P efforts across all six games to feature some version of CaS, this maybe my favourite. Talim is another of my go-to characters, and across the last several games, I've been creating western-themed designs. Other than that basic description, I'll let this one speak for itself.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Xiangua

RPGiangua:

This Xianghua design ended up looking somewhat Fire Emblem inspired....which is a bit peculiar, given I have never played a Fire Emblem game. I think the design suggests an antagonist or some anti-hero lieutenant of some sort?

 

[Rusted Blade]

Yoshimitsu:

Sun Guard Yoshi:

As per the note above for Seong Mi-na, this is another in my series of gold and red themed fantasy imperial guards.