Tikal's Temple of Terrifically Terrible Creations

Tikal

[07] Duelist
Hello 8wayrun!

I've been lurking in the CAS forums for a little bit now, so now I'm taking a leap of faith and posting my own creations here!

The majority of these creations are characters of my own creation, not recreations from games, movies, or other media. I don't know if I want to make P2 costumes for these characters either, but I'll consider it! These characters aren't nearly as detailed and stunning as some of the other CAS artists on here, but hopefully you still enjoy my creations nonetheless!
I have some small backstories and design notes for most of these characters, but they'll be hidden behind spoiler tags if you don't care to read them. I'll try to keep backstories brief-ish and design notes I get kinda rambly with, so forgive me in advance ^^'
I'll probably be posting these characters one to two, maybe three at a time per post, because tbh I'm lazy.
Of course, any sort of feedback or criticism you can give me is appreciated! Hope you guys enjoy this showcase.
 
To start off, here's a dancer character!

Amira, The Deadly Desert Flower
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Birthplace: Unknown, Somewhere in Egypt
Age: 27
Birthday: July 14
Weapon: Katars
Amira has no recollection of her biological parents, but has no desire to know. Amira was taken in and raised to be a dancer, singer, musician... and assassin. Amira's caretaker, Fatima, was the founder of an all-female assassination group of which she simply referred to as her "Desert Flowers". They were trained in various forms of the performing arts, the art of espionage, and how to fight and defend themselves if need be, using a style of dance-like movements to confuse their opponent. They disguised themselves as traveling performers: entertaining with decorative costumes, lively music and performances to put people at ease by day, and working as spies and assassins by night. One night, Fatima rounded up a select group of "flowers", of which Amira was a part of, to gather information on and kill a figure known as "The Azure Knight". It was described as a mission not for the faint of heart, but the requester was paying a fortune if the deed could be done. With that sort of money, they might never have to struggle in finances for years to come. The offer was too lucrative to resist, and the group made their way north, heading to Europe.

Badlah-wearing Middle Eastern/North African belly dancer girl. Innovative and original, I know. I do like how she turned out though. Her original design was a lot more simple and basic, with her wearing the seong Inner wrap, dancers bracelets, slit skirt, seong sarong, and the cyclone sandals, with her look having more of a red theme than a muted pink. I thought that I should deck her out a little bit though, and so through some changes and enraging equipment conflicts later, we have this design! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but tell me what you think!

Despite this story taking place in the late 1500s, I decided to go for the pretty modern "badlah babe" look, probably because it was safest and most widely known image of belly dancers. This form of clothing became popularized by Western authors in the 19th century, but in earlier forms of this dance, people dressed more conservatively. I thought maybe if I do go through with making P2 costumes, I might try something more in the realm of the Ghawazi dancers of Egypt, who served as a sort of precedent to modern day belly-dancing:
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It has recently come to my attention that I am very lazy. Too lazy to write up backstories. That and not all of my characters have one. However! If you want to know more about someone, just let me know and I'll tell you about them! Instead, the spoiler tag will just be for more pictures, and design notes stay the same. Hope you like these next few characters! Also please don't mind the clipping.

Tekashi:
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Unmasked:
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I don't really have a lot to say on Tekashi. I haven't really changed his design that much aside from changing up a few things with new DLC I got. Do you think his design looks too busy? I like adding lots of detail in my characters, but I don't want to make it look like too much, so I tend to remove a lot of it. His design definitely reads more samurai than ninja to me, buuuut... eh, who cares? Maybe I'll change his design a bit to better match his ninja motif.

Griselde:
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She looks a bit like 2B with the hairstyle and the eye covering, but rest assured, she's her own droid!
I kind of went through a lot of indecisiveness with her design... She's supposed to be a German automaton assassin, but as I changed her design, she just got more and more anime and I don't think it reads like that anymore.
The caged skirt I made based off of Ashlotte's design, and I used the Allegiance Moon Mask for all 3 Equipment slots to make it.
She used to be less of an armored character except for pauldrons, but I thought that giving her an armored look would make her look a bit more tough and sort of menancing.
This is also another design I wonder if I did too much with, but overall I'm pretty happy with the results.

Lifeng:
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My shaolin monk character!
He used to be a lot more simple and more derivative of real life Shaolin monks, but I did a few things to make him look more unique and I have this result! I wanted the pure rings on his wrist to be a pair of jade bracelets, and was disappointed when I saw we couldn't put patterns on the rings.
I really didn't want to use the default male face for Lifeng, but I honestly don't see any faces that I think fit his age better.
 
Hi and welcome ! my (hopefully constructive) criticism :
Color palette : More colors, too linear, match some here and there, play with gradients, stickers
Patterns : Griselde barely readable
Dancer, monk : Too formulaic, add exeq combos to add props and flair ie. dancers tambourine, monks...monkey ?
 
To compliment my friend Vil's pragmatic-aesthetic critiques with some more stylistic commentary, there is something I find very familiar in an appealing way about your Monk's basic look and composition: he looks like one of the elder monks who defends the Temple at the end of an old Shaw Productions' 36th Chamber of Shaolin film. :) Though in those terms, perhaps I will piggyback on one of Vil's recommendations: perhaps he could use some ExEq facial hair of some sort?
 
Thank you for the critiques! I do realize my colors are pretty basic, and I should do more with them. A lot of times I end up worried that my colors will just end up clashing and not looking very good, but hey, all about experimentation right? As for Lifeng, he is supposed to be a younger character, but honestly I kinda like the idea of him being an elder monk type character! And if that means I don't have to use the base face then I'm good
I'd do some ExEq facial hair, but I tried doing it a few times before on other characters and I can't make it look good for the life of me ^^'

But still! I'll update the characters here and show you how I've changed them!
 
On reality having not many colors is fine for SC, as despite being 3D SC character design logic still operate like sprites age old 2D fighters a la Street Fighter

2/3 "important" colors for the main visual impact +2/3/4 secondary ones to enrich the figure

I think you're on the right path
 
Hey all!

I don't have much for you, but I redid Amira.

It started as me changing things up to add more colors, aaaaand, she looks completely different. I wanted to give her the "lively" costumes I described in her background, and I kinda sorta made her look like a showgirl. Maybe I'll do another design leaning more on her assassin side rather than her dancer side.

Still! I hope this breaks the formula a little bit and gives her a bit more flair, and if not, then uhhh.... Hopefully it still looks good ;; Did I do too much? Too little? Let me know cause honestly I don't know what I'm doing lol

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Hey all!

I don't have much for you, but I redid Amira.

It started as me changing things up to add more colors, aaaaand, she looks completely different. I wanted to give her the "lively" costumes I described in her background, and I kinda sorta made her look like a showgirl. Maybe I'll do another design leaning more on her assassin side rather than her dancer side.

Still! I hope this breaks the formula a little bit and gives her a bit more flair, and if not, then uhhh.... Hopefully it still looks good ;; Did I do too much? Too little? Let me know cause honestly I don't know what I'm doing lol

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Oh wow, I like your idea for Seong Mi-Na's stockings, making it skin tone to create the illusion of jewellery!
 
Gueeeess who's back!

Oh wait, no one cares? Dang it.

I took a little break from CASing for a while because I didn't really feel I was getting anywhere with it, nothing I made felt as good as the stuff I've seen here or what I wanted it to look like, so I ended up burning myself out.
But then I realize hey! No one can be perfect at anything in a snap. So I just have to keep at it!
Don't have a lot for you Like always but it's a few characters I've been working on.

Akane
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I like Setsuka's CAS parts, can you tell? lol
I had in mind the image of an onna-bugeisha, trying to balance the look of a samurai and a geisha together even though onna-bugeisha were female samurais rather than a mix of the two. She originally looked more like a samurai, but as you can see now, she definitely takes more from her geisha side.

Griselde. new and (hopefully) improved!

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Whoa, this is a bit of a different look, huh?
My very first plan for Griselde was to give her a doll-like aesthetic, and with Setsuka's style out, I felt I wanted to go through with it!
I'm still going to do a bit of tweaking with her. Her face is a WIP, her right eye is supposed to be missing but IDK how I want to create it yet. It's at times like this I really wish we had more ExEq slots... Perhaps in a later update? Wishful thinking?

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Have this WIP Ottoman sorcerer I haven't touched in forever. I'll get back to work on him soon.

Mei-Li

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She has beauty, she has grace, she will kick you in the face! Mei-Li is a Chinese noblewoman, a little bit stuck-up and spoiled, but she does have a good heart deep down.

In posting these pictures I notice some stuff I wanna change, so I might come back with some updated versions if the changes are big enough. I hope these ones are an improvement on before! Feedback is appreciated!
 
hello, I discover you and admire your ideas which are very interesting. You master the aesthetics by the choice of colors that appeal to the eye. The choice of certain accessories is sometimes daring as for your character Grisede. Advice is my credo, I always try to incorporate an accessory so that it blends in as naturally as possible ... with more or less success. You are on the right voice ...
 
Hi! Thanks so much for the feedback, I'm a big fan of your work ^^

I'm still trying to get a little used to ExEq and other accessories like that, since before coming here, I essentially never used them before coming here lol. Still all a work in progress though, and thanks again! I'll work on incorporating them more smoothly.
 
Back to playing Soulcalibur, making some new characters!

I only have 2 almost-completed characters for you guys for now:

Warning for slight NSFW for these 2? But then again this is Soulcalibur so eh
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Big tiddy vamp princess
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Aaaand big tiddy cleric/bishop/holy girl???

I didn't really have too much of a plan with these two, just putting stuff together and seeing what looks good! I don't have names for them yet... Maybe y'all could help me out?
 
Holy Astral Chaos!

i like what you did to your beautiful vamp princess! what stickers do you use on her skirt?

holy girl look beautiful too!

keep it up, Tikal!

thumb up yes GIF
 
Holy Astral Chaos!

i like what you did to your beautiful vamp princess! what stickers do you use on her skirt?

holy girl look beautiful too!

keep it up, Tikal!

thumb up yes GIF
tysm!! I used two motif 50 stickers and lined them up down her dress!
 
Another almost-done-still-needs-tweaks-somewhat character! I stole weshookhands' headscarf formula and turns out it went pretty okay with the turban and with Geralt's moveset.

Samile, Wandering Spellsword
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I like this concept, Tikal, and I particularly like your combination of the turban and headscarf to create the impression of a wrapped shawl/head-covering. If you'll forgive some unsolicited advice, the surface details needs some more work in order to more fully sell the impression they are truly one piece and could be tightened a little closer to the face to sell the effect and reduce clipping (infact if you have ExEq objects left, you might consider layering them to completely cover the front of the neck), but those little nitpicks aside, it is a very innovative move and one appropriate to the overall design!

By the way, I've been meaning to ask: do you take your name from the Mayan city?
 
I like this concept, Tikal, and I particularly like your combination of the turban and headscarf to create the impression of a wrapped shawl/head-covering. If you'll forgive some unsolicited advice, the surface details needs some more work in order to more fully sell the impression they are truly one piece and could be tightened a little closer to the face to sell the effect and reduce clipping (infact if you have ExEq objects left, you might consider layering them to completely cover the front of the neck), but those little nitpicks aside, it is a very innovative move and one appropriate to the overall design!

By the way, I've been meaning to ask: do you take your name from the Mayan city?
Hey, thanks so much for responding~ As for the headwrap thing, you're 100% right on how it's still a little awkward looking. I've been trying to manipulate it some so it still looks right, but it's difficult making it look right on both the sides and the front profile and with no extra ExEq slots. I've been thinking of using the scarf accessory in the neck category in place of the mourning robes to make it look complete, so we'll see how that goes!
 
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