I like a lot of these, but I particularly like the Maxi. Simple yet with charm, and a cohesive theme, I may remake my P2 Maxi with your version as inspiration instead. Nice stuff!
Thanks HappyColour; I appreciate the sentiment! :) A lot of the creations I've been working on of late have been a bit more technical in nature (that is, involving a lot of object manipulation and subtle texture/sticker editing in order to simulate elements of a design that would not otherwise be feasible). But, precisely as you point out, sometimes there is no replacement for a more simple design that has well-balanced minimalist elements.
Now of course, with regard to 'MaxiFeid' the lion's share of the credit for the subtly of the original design goes to Tanaka Kunihiko; the challenge here was to find the combination of assets which could best emulate those strengths (and actually, despite the low level of relevant pieces here, this took me a bit longer than it typically does for reference works). Still, outside of some small details (such as the contours and fitting of the upper garments, the relatively simple midsection accessories, and the limitation on the number of objects preventing more the bow laces--and as you can see from the photos, they are inconsistent in how well they work to the point of being useless for an in-game fighting option), I'm pretty happy with the results.
I did kind of fall ass-backwards into this design (though of course, that's often the start of some of one's better designs-- I presume I am not unique in this): Lately when I do find time for a CaS, sometimes I allow for the process to dictate the outcomes from free-roaming experimentation, rather than sitting down with a design already generally sketched out in my mind and trying to find the assets to make it happen. With regard to SC cast 2Ps in particular, I will often remove all preset clothing and begin from the bottom up with manipulations to the base model in the form of hair, skin tone, and texturing. Usually this results (quite often at the hair stage when I run the entire collection of options against the model, while trying to avoid those I have recently used), in triggering some sense of a broader design based on a concept that jumps out, a general historical or cultural vibe, or another aesthetic association that begins to take form in mind--from which kernel I build.
However, in the case of MaxiFeid, it was the combination of the ponytail with Maxi's features, his body profile, and his quality of movement that made me feel there was some potential here to combine him with another design using my usual reference creation process. Despite using variations of the editor since SCIII:CE, this is the first time I've ever done that (used a 2P/standard roster character model as the base for a CaS that references a non-SC character), at least as best I can recall. But I've since done it two more times, and the results have been positive enough that I may start to do it more often, where it will confer certain benefits. Not that it's just about leveraging features you can't get in the editor otherwise: it's also about finding the interesting shared spaces between different artistic designs and the base assets.
Anyway, that's my long-winded way of saying thank you for the feedback!
FYI, momentarily I'm going to put up a thread about an interesting function/work-around that I found baked into the editor which may be of some interests to you as as someone who has the degree of interest you have in the detail work.
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