The Rusted Repository (compiled personal designs and discussion)

[Rusted Blade]

Okay, one last update, and then I expect that to be it for me, at least as far as content contributions are concerned, for a bit--just not likely to have the time to spare for much more in the near term. However, even if this little run of the last dozen or so designs ends up being my final little glut of work of any real size for the SCVI editor, I am happy with the overall quality of this last little set. To close things out, some updates on old designs, and then a little something extra.

To start off, another variation on the armor for 'Heroic Stand-in', done contemporaneously with the others, but not really tidied up as much as it could have been: I think I would have contoured the shape (particularly the width) a little differently, but I moved on to another approach altogether, instead. Actually, there were a number of other approaches I considered with this custom armor: it took a long while, but the ExEq selection is now significant enough to allow a fair bit of refined armor crafting, if you have the objects to spare, but this is something I think we didn't explore as much as we might have, collectively, before the community interest had largely dried up. Anyhow, too much talking, too little showing, so:

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From something recent to something dated, 'Mawll' here was my attempt, from a while back, to create a SCVI variant on a kinda genuinely creepy design I did back in SCV. I actually did quite a few of them, but I guess I failed to capture pictures of most of them. As is obvious from the limited/rough stage surface work, this was an early base model. However, I quickly abandoned the idea: the basic idea just doesn't work as well with SCVI's visual style. Here's to seeing you looking more intimidating again in SCVII, big guy!

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Here's another SCVI update on an old design: this time, an old SCIV favorite. As the names imply, there were originally supposed to be 12 of these, but as with many of my ambitious multi-variation on a common theme plans, I had to pare that down a little bit. Still, Nik is looking more or less good as ever. But man, check out the old variation for proof that the lighting and surface rendering (like most of the visual and art design) of SCIV are actually superior in many ways. But I digress. Here's to hoping Cassie's style survives for SCVII!

Nik: September

Spoiler: A little chill in the air.

Nik: February

Spoiler: The classic look.

Nik: October

Spoiler: Fall among the leaves.

Nik: January

Spoiler: Weather all.

The combination of camo fatigue pants and dress uniform coat for my original version of 'Majeure Conflit' was something a little peculiar to my eye, so I made two new slight variations:

And last, a deadend project that I hadn't intended to share, but for a passing comment in a conversation with @Glitch-mode22. Glitch, I assume this needs no introduction. Unfortunately, I got no farther than this base model before I decided this wasn't an altogether viable design. Still, some elements came off well, and given the influence of the underlying character design to one of your own recent works, I thought there might be at least one person entertained to see this. :)

Dragon Killer

And since we're on a certain theme, here's a slight update on 'Big B.' I've long considered this perhaps my least successful attempt at a reference design in SCVI, and these tweaks do little to remedy that. However, she always seems popular just on account of the reference character herself, and in any event, she's good company for Dragon Killer, no matter how you slice it. ;)

Ta for now my friends: I hope those of you still plugging away will give me something to look at when I get back!

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[Rusted Blade]

Okay, just one more: here's a foursome of SCV original designs that I was able to remake reasonably faithful in the current editor.

'Hera' unfortunately must do without the SCV harem-capri pants that suited her 1,001 Nights aesthetic so well, but she still looks reasonably faithful. The color scheme is very shallow, but the vibrant selections make this version perhaps a little more striking than the original. Of course, only now that I am uploading does it occur to me that changing the rim of her weapon to gold would have really enhanced the color balance and overall effect here quite noticeably. Oh well, something for the future!

'Christine' redux.

Spoiler: Christine, Christine, where have you been hiding?

'Celeste's' colors look far more saturated in VI, which somewhat works against her original renaissance vibe, and I should have used an underwear layer to simulate the stalkings this time around, so they still tucked into the pantaloons, but she still looks slick enough, I suppose.

Spoiler: You can almost smell the Lavender.

'Kara' has become a more well rounded practitioner of her arts.

Spoiler: Osu!

Ciao for now my friends--keep the party rolling!



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[GlitchMode-22]

Wow!! those final fantasy designs almost look like exact replicas. freya caught me of guard lol your OCs are very interesting as well. the girl with the mask and two swords - what's her story? she looks cool.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Wow!! those final fantasy designs almost look like exact replicas. freya caught me of guard lol

Thanks so much, Glitch! Now, it's beginning to become my mantra when discussing creations, but if I only had a couple more objects, I could really make her shine! I mean, I was able to get a better rat face than I was expecting, but it comes off as just a tad to small for my eye, and there was no way to correct it without losing the general contours (because the shape of the muzzle and facial features is created as much by edges implied by shading as it is the actual morphology of the objects). Still, if it's good enough that she's instantly recognizable to a fan, I'll take that as a success. :) But I'll tell you, one thing still vexes me: why on earth are the both the cravat and the only epaulette that (kinda-sorta) works here both gender locked for no good reason, so I had to choose one or the other? Grrr...

your OCs are very interesting as well. the girl with the mask and two swords - what's her story? she looks cool.

You know, like a lot of my OC builds (and particularly the older ones), I don't have a very elaborate head cannon beyond a vague sense of their deal: with the original SCV version of Celeste, I always thought she had a vaguely Elizabethan/Shakespearean vibe going to her (if you set aside the overuse of the purple in her wardrobe)--so if I had to put a story to it, I think she's a performer with some just really killer stage effects for the sixteenth century?

 

[superdurand]

Congratulations for this immense work and above all the interest in bringing CAS to life. You are a real fan...

 

[Rusted Blade]

Congratulations for this immense work and above all the interest in bringing CAS to life. You are a real fan...

Thank you so much Durand--that means a lot, really! I'm a big fan of your stuff as well: with regard to object/ExEq work and head/physique sculpting in particular, I don't think I would have gotten nearly as ambitious as I did, if not for the high bar already set here by you and Vilarcane and a few others who inspired me to re-evaluate what was possible with those tools, if you have the patience to experiment! I hope we see at least a few more designs from you with the SCVI editor at some point. But either way, I'll surely be looking forward to your work with SCVII! Encore une fois, merci beaucoup!

 

[superdurand]

thank you for those kind compliments...It is true that the work on the objects/ExEq are key pieces to give a final and personal touch to our own designs...even if some are questionable for their usefulness. On the whole of SC6, I am mixed by this too early stop to put an end to the DLC for these characters, costumes... which could bring a lot to our creations. Alas the judgment has accelerated the lack of interest in this game. It's a shame. But I keep smiling, I can always devote myself to improving characters and I still surprise myself for the design of certain creations. I still spend a lot of hours having fun, even if this game doesn't focus many people anymore... There will always be the fans of the first hours.

 

[Rusted Blade]

thank you for those kind compliments...It is true that the work on the objects/ExEq are key pieces to give a final and personal touch to our own designs...even if some are questionable for their usefulness. On the whole of SC6, I am mixed by this too early stop to put an end to the DLC for these characters, costumes... which could bring a lot to our creations. Alas the judgment has accelerated the lack of interest in this game. It's a shame. But I keep smiling, I can always devote myself to improving characters and I still surprise myself for the design of certain creations. I still spend a lot of hours having fun, even if this game doesn't focus many people anymore... There will always be the fans of the first hours.

Unfortunately, I fear CaS was given short shrift in SCVI from the start. Far, far too much of the (clearly quite limited) budget for SCVI was put towards those lackluster single player "story" (I use the term charitably) campaigns so that Namco could try to chase the casual gamer dollars. While that's a reasonable shorterm business decision, the cost to quality of the core experience here in terms of every aspect of design, production, polish, and content offerings is very apparent. And arguably CaS came in absolutely last place out of all the priorities fighting for the remaining budget--although the stage selection and hardware optimization are also contenders.

Don't get me wrong: now that all the DLC is finished, you can probably say with a straight face that SCVI's creation editor is the best one to date (marginally), just because of advancements in the underlying technology. But the overall amount of assets and the interface itself leave a lot to be desired. I'm really hoping SCVII will put more of an emphasis on the interests of hardcore players, CaSers, and other longtime fans of the series, but I'm not confident the franchise is going to trend that way, longterm, unfortunately. Here's to hoping--though I think it's going to be another four years before we know for sure...

 

[superdurand]

there is some frustration with this license. I approached this franchise from SCV with some gullibility that next-gen with SCVI would make up for the incompleteness in full. But as you say the game has suffered from the cruel demands of profitability to the detriment of the qualitative expectations of true fans to please a mass market. BUSINESS IS BUSINESS. I am also pessimistic for a possible sequel that would fill in the gaps of SCVI. The future will tell...

 

[Rusted Blade]

there is some frustration with this license. I approached this franchise from SCV with some gullibility that next-gen with SCVI would make up for the incompleteness in full. But as you say the game has suffered from the cruel demands of profitability to the detriment of the qualitative expectations of true fans to please a mass market. BUSINESS IS BUSINESS. I am also pessimistic for a possible sequel that would fill in the gaps of SCVI. The future will tell...

Well, I do hope that the minor apparent successes with their continuing support model on recent fighters convinces them that they can be profitable enough with longterm DLC that they can afford to balance generating single player filler content with better design, larger production, and more balance on the underlying gameplay content. I'm not entirely thrilled with the prospect of the games getting released piecemeal in a psuedo-games-as-a-service model, but I can definitely live with it if it leads to games that are more even, feature-rich, and higher quality from a gameplay and visual design with deeper content offerings overall. Like you, I'm pessimistic about all of that, because of aspects of Namco's use of the franchise in the last two titles, but...I live in hope. :)

 

[superdurand]

Well, I do hope that the minor apparent successes with their continuing support model on recent fighters convinces them that they can be profitable enough with longterm DLC that they can afford to balance generating single player filler content with better design, larger production, and more balance on the underlying gameplay content. I'm not entirely thrilled with the prospect of the games getting released piecemeal in a psuedo-games-as-a-service model, but I can definitely live with it if it leads to games that are more even, feature-rich, and higher quality from a gameplay and visual design with deeper content offerings overall. Like you, I'm pessimistic about all of that, because of aspects of Namco's use of the franchise in the last two titles, but...I live in hope. :)

Yes, you just see for the defects and improvements to be made concretely to dream of a game that could satisfy everyone

 

[Rusted Blade]

Ok, so as I mentioned to @Glitch-mode22 last week, one of his skeleton-base characters inspired me to take a crack at updating one of my own undead designs, 'The Necromancer'; my initially idea was to basically use the same basic design, but using the skeleton model as a more ambitious scaffold for a full-on lichified update of the body and face, while making everything else further decomposed and worn as well. However, after throwing something a little thematically different together for a rough draft version, I decided I liked the results more than my original plan, and just built from there. The results are below. Though it wasn't by objective, this one reminds me just a little bit of Evil Ash in his final form in the third act of Army of Darkness, hence the name: the result of which is that I can't stop thinking of him as the foil of Glitch's 'King of the Lizardmen' :D

I was perfectly happy with the initial bronze and green-rust accented version that you will see mixed in with the pictures here, but the images for this version didn't have enough contrast to properly display the detail work, so I created the black and red variant: in the long run, this only compensated for the low image quality a marginal bit, but this version got some further tweaks and it is an all around improvement.

General of the Dead

Spoiler: Death has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast.

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[GlitchMode-22]

Sheesh! i love how you made him look bloody, like his body hasn't fully decompose yet. how did you do that?? that's pretty unique

 

[Rusted Blade]

Sheesh! i love how you made him look bloody, like his body hasn't fully decompose yet. how did you do that?? that's pretty unique

There's several layers of objects creating the effect of some of his flesh still decaying and attached to his face: that was the one detail I knew I wanted to try to implement from the start. In various versions the objects intertwine and overlap with one another (and are shaded/textured) in such a way that they are meant to appear to be attached in the way fascia is usually attached to the surface and cavities of the skull: using some knowledge of the anatomy of the face, I went for as much realism as the limited assets would allow, though there is a fair deal of variation on where and how it simulated as falling away--some versions are far less bilateral/mirrored than other. Actually, in some versions you'll see similar efforts for other portions of the skeleton, though I had to be picky about how much and where I wanted to represent that, which is why the outfit ended up being heavier than I initially planned.

As usual, a few more ExEq could have made this one truly sing, but the results are more or less what I set out to accomplsh, minus some nitpicks, even if he did end up changing heavily in terms of the gear. Though there actually are a couple of pictures in there of a slapdash update on the Necromancer: still I like the warrior version more, in the final analysis.

 

[Rusted Blade]

In an extremely minor update (on a design which is fairly straight forward to begin with), I adjusted the color balance on 'Tira: No Picnic', and then for fun created a color variant. Again, simple, but I continue to like this one: sometimes a reserved approach to the surface work with a small number of well-chosen and contrasted colors can create something very pleasing to the eye, even this there's not much else that is novel or clever or super engaging with the overall design. Well, to mine eye anyway.

Okay guys: despite the false start, really out of here for a bit now, and probably won't be back for more than checking in on what people are doing and hitting the 'like' function now and again--at least for a while. Still, when I do come back, I hope to find the place hopping and with lots of new content to absorb! Everyone take care until then!

 

[superdurand]

the result is really convincing for the general of the dead, I am amazed.
You're right, the choice of color, a small detail, even insignificant, can greatly improve the result of a character.
SO see you soon to make this site vibrate again with your creativity

 

[Rusted Blade]

I'm just posting to say that it's great to see the current glut of great contributions... and also: f***'s sake homies, I'm so irritated that I don't have the time to flesh anything out that would be worthy of the current wave of stuff. When was the last time six separate people were contributing concepts in the space of days? You all better keep this party going for a couple of weeks is all I'm saying--I want my piece of the conversation! :P

 

[VILARCANE]

Zalsabyssal puss in boots and squirrel struck me silly...you are a master of exeq now .... but still post way too many pictures stick to coolest ed pics a few closeups AND IN GAME because editor only don't do your CAS justice.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Hey Vil--great to see you back! I've been meaning to try to kindly troll you back into contributing here (including designs, one hopes!), once we confirmed you were still among the living! But I haven't been able to contribute myself in recent weeks, so I figured it could wait. :D In any event, bon retour, mon ami!

Zalsabyssal puss in boots and squirrel struck me silly...

Hahaha, I knew exactly the ones you would find most entertaining. :D

you are a master of exeq now ....

Why thank you, good sir! I must say, there were a couple there, like the two most recent animal-person designs alluded to above, where I was surprised by just how effective they had turned out and realized I've really hit a point where I feel I can make a decent run at almost anything. Though the three object limit will always be une vexation!

Coincidentally, one of the taunts I was going to use to try to lure you into making some new stuff was to imply that maybe you were just worried that there were too many good ExEqers here for you to easily dominate that aspect of creation. :P

but still post way too many pictures stick to coolest ed pics a few closeups AND IN GAME because editor only don't do your CAS justice.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of unlocking everything on one of my console versions of the game, not the PC version. I did this because I was expecting that the most important element of the game for me would be competitive play, as it had been with every previous entry, with CaS a significant extra feature. But I just didn't connect very hardcore with the play in VI (not for the long haul anyway), and now I'm stick creating on the console, because I'll be damned if I am going to grind through that atrocious single player content again just to unlock everything!

All of which is to say, capturing well-snapped in-game pictures is a non-starter. And on top of that, resolution absolutely sucks. So I use variations in framing, angle, zoom, lighting and posing to try to give a sense of the quality of movement and various details. It's an imperfect system, but it's what I've got, alas! Not that I disagree with your observation, mind you: I really think the right backgrounds would appreciably improve the presentations for almost all of my creations. If only. :/

[EDIT: Remember when you could near-instantaneously change the stage setting while in the editor in SCIV. We really need more that kind of optimization for the next game in this series: for as low-fi as the presentation in VI turned out (particularly the stages!), you'd hope load times would far more tolerable, but somehow it took the same amount of time to load a complete stage into rendering in SCIV as it currently takes to go up and down a level in the menu trees in the SCVI editor--omg, chugging along...loading...ok next choice/level down....loading.... Te-di-ous!

Seriously, if they designed next game for the current (PS5/XBOX SX) era as if it was meant to run on the same hardware as SCVI in terms of pushing the resolution on the characters and effects, but just spent a shit tone of time on optimization and recapturing the art design of the original series, and concentrating any up-resing efforts on the stages (which were unforgivably blurry and visual ineffective on both technical and creative grounds), imagine how smooth and pleasant a SC game that could be. I've said it before and I'll say it again: SCIV ought to be considered the model for a good looking Soulcalibur game.]



Now, oh ye, one of the greats: what have you got for us after such a period of creation delinquency and leaving us to wonder if the coronavid got ya?? Standards have come up a bit, and we're really polishing and pushing the limits of this version of the editor--you better come out swinging if you want to maintain that super high rep! ;P

 

[Rusted Blade]

Hey guys, I have a couple of new designs (well, a few months old in reality, but unpolished until today), but no time to really curate and share any photos, so here's just a quick preview of one that's come along decently. Recognizing this handsome fellow may well be a generational check, though, I suppose! In any event, I present to thee...

Sir Glenn of the Glen

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I'm still experimenting with variations on the head geometry and the color details/balance, but he's coming together--verily!