wow man im a big fan of your work, you also mentioned that every piece of wardrobe has a history i don't know if it's asking for too much but i'd love to hear some of your notes on why you chose to design the characters the way you did and make up your own history for them. Great Job.
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These are fucking awesome!!
But no Kung and Jax.
But no Kung and Jax.
About Me
Aw yeah, new MK!0
Spider804 Wrote:
These are fucking awesome!!
But no Kung and Jax.
These are fucking awesome!!
But no Kung and Jax.
He's working on those still.
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That's great news to hear! 
I am writing some fanfic, and I like to give a brief desription of what the chaacters are wearing. Could i use (more or less) some of your designs?
Some I have in mind:
Kano alternate
Raiden alternate
Mileena
Shang Tsung (MK2)
Just wanted to ask permish
Can't wait for MK3 cast
MOTARO
Some I have in mind:
Kano alternate
Raiden alternate
Mileena
Shang Tsung (MK2)
Just wanted to ask permish
Can't wait for MK3 cast
MOTARO
About Me
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Four things:
1) KUNG LAO CONFIRMED FOR BRAWL
Check the first post, y'alls.
(I have also changed Scorp's shoes and Baraka's shirt like I said I would.)
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2)
I don't see why not. Sure, go for it.
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3)
Sure.
With the primary costumes, mind you, a lot of it comes from an intention to make sure what I've drawn them in still stays true the outfit they actually wore in the original game, just what it would look like with a lot more graphical detail and with elements from MKDA, MKD, MKSM, vsDCU, and MK9 costumes added in. Because the whole purpose of this project was to make the old games look more like the later games, to make the art styles from the 2D and 3D eras sync up with one another.
That's why you don't see me do any "original" designs with the primaries, it wouldn't be appropriate given my goal of creating "visual continuity".
But yeah, I do put a lot of thought into the reasons for their clothes and I'll share them now. With most characters' "first" costumes, the reason isn't as much story-based as it is just artistic choices designed to take their original outfit and make it better, but whenever a character changes their clothes from one game to the next, I definitely put some thought into the story reason for that.
Fair warning: this is going to be a very, very long read.
Prepare yourself for a horrifying wall of text.
No, seriously. I hope you've got like a whole hour to spare.
Alright, good luck and may God have mercy on your souls.
MK1 Kano primary - Obviously, I went in the same direction his MKDA alt and MKSM costume did when updating his MK1 look. People might ask "but why keep that costume? A white karate outfit doesn't even fit his character." Well, that's because most people think of Kano's character as a generic street thug. The truth is, Kano's origin is supposed to tie back to being a mercenary, a military-trained guerrilla fighter for hire. So going to a martial arts tournament in an outfit made for martial arts might not be entirely out of character for him, considering it's also covered with mercenary gear like weapons and utility belts.
Anyway, the few additions I made were a black dragon tattoo (which is much more elaborate than the simple black shapes he's gotten in the current gen games, 'cause that's what a real tattoo would look like, I would think. They tend to be very detailed and artistic, not just big filled in shapes.), a BD logo on his belt buckle, I grimed him up a bit with the bloodstained wraps around his hands, and I made his bandolier look like a cross between all the bandoliers he's worn before: the brown pockets one in MK1, the red box one in MK3, and the spiked shoulder armor from his vsDCU concept art.
And it was important to me to make sure facially he looked more like the MK1/DA Kano who's going bald, slicks his hair back, and only has stubble for a beard, because to me, it's that added aged look and sleaze factor that makes Kano look less like a generic thug and more like a BOSS of crime.
I also made sure to keep his knives as blue lightsabers like they were in the original MK1 and 3. I prefer sci-fi and fantasy elements over too much realism and Kano's one character that I think benefits from more tech in his arsenal.
The really big thing is I changed the big red box on his bandolier to a heart monitor. I noticed he had a tiny heart monitor on his hip in vsDCU, which probably has some connection to his cybernetics, and I've always been like "What the hell is that big red box even for?" So I decided to make the box into the monitor because it gives it a purpose.
MK1 Kano alt - There are a couple themes I like to stick to when it comes to alts. One is "origin story clothes", which you see with other characters, and another is "street clothes", which is where I went with Kano. And for his non-fighting duds, I wanted him to be dressed like a gangster, so I thought of things like Scarface and Miami Vice because it feels natural to me to think of throwbacks to the 80's when thinking of the mafia, and went with a leisure suit and big chain. But I gave him a red vest like he wore in the movie instead of a jacket, because I also like to sneak movie references in here and there when they don't intrude on or contradict anything.
MK1 Liu Kang primary - I decided to stick straight with his original MK1 costume, no frills, because to me, Liu Kang is a very humble character before he wins the tournament and besides, he's based on Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, and that's all Lee wore in the movie. I also made sure that he has shorter hair in this game than he has in all the others, because that's how it was in the first game and storywise, I wanted something that would show Liu has only recently left the safety of the monastery to train with the White Lotus and become a man of the world. Shaolin monks shave their heads, but it's been a while since Liu was just a simple member of the temple, and he's letting his go.
You can see in the MK1 comic that this outfit came with a matching chinese-style jacket that Liu takes off when he fights. I considered using that for his alt, but that would've been too similar to his primary, so I'm saving it for a later game.
I wanted to jazz up the picture since otherwise, a shirtless guy in black pants is boring, so I drew one of his dragon-headed fireballs swirling around him. I like the dragon theme of his moves because I feel like it represents his faith in the gods and the idea that his strength comes from his spiritual connection, since the Elder Gods look like dragons/the MK logo.
MK1 Liu Kang alt - Liu's alt fits one of those two alt costume themes I like, the "origin story" one. It shows him in the orange robes that traditional Shaolin Monks wear. I experimented with having him bald in this costume to go with the outfit, but it turns out that Liu with no hair at all really doesn't look anything like Liu Kang to me, it just made him look like "generic monk", and I didn't want to lose any sense of the characters' identities in their costumes.
MK2 Liu Kang primary - After winning the first tournament, Liu is now a bit more decorative. He's got a nice new pair of pants and some wrist armor for the tougher battles that lie ahead, but more importantly, because MK2 is a tournament and that means he'll be defending his title as champion, I have him wearing the "championship belt" from MKvsDCU. (Note that Liu won't be wearing the belt when I draw his MK3 costume because MK3 wasn't a tournament so he's not defending his title.)
He's also got the headband now. I've always thought the headband should have the story that it's the one the Great Kung Lao used to wear, and Goro took it from him as a trophy when he killed him, and when Liu beat Goro, Liu reclaimed the headband.
I telegraphed both those things in Goro's MK1 alt where he's got a red ribbon in his hair and holding the belt in hand, because at that time, Goro is the champion.
And of course I replaced the swirling fireball with his most famous and awesome finishing move, turning into a dragon, because this is the point where he first gains the ability to do so. As a side note, drawing smoke clouds like that one without them turning out as big ugly blobs of nothing is a huge pain in the ass. I have got to figure out a new way to represent mist before I get to drawing Smoke...
MK1 Scorpion primary - Scorpion is the only "ninja" in MK who's actually from a Japanese ninja clan. I wanted to make him look as traditional as possible while still retaining elements of his identity, so I went with a look very similar to his MKDA outfit, with the gigantic baggy pants and the loose fitting hood. He's of course got the cloth mask from the original MK1 costume as well.
To make him look different from the other ninjas and specifically "Scorpion"-y, I gave him skull kneepads because Scorpion always wears skulls somewhere on himself as his specific logo, and his is the only one of the ninja costumes that has that diamond quilting pattern. I consider that pattern a Scorpion trait only and not a Sub-Zero or Reptile one for some reason. Mainly I think what I like about it is that softer padding makes the Shirai Ryu look more poor and mundane than the Lin Kuei, who have more decorated clothes and fancier armor.
Also, when I draw Scorpion's eyes, I like to make sure they look like the very heavily shadowed ones with seemingly no eyebrows that he had in MK2, I think that captures his scary undead look the best. I also made sure to give him a wedding ring, 'cuz, y'know, important part of his backstory.
MK1 Scorpion alt - Like Liu, I went the "origin story" route with Scorpion, I wanted to make his body look like he's just been murdered by Sub-Zero. I took away all the armor to make his costume look even less like a spectre who can control his appearance and more like an un-fancy Shirai Ryu. I removed his head and replaced it with his Spectre flaming skull because Sub-Zero killed him by Spine Rip in Mythologies (Note that Sub-Zero's alt is even holding Scorpion's head/spine) and made his flesh a rotting, textured gray color with bloodstains around his decap'd neck and wedding ring hand.
Also note that this is the only costume where Scorpion's kunai has a rope tied to it. See, the whole reason he's named "Scorpion" is he's famous for using that weapon, which is like the stinger tail of a scorpion. Now, as a spectre, Scorpion can make the rope come out of his hand magically. When he was still human, though, he wouldn't have had that power, he'd have to carry around the rope.
I gave him a sword too because I thought that as a powerless human, he'd have more weaponry, but on a personal note, I don't like Scorpion using swords so much like he does now in the games, I don't think he needs them at all and should slash and stab with his kunai more since that is his trademark weapon.
I also wanted to make the costume look more different from his primary by giving it a different color scheme. A real ninja shouldn't wear bright yellow, he should have darker colors on, so I drew inspiration from the Vincent Proce fanart and went with a "black clothes splattered with something yellow" look.
I will say though that in my version, the yellow isn't demon blood, it's just some sort of yellow dye the Shirai Ryu use for autumn camoflage.
MK2 Scorpion primary - For MK2, I wanted to show that, having done the semi-evil act of getting his revenge on Sub-Zero, and spending more time in the Netherealm, Scorpion is becoming more Hellspawn than Ninja. I also wanted more elements of actual scorpions in his outfit.
I don't like that H.R. Giger "ugly black bio-armor on everything" style of art though, like the jagged plates Scorp has in MK9. So instead, my idea of "more Hellish" is "more Heavy Metal". So here his under-clothes are all tight black leather instead of baggy ninja pants and his arm armor's got more spikes, studs, and belts Shaolin Monks/Deadly Alliance-style. He's also wearing fingerless biker gloves. Especially note the ripped part of the glove where his ring finger is, and that the wedding ring has gotten a bit of a black, tainted stain on it. This represents that listening to Quan Chi and following the path of revenge is bad for Scorpion's soul and takes him further from being able to rest in peace with his family.
I also drew a lot of inspiration from his MKvsDCU outfit with the pointy shoulder pads and ribs-shaped armor because I've always thought that outfit looked like a graphical upgrade of his MK2 suit anyway, because it kept the diamond quilting.
I originally wanted him to have the logo of a scorpion somewhere like on his belt, like in vs DCU, but I couldn't make such an obnoxiously large belt buckle look right at a smaller size, so I decided to go with his MK9 belt instead. Also, I just changed the shoes to the MK9 ones because I like the sort of motif they have of spiked backbones or little segmented scorpion tails.
MK1 Johnny Cage primary - Johnny was the first character I ever redesigned, before I even had it in my head to do every single one. I always thought it was weird that he wore red in the first game and then suddenly switched to blue for every game after, so I wanted to draw him with a blue belt. Then I thought to add his name to his tights 'cause he's Johnny Cage, he'd personalize his stuff. Then I thought "well those slippers look silly, let's give him socks and tennis shoes like he wears in the other games".
Noting how similar his MK1 outfit is to his Deadly Alliance one, I tried a few variations of fancier armor on Johnny's arms. Eventually I decided it'd be cool looking if they were asymmetrical. One arm just has tape wrapped around it like a UFC fighter, the other has his spiked gauntlet from MK1. I also stuck a fingerless glove on his "Green Bolt throwing hand". It's not like he needs to worry about burning himself with his powers, but it seems stylish and Johnny's all about style.
MK1 Johnny Cage alt - Johnny's a street clothes kinda guy. I just pulled his suit straight out of the original MK1 comic because I thought "well he wears a black tux every damn game, let's do something slightly different from that." I like this one because I think the colors are tacky as hell and like to wonder what the hell Tobias was thinking when he colored it that way, but hey...it was the early 90's. Pastels were in. And that's Johnny for ya. Like I said, he's all about style...but that doesn't mean his style is good, lol.
Also note how in his alt, one of Johnny's Shadow-Balls is red. The red one will be different and random whenever I draw an alt of him 'cause that's how his moves worked in the olden days.
MK2 Johnny Cage primary - For Johnny's second go at this whole tournament thing, he's adopted a more "Cage-brand athletic-wear" look, hence the sweatbands on his wrists, the jogging pants, and the store-bought looking plastic shinguards.
Most games give Johnny's pants the white dashes up his legs, but those dashes didn't appear until MK4, so I didn't want to do that yet. (Dan Pesina did have the brand name "Otomix" in white letters on his MK2 pants in the original sprites, but that was edited out in the final version of the game.) Instead, I drew from his Shaolin Monks in-game model, which just had shiny blue stripes and a belt that made them look very much like long legged boxing trunks. I really liked the idea of that boxing trunks motif so I put his name on his belt in the "Everlast" font.
I also added the chest tattoo when his MK9 design debuted because I think having his own name on his chest is so wonderfully Johnny in style. I didn't go back and add to his MK1 design though because I thought it'd be cool to give it a story explanation.
See, after MK1, Johnny started making "based on a true story" movies about Mortal Kombat. He's now able to make a career out of playing himself. So I thought that because he's always playing the role of Johnny Cage, now he can have his own name on his body, whereas before, he couldn't get away with it because he was always playing other characters.
MK1 Sub-Zero primary - To me, the first Sub-Zero costume isn't the one from MK1, it's the one from Mythologies, because that's the prequel. So that's what I went with. One thing I wanted to do is make his clothes much "nicer" and more privileged looking than Scorp who's still dressing like a Feudal Japan ninja, so Sub's outfit is tight like spandex, his tabi boots are rubber soled instead of sandals, it looks like it's all been sewn specifically for him.
Another thing is I wanted his mantle to be very decorated with symbols because Sub's MK1 bio said that he could be identified as Lin Kuei by the markings on his uniform. So I did the stripes that Sub's tunic has in vsDCU, but I made them little Lin Kuei logos repeating over and over again instead of the sort of snowflake design he had there.
I also added some vsDCU elements to the armor just to make it look less plain and more personalized. But it was important to me that THIS Sub-Zero not wear any heavy metal or look too armored because it's Kuai Liang who wears armor in most of the games, not Bi-Han. So Bi-Han's armor is all blue plastic or some similar sort of lightweight material the modern, high-tech Lin Kuei would use.
The other thing I wanted to do with Bi-Han to separate him from his brother was put the ice on his arms. Kuai Liang gets the ice on his arms in Deadly Alliance because he's gotten more powerful from the Dragon Medallion...but I've always thought of him as less powerful than his brother before he got the medallion - not a lot less, only slightly, but enough that I'd want to show it visually, because Bi-Han was much later into his career and famous as the Lin Kuei's greatest warrior until he died. So I gave Bi-Han the iced-up arms to show how, even without the medallion, he's pretty powerful right now.
Also, I tried to draw his eyes thin and "Chinese looking". I think it comes across well enough.
And I put a spine in his hand 'cause I like every character to be posed using one of their special moves or showing some sort of personality, and Bi-Han was famous for the spine rip. I made the head belong to a Masked Guard 'cause I like them but didn't have any other place to draw 'em since they're not name-characters. Also, it's a very distinctive helmet design. You can tell right away when you look at it "that is definitely one of Shang's guards". I like that recognizability.
MK1 Sub-Zero alt - This was a tough concept to come up with, but what I eventually settled on was that I wanted some way to telegraph the Cyberninjas without using anything cyber. I wanted to show how the Lin Kuei is advancing in technology and takes a very modern approach to assassinations. So while Sub-Zero's primary is his "decorative" outfit, which he's wearing because he's at a tournament and it's good publicity for the Lin Kuei if a guy who looks obviously Lin Kuei goes in there and cleans house, this alt is what he might REALLY wear on stealth missions. It's very inspired by more "military" ninjas like Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe. It's darker, much less fancy or decorative, and has modern accouterments like night vision goggles, utility belts, a smoke bomb, the hood covers his whole face like a ski mask, etc.
I also gave him a sword 'cause, like I said, I had Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow in mind. Plus, it juxtaposes him from Scorpion, their swords even have different styled hilts.
MK2 Sub-Zero primary - First off, while obviously I keep the same pose for every character, in this case I wanted MK2 Sub-Zero to not be standing in the same pose or have the same face as MK1 Sub-Zero, because he's now Kuai Liang, not Bi-Han. When I do Noob Saibot, he'll be standing in the Bi-Han pose. And since I like the characters to have some sort of "prop" to show off, and spine ripping was more Bi-Han's thing, I went with "making an ice ball" for Kuai.
For Kuai Liang's first costume, I definitely wanted him to have two things: heavy metal armor, because that's a trait the character's costumes have all gained since the series went 3D, and simpler, less decorated cloth parts, because he's more of a rookie compared to his famous brother.
With the armor, it was important to have it, to me, because I see Kuai Liang as very "old fashioned" and caring about tradition, compared to his brother who is more about loyalty to the clan and therefore would stick closer to what the clan is doing as they modernize and upgrade to plastics and spandex.
People have pointed out that these personality traits were portrayed as being backwards in the original MK2 comic and Kuai was introduced dressed like a Hollywood agent, flying in a personal jet, handing out Lin Kuei business cards, and told Liu that his brother was the traditional one, but I have always thought that was an incredibly dumb idea and I'm pretty sure any sense of their personalities being that way was completely retconned away, because in all the games after MK2, where they're shown having personalities, Bi-Han is the super-loyal one while Kuai is the one who rejects cyborgs, and when he takes over the clan later, he makes everything in it super-old fashioned looking.
So anyway, I drew a lot from his MK9 outfit because it happened to fit all the things I was thinking of. I did change the armor though because I didn't want to use that "ogre faces" motif, which seems like it should be something only his MKD Cryomancer Armor has, but rather something more "Lin Kuei" style, so I used the shapes from the Mythologies armor again, but a bit more fancy. (Also, all those swirly face shapes would've been impossible to draw)
I did keep one ogre face on his belt, and the reason I did was I wanted something that would look like a "Sub-Zero family crest", and the Sub-Zero family is descended from the Cryomancers, so I thought maybe that's something that they'd have from their old culture, but what that face means has been lost to the ages. And when Sub discovers the Cryomancer tombs in MKD, maybe that'll be how he comes to understand that he's related to them, by recognizing the crest. (Bi-Han doesn't wear the crest, mind you, 'cause he doesn't care about his family as much as his bro does.)
I also wanted Sub-Zero to have a lot of elements that reflected things Scorpion is wearing, but in an "opposites" way instead of in a palette swap way. So now Scorp is the one in tight clothes and Sub-Zero is the baggy one, a reversal of their MK1 outfits. And while both have armor in the same places, Scorp's shoulder pads point up but Sub-Zero's curve down and Scorp's belt is concave shaped, but Sub's is convex shaped. A small touch nobody consciously noticed before I pointed it out, I'm sure, but I thought it was clever.
MK1 Raiden primary - My thought towards Raiden's personality and story in MK1 are largely based on Christopher Lambert in the movie. I always thought that for his entrance into the tournament and first meetings with the heroes, he'd want to sort of keep his godhood a secret, the way Yoda pretends to be a simple-minded native when Luke first meets him on Dagobah, to test how Luke treats him and how ready he is to learn. So I gave Raiden's costume sort of a "beggar's robes" look, with his long hair hanging out loose and everything...but the hint of his godhood is still there in the fact that his ropes are gold and under his robes is a decorative buttoned shirt.
I also downplayed the blue in his color scheme since he didn't wear any in MK1. I used that little "swirly clouds" texture in a very faint blue on his shawl, which is shaped like the one from Mythologies (two parts hang down from the belt instead of one loincloth like in the other games), because he had a similar texture on his clothes in Vincent Proce's fan art and I liked how it looked.
Also note, a very subtle touch: I actually keep very close track of the heights of the characters I draw, compared to one another. Raiden is the tallest non-monster, which matches his MK1 bio saying he's 7 feet tall.
MK1 Raiden alt - This is pretty much the most radical idea I had for any of the character designs and the reason I reached it is this: like I said, I like to go either "origin story" or "street clothes" on most alts...well this one is, in a sense, Raiden's "origin" costume. Not literally, but in that I wanted something that would reflect what the Shinto religion says the "real" Raiden looks like since that's where the character's name comes from.
And Shinto says Raiden was a big ugly red demon who beats a drum to create thunder. So here's Raiden with red skin, a Japanese demon-esque face, and holding a big drumstick instead of his staff. I also changed his lightning effect from blue to yellow just to mix it up a bit.
For his clothes, I largely drew on his MKDA alt because I thought the giant samurai skirt-pants and long gloves went very well with the whole "Japanese demon" theme.
A couple of the elements, like samurai shoulder pads and the antler-crest on his hat, are designed to make him look slightly similar to Shao Kahn. Not noticeably so, but just to imply similarities between the characters because I think this demon-Raiden makes a good basis for where I'll take "Dark Raiden" from MKD in the future, and Dark Raiden was hinted as sort of "turning into the next Shao Kahn" in MKD.
MK2 Raiden primary - For MK2, I decided "Well the cat's out of the bag on Raiden's godhood, now he's gonna ditch the beggar disguise and go traditional." So I just straight up went with his classic/MK9 costume, complete with lightning crawling all over his body.
I particularly like how the MK9 buttoned shirt seems to match the shirt I had already drawn for Raiden in my MK1 design. I obviously drew my MK1 Raiden like a year before MK9 was announced, so I had no idea it would turn out that way, but it's pretty cool how things work out sometimes.
MK1 Sonya primary - Y'know, it's really just her MK1 outfit with camo pants and combat boots instead of silly spandex and hi-tops. But the devil's in the details, so here's the important ones:
I kept her hair shorter than the long ponytail she usually has in most games, because it was shorter in MK1 and in the concept art for Special Forces. The ponytail will grow out in MK3. I like to show aging or progression like that sometimes when it fits.
Obviously she has some decorative elements now like the dogtags and gun belt. The old west-y pistol belt was an idea I got from, again, Proce's concept art from a year or two back. I think it fits her character because canonically, Sonya is from Texas. 'Course, Proce's had a sheriff badge for the belt buckle, but I thought a Special Forces logo would fit there better.
Note that there's no gun in the belt, because her gun has been confiscated by Tsung's island guards.
In most of the modern games, there's a few costume details that they keep repeating on Sonya. I don't know if people always notice it...but for one, she always has two belts on her left thigh. I kept those and attached a big pocket for a gun or knife to them to give them a reason to be there. I also kept the hiked up thong from Deadly Alliance/Shaolin Monks. People complained about whether or not it fit her character, but y'know what? When you repeat something two games in a row (three if you count the tan line in vsDCU), I consider it a signature trait, and I like to keep the signature traits for continuity, not ignore them or throw them away. Plus I think of the thong as a callback to the black underwear-on-the-outside look her spandex had in the original MK1.
One major thing I added to Sonya is the little wired device on her wristband with the pink sparks. My idea is that Sonya doesn't have any training for chi powers yet in her backstory, so she uses a high-tech Special Forces sonic weapon to shoot her Pink Rings. This is the crude, prototype version, which is why it's bulky and has exposed wires.
One thing I didn't get to do with Sonya is, she also wears a little black choker with a gold ring in the center in some of the games, and I wanted to include it like I did the thong, but obviously I couldn't because it wouldn't go well with the dogtags and her alt is a turtleneck. It'll show up for sure when I do her MK3 outfit, though.
MK1 Sonya alt - This one's mostly inspired by the first scene in the movie where Sonya busts into a club in combat gear and starts shotgunning guys. I just kept to that idea of "combat gear" with all the belts and pouches, kept the sheriff belt from her primary, gave her the MK4 hat and a ponytail (which is kept a bit tiny to match the shortness of her hair), and switched the two belts on the thigh for one big belt lined with shotgun shells, like she wore in MK4. I stuck to olive green for the clothes because that's Sonya's color and I'm a big believer in the importance of color scheme staying consistent.
One noteworthy detail is her little wristbands are the same ones she wears in Deadly Alliance. In future costumes, I'm sure I'll use a version of that shape as the basis for her smaller, more refined Sonic Rings wrist device.
MK1 Ermac primary - Storywise, I wanted Ermac to look like he's trying to blend in, to be confused for all the other ninjas at the tournament, because he's a hidden character. He's not actually a competitor in the bracket, the only reason he's on the island is as a spy for Shao Kahn, just to observe and report.
I kept several of his now-trademark design traits like the facewraps, the gem in the center of his forehead which serves as his psychic "third eye", a shirt that buttons down the middle, more wraps on his hands, and the fact that he's the only ninja with sleeves.
I thought putting a loose hood like Scorpion's over top of his facewraps would give him a more "MK1" look. I also made him the only ninja to wear the shinguards from the original MK2 ninjas, because I think those guards, in red, have a look similar to Shao Kahn's armor, and Ermac is the character here who is very much "I'm a soldier in Kahn's army and nothing more".
For his mantle, originally I had drawn him with a very generic and boring one with a sort of movie-style smooth leather texture, which I wasn't satisfied with, but then Jax007 did an Ermac design that I thought was genius. He gave him clothes sewn together out of patchwork and that's such a great metaphor for Ermac's own origin as a man sewn together out of a patchwork of many souls, I had to use it myself (with his permission, of course.) It really makes Ermac stand apart from Scorp and Sub without looking so different from them that he can't be hiding his identity.
MK1 Ermac alt - Ermac's newer costumes in the games have had a sort of "Arabian" assassin flavor to them, so for his alt, I wanted to play that up a bit to make him more unique from the ninjas.
The main things that give it that flavor I think are the more of a turban look to his mask, with a loose veil, the long sash instead of a loincloth, and the baggy pants with cloth-wrapped feet. I think I was thinking of Assassin's Creed when I came up with that belted thing around his waist, but I'm not quite sure what it's meant to be other than cool looking, lol.
Also, I don't recall if I've said it yet, but I love logos. When a character has a logo, it makes their costume something that expresses who they are more specifically. For instance, anyone can wear a blue and black ninja outfit, and they're just a generic blue and black ninja. Even if you added a scar to their eye...people will think "Sub-Zero"...but you could still be anybody, really. But once you add the Lin Kuei logo to that blue costume, now it's set in stone who you're supposed to be, it's like wearing a name on your body.
Well, Ermac got a logo in Deception, it was a symbol on his back and the red seams on the front of his outfit were in the same shape too. It's sort of "Two letter E's back to back and turned to point up and down like sais". Who knows what exactly it's supposed to mean other than maybe "E for Ermac", but I like it, so I wanted to use it. Hence the two disks on the belts down his chest.
As for the mossy stone covering his arms, that's a callback to the fact that Ermac disguised himself as a Warrior Shrine statue in Shaolin Monks. I figure he probably did the same in my version. It's a good hiding spot. I dunno how he got inside a statue...though I guess he could make all that stone cling to himself with Telekinesis.
MK1 Goro primary - Uhh...it's Goro. It's what he always wears. I know there's an argument to be made that it's too simple and that they really detailed him up in MK9, but I'm just not feeling that one with all the belts and spikes, to be honest. Especially since the spiked shoulder pad feels like he's starting to rip off Kintaro.
A couple character details I want to specifically point out though are that, for one, I always make sure to draw Goro with little spikes on his forehead, because that's how John Tobias used to draw him, and because in the games, Sheeva has spikes on her forehead and Goro and Sheeva should match since they're the same breed. For another thing, I changed the yin yang on his belt. I replaced the dots with that red slashes shape. Basically, his yin yang looked like that in the movie, and I decided to use it because the Yin Yang is an Earth design, and I wanted him to have a version that looks like the Shokan invented it instead, since it's also seen on the flags in Kuatan Palace and everything.
MK1 Goro alt - The theme of Goro's alt is to show him as both a prince and as the General of Outworld's army.
So for the general side, I gave him armor based directly on Reiko's from Armageddon, since Reiko is the general in that game. Also note that I added a little spiked crest to the skull on his chest, to look more like Kahn's helmet and not step on Scorpion's toes in the skull logos department.
And for the prince side, I gave him a crown with the Shokan Yin Yang on it, the Shokan flag as his loincloth, and a big red cape like the one he wore in the MK1 comic. Also, he has the other Shokan logo, a stick figure of a four armed man (which first debuted in Deadly Alliance), as his belt buckle since he already has the yin yang on his costume twice. (counting the Kahn skull, that makes four logos in a line down the center of the dude's body. Too much? Maybe, but I like it.)
And as I mentioned under Liu, Goro's status as Champion of Mortal Kombat is also shown in this costume with the red headband as a hairtie and the title belt in his hand.
MK1 Shang Tsung primary - I just stuck to his MK1/Shaolin Monks costume exactly. I don't believe Old Shang needs any updating, he looks great already. I especially love the skirt hiding his feet, it makes him look cooler when he floats, like the Shadow Priests do, which fits because Shang IS a Shadow Priest. Very disappointed he wears pants and walks in MK9, but I digress.
Interesting piece of trivia, though: that katana at his hip? In the game, he was originally going to have a Fatality where he decapitates the opponent with it. It's a shame the bosses didn't get finishers, but at the same time, it would've been a shame for Shang's only finisher to not be stealing your soul. Still, I like the sword, it's decorative, it fits his "retired as an honored competitor from the tournament" theme.
MK1 Shang Tsung alt - Shang's alt falls under the "origin story" category. It's what he used to wear when he was young and fought in the tournament, according to the Official MK1 comic. Specifically, I drew from the graphically updated version of that outfit that was his Deadly Alliance alt.
The shapes on his pantlegs are intended to be a stylized version of a cobra, because Shang's outfits often have a snake motif. Fellow artists take note, the two primary rules to Shang Tsung character designs are he loves gold and he loves snakes. (And I haven't drawn Quan Chi yet, but while we're on the subject of sorcerers and animals, his stuff sometimes has a spider motif.)
I also changed up the magic in Shang's hands for his alt. The primary has a flaming skull in one hand and green soul-energy in the other. The alt has a screaming stolen soul in one hand and in the other, multicolored energy that's meant to represent two things: Shang's ability to copy the moves of anyone else with his sorcery when he morphs into them, and Shang's MK2 friendship where he made a rainbow, lol. I always liked that one.
MK2 Shang Tsung primary - Shang's MK2 costume is what it always was, his costume from the MK1 comic with the colors changed from red to black. I think it works from a story perspective because it makes sense that upon getting his youth back, he would immediately go back to wearing his old tournament duds, but the black looks better for him now because it expresses he's more evil and dangerous than ever. Also, the two bands around each arm are gone, which makes him look a bit less restricted and more able to flex his young, strong muscles again.
MK1 Reptile primary - Much like Ermac, Reptile's MK1 story has him NOT participating in the tournament. He's there to remain hidden and protect Shang Tsung as his bodyguard, and the fact that he's there should be kept secret from the fighters so if anyone does make a move against Shang, they'll never see Reptile stopping them coming. As such, Reptile is dressed for stealth and deception, he's trying to dress similar to Scorpion and Sub-Zero to blend in with the crowd, and he's disguising the color of his scales with his chameleon-powers, to look more like a human. (the moment they look at his feet, cover's blown, but you can't get shoes in three-toed Saurian size, lol)
I deliberately designed Reptile's clothing to look both the most generic and devoid of logos or identifying marks of all the ninjas, and the most underprivleged and ragged, very much like Scorpion but even moreso. The first helps with his stealth and the second demonstrates the poor treatment and disregard his masters show him. Reptile is the whipped dog of MK, after all.
Since each ninja has their own thing going on with the mantle: Scorp's is quilted, Sub's is embroidered with logos, and Ermac's is stitched patchwork, I did give Reptile one small element of uniqueness, the texture of his is tiny scales.
MK1 Reptile alt - Reptile's alt is designed to say "I am a monster who lives at the bottom of The Pit." He's showing his true colors, his clothes are made of rags scavenged from the dead bodies at the bottom of the pit (his bloody pants and karate belt are Ryu's from Street Fighter, lol), and he's got shoulder armor made from the skull of a Goro's Lair Oni, hence the little bits of rotting blue skin.
The red and white warpaint he's wearing in this outfit is intended to be a small reference to the movie version of Reptile. I hated that Reptile was a tiny creature who...merged with a magic statue or whatever that was supposed to be about, but I wanted to do something different with the character and I thought of those red and white stripes he had all over his body in the film and decided "that would work, but as warpaint" since he's not really striped.
MK2 Reptile primary- Shao Kahn has entered him into the MK2 tournament so Reptile no longer has reason to be in disguise or hide. Therefore, this costume is meant to represent him showing off his Zaterran heritage proudly. He's wearing armor that's specific to his reptilian people and their crude jungle society (note the turtle shell texture on the shoulders) and logos on his clothes like the claw-print ones from Shaolin Monks. The belt buckle with the entwined snakes has been in several games, but I believe first showed up in Deadly Alliance. It was a bitch to draw.
I kept the black gauze headwrap from MKSM though because Reptile is still the Outworld version of a ninja and remains dressed the part, and because I think this looks better on him than a hood and plated mask like the other ninjas wear. Plus, this allows him to use his spit and tongue without having to remove anything in the middle of the fight.
It's kinda interesting to note how all three ninjas so far in the MK2 cast shot are wearing shoulder pads that have exactly three circles on them. That was deliberate in Scorp and Sub's cases, but Reptile's just kinda came out that way 'cause they were there in Deadly Alliance.
MK1 Nimbus primary - Nimbus Terrafaux's appearance is drawn directly from the EGM hoax pictures he comes from. The pictures showed a black guy with a flattop and what I think looks like a "Lemmy beard", wearing a black gi with no shoes and boxing gloves. One picture showed him in Test Your Might and the other showed him doing a Fatality where he kicks the opponent's head off with a backflip.
For my version, all I did was give his gi yellow stripes and patches to look like Kobra's and suggest that maybe they come from the same dojo. Storywise, I added Nimbus to have a little more diversity, and moreso to have a character who would represent all the nameless, faceless guys who were invited to the MK tournament but have no superpowers and died during the bracket, because after all, MK1 is a deathmatch tourney and there were like 50 people invited, not just the seven you get to play as. Storywise, the seven main characters were playable because they're "the only survivors".
MK1 Nimbus alt - the main characters in MK1 were all based on stereotypes or characters from famous kung fu movies. Kano is the Terminator, Liu Kang is Bruce Lee, Johnny Cage is JCVD in Bloodsport, Raiden is Lightning from Big Trouble in Little China, et cetera. So for Nimbus, I wanted an alt that would suggest the tradition kept going, and what I settled on, since he's a black boxer, was an homage to Apollo Creed from the Rocky movies. I just changed the color scheme from red, white, and blue to Nimbus's colors of black, white, and yellow.
MK2 Kung Lao primary - It's his Shaolin Monks/MK9 outfit. I happen to think that's already a perfect upgrade from what he wore in MK2. Kung Lao's gimmick as a character is that he's extremely proud of his heritage and serious about honoring his ancestor's name with glory as a warrior, thus I think it behooves him to have such a costume that's very fancy and decorative, as opposed to the simple "blue robe with an apron over top" outfit he had in the original MK2. (Though I may do a version of the original too down the road as an alt.)
One thing I specifically did with it though was I used the shinguards from SM instead of the ones from MK9, because I thought the MK9 ones will look better on his MK3 costume when I draw that one. (trivia note: his MK9 shinguards are actually the same ones he wore in Deadly Alliance) I changed his loincloth a bit too, to end in prongs like a ribbon instead of just a flat rectangle. I think it adds just a slight touch of "proud and dressed like a champion" to him.
I also didn't think he needed bands around his biceps. Enough characters have them already. And I used the cute little rabbit from his Friendship as his character prop instead of trying to add a blue glow to his hat or make it look like he's spinning or teleporting. The bunny amuses me.
I do wish I was somehow able to draw his back though, 'cause the "Wu" symbol from his MK2 shirt really ought to be visible somewhere, but I couldn't find anywhere on the front of his body to put it that looked right. I thought about putting it on one side of his chest instead of the little lion-dragons, but that made his shirt seem too plain. Oh well. It'll definitely be visible on his MK3 costume.
MK2 Kitana primary - I really wanted something that would evoke her MK2 outfit without looking plain, particularly the way her gloves and boots were drawn with two black stripes at the tops in some of the comics. To get there, I sort of combined her MKDA costume (the one everyone always calls purple, but it's not, it's indigo), because of its elegance and the look of the fishnet areas, with Mileena's MK9 costume because I like the gloves and boots of that outfit as a basis for the three Outworld girls. I also gave her a loincloth instead of a swimsuit crotch because once, years and years ago, I saw some fan art of the ninja girls in their MK2 costumes where the only thing changed was loincloths draping down, and I've loved it and thought about it ever since because it made their outfits look like sexy evening gowns instead of swimsuits, which I thought improved them vastly.
This outfit is designed to heavily say "kunoichi", because to my eyes, Outworld culture looks VERY heavily like Feudal Japan, just more twisted and evil, and Kitana is an assassin in this Japan-esque culture. Hence, she is an Outworld ninja.
I went heavy on the fishnet motif because I've seen it used a lot on ninja girls in anime, but the net sections are also colored only partially see-thru like dark stockings because, after all, Kitana is the modest one. She shouldn't be showing too much skin. Her belt is designed to look like a geisha's obi to keep the oriental assassin theme going. That "two stripes" thing I mentioned, I created by giving her fan holster belts on her thighs, which is an idea I'd actually seen Jax007 do first and liked a lot. Her fans are the MKDA ones 'cause those are my favorite fan design (except with seven blades instead of five. I think the ones in the games look a bit flimsy 'cause there's too few.) and I intend to keep them exactly the same in every game. The kneepads are designed to match Mileena's, but where Mileena's symbol looks like it could be some sort of stylization of the letter M (perhaps Outworld alphabet?), Kitana's looks like a stylization of the letter K. Also, Kitana's kneepads are rounded, whereas Mileena's are spiked squares and Jade's will be diamond shaped.
The mask with the floral pattern is the one she wore in her other DA outfit, and I made sure to give Kitana a headband like she had in MK2 (but note that it doesn't look like a tiara like her MK9 one. In the old canon, Kitana's princess-ship is not something that was celebrated in Kahn's kingdom, her "father" treated her mostly as a warrior to kill people for him). I also gave her a Tifa from FF7-style ponytail because it keeps her hairstyle loose enough to look like it did in MK2, while at the same time recalling her many-segments ponytail from DA. Her hair hasn't grown out anywhere near that long yet, though. I don't think she should start looking like her mother until she's actually MET her mother as an adult, y'know? So it shouldn't be all crazy-long until after MK3. Note that her earrings are little fans and her eyes are brown as they are in most games. NOT blue like her costume. Some people are naturally drawn towards the idea of coloring a character's eyes to match their color scheme, but Kitana and Sub-Zero should have brown (at least until Sub's eyes start glowing from ice magic...)
Each of the three ninja girls will look like members of the same team and have uniform elements, but I wanted to personalize them down to the cloth by having a different unique texture to each. It might be hard to see on Kitana, but the same floral pattern that's on her mask and fan covers all the blue parts of her clothes to give it a sort of velvet fuzz texture, since she's the fancy princess one. The shade of blue in Kitana's costume was important to me too because I don't like the pastel blue they use in the games lately, it seems too weak and girly to me. So I've brought her back to the dark blue from the original MK2, but I tinted it towards indigo/purple to make her costume just slightly closer to matching Mileena's.
The ribbons on her arms and ankles are mostly just there to keep her gloves and boots from getting boring at the bottoms. The arm ones are slightly based on ones she had in vsDCU, but mainly inspired by a piece of fanart by Bleed, the guy who does all the MUGEN stuff. The ankle ones I put little bows on 'cause I thought it wouldn't hurt to have one little "girly" element somewhere, and because I saw the same thing on a drawing when I was researching female ninja characters to get inspiration, and liked the way they looked.
And yes, Kitana and Mileena fight in heels. At least they're not stilettos.
MK2 Baraka primary - Baraka's costume is just sort of a mishmash of things he's worn in previous games, all combined to create something that looks like an upgrade of his MK2 look.
First of all, note the head-spikes from Deception. I am not a fan of the idea of adding something to a character's anatomy and then forgetting it was there two or three games later, I don't get why they would do that. And besides, I like the look of them, they match well with the ones on his arms. Second, his eyes are a glassy black and red. They were red in the old Tobias art and hidden in shadow in his actual game sprites, which made some people think they were always solid black, so I went for a combination of the two that I think looks extremely creepy and cool. I've hated them being yellow lizard eyes ever since the first time you could see them in MK Gold. My Baraka also has forearms that are out of proportion and much longer than on a human, to help accomodate for having to sheathe his blades. And his skin has a mottled, freckly complexion, particularly on the chest, like he has in a couple of the past games (though to be honest, I can't tell if those spots are his skintone or if he's just walking around with the blood of his victims constantly splattered all over his chest. Either way is nice.)
He's got the MK9 version of his red and white tanktop because I like the Tarkatan skull logos a lot, though I have changed the textures a bit. The red trim is like rope and the shirt is made of thick, rough thread, I think it makes it look more rugged and primitive. I also changed the padding on the shoulders. The game has little studs in it, but I didn't want him to look too similar to the shoulder pads all the ninjas are wearing, so I replaced that instead with stitches to show how the shoulder part was crudely attached to the rest of the shirt. I also find that the shoulders being the color of the skirt-thing spreads out his color scheme better, whereas before, he was all white on top, all dark on bottom.
From the waist down, he's more or less his in vsDCU costume, with the color scheme changed to match MK2, though the spiked metal loincloth is based on the Shaolin Monks one. The padded skirt is meant to replace the weird white pockets his MK2 pants seemed to have, and I think I got the giant red rope holding it on from more fanart by Bleed. I specifically wanted the layers of red armor on the side of his shins because the original MK2 Baraka had red dashes on the shins of his pants a bit like Johnny Cage's, and I always thought that looked too manufactured and modern to fit an Outworlder so this armor creates the same "red dashes" look in a more appropriate way.
MK2 Mileena primary - Mileena is pretty much Kitana's costume in purple (not pink) with the modesty removed. Naturally, this works out with it looking a lot like her MK9 outfit, because like I said, I used MK9 Mileena as a basis for Kitana's gloves and boots when I drew her first. The unique texture of Mileena's outfit is "smooth and shiny", unlike the tiny pattern on Kitana's that makes it look fuzzy like velvet. Also, added the spikes motif to her mask and the striped areas of her gloves and boots.
I took specific care to make sure her hair and skin are the exact same color as her "twin sister", and her eyes are brown as well, though Mileena's hair is cut a bit shorter and her eyes have a jaundiced yellow look of disease to them instead of being bright yellow with slits like in MK9.
Her kneepads are the same square ones with spikes that she wears in Deception, though that weird symbol has been added (Again, I choose to think of it as the letter M in the Outworld alphabet). Like the ribbons on Kitana's wrists and ankles, Mileena has black gauze wrapped there like in MK Gold and big gold jewelry hoops like in her MKD alt. On her obi, Mileena has a little leather strap with buttons instead of a string tied to the gold hoop. She and her sister are both wearing eyeshadow in their colors, though Mileena's is darker. I also gave her a slutty pose to fit her "look at my body instead of my face" personality and added a sparkly magic effect to her sai, since her projectile move in the games shoots out magic laser sais.
Aaand that finally covers all the characters I've done so far. The end.
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4) NO SERIOUSLY, KUNG LAO!
Have ya checked the picture in the first post today?
1) KUNG LAO CONFIRMED FOR BRAWL
Check the first post, y'alls.
(I have also changed Scorp's shoes and Baraka's shirt like I said I would.)
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2)
jack4813 Wrote:
I am writing some fanfic, and I like to give a brief desription of what the chaacters are wearing. Could i use (more or less) some of your designs?
I am writing some fanfic, and I like to give a brief desription of what the chaacters are wearing. Could i use (more or less) some of your designs?
I don't see why not. Sure, go for it.
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3)
Grizzle Wrote:
you also mentioned that every piece of wardrobe has a history i don't know if it's asking for too much but i'd love to hear some of your notes on why you chose to design the characters the way you did and make up your own history for them.
you also mentioned that every piece of wardrobe has a history i don't know if it's asking for too much but i'd love to hear some of your notes on why you chose to design the characters the way you did and make up your own history for them.
Sure.
With the primary costumes, mind you, a lot of it comes from an intention to make sure what I've drawn them in still stays true the outfit they actually wore in the original game, just what it would look like with a lot more graphical detail and with elements from MKDA, MKD, MKSM, vsDCU, and MK9 costumes added in. Because the whole purpose of this project was to make the old games look more like the later games, to make the art styles from the 2D and 3D eras sync up with one another.
That's why you don't see me do any "original" designs with the primaries, it wouldn't be appropriate given my goal of creating "visual continuity".
But yeah, I do put a lot of thought into the reasons for their clothes and I'll share them now. With most characters' "first" costumes, the reason isn't as much story-based as it is just artistic choices designed to take their original outfit and make it better, but whenever a character changes their clothes from one game to the next, I definitely put some thought into the story reason for that.
Fair warning: this is going to be a very, very long read.
Prepare yourself for a horrifying wall of text.
No, seriously. I hope you've got like a whole hour to spare.
Alright, good luck and may God have mercy on your souls.
MK1 Kano primary - Obviously, I went in the same direction his MKDA alt and MKSM costume did when updating his MK1 look. People might ask "but why keep that costume? A white karate outfit doesn't even fit his character." Well, that's because most people think of Kano's character as a generic street thug. The truth is, Kano's origin is supposed to tie back to being a mercenary, a military-trained guerrilla fighter for hire. So going to a martial arts tournament in an outfit made for martial arts might not be entirely out of character for him, considering it's also covered with mercenary gear like weapons and utility belts.
Anyway, the few additions I made were a black dragon tattoo (which is much more elaborate than the simple black shapes he's gotten in the current gen games, 'cause that's what a real tattoo would look like, I would think. They tend to be very detailed and artistic, not just big filled in shapes.), a BD logo on his belt buckle, I grimed him up a bit with the bloodstained wraps around his hands, and I made his bandolier look like a cross between all the bandoliers he's worn before: the brown pockets one in MK1, the red box one in MK3, and the spiked shoulder armor from his vsDCU concept art.
And it was important to me to make sure facially he looked more like the MK1/DA Kano who's going bald, slicks his hair back, and only has stubble for a beard, because to me, it's that added aged look and sleaze factor that makes Kano look less like a generic thug and more like a BOSS of crime.
I also made sure to keep his knives as blue lightsabers like they were in the original MK1 and 3. I prefer sci-fi and fantasy elements over too much realism and Kano's one character that I think benefits from more tech in his arsenal.
The really big thing is I changed the big red box on his bandolier to a heart monitor. I noticed he had a tiny heart monitor on his hip in vsDCU, which probably has some connection to his cybernetics, and I've always been like "What the hell is that big red box even for?" So I decided to make the box into the monitor because it gives it a purpose.
MK1 Kano alt - There are a couple themes I like to stick to when it comes to alts. One is "origin story clothes", which you see with other characters, and another is "street clothes", which is where I went with Kano. And for his non-fighting duds, I wanted him to be dressed like a gangster, so I thought of things like Scarface and Miami Vice because it feels natural to me to think of throwbacks to the 80's when thinking of the mafia, and went with a leisure suit and big chain. But I gave him a red vest like he wore in the movie instead of a jacket, because I also like to sneak movie references in here and there when they don't intrude on or contradict anything.
MK1 Liu Kang primary - I decided to stick straight with his original MK1 costume, no frills, because to me, Liu Kang is a very humble character before he wins the tournament and besides, he's based on Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, and that's all Lee wore in the movie. I also made sure that he has shorter hair in this game than he has in all the others, because that's how it was in the first game and storywise, I wanted something that would show Liu has only recently left the safety of the monastery to train with the White Lotus and become a man of the world. Shaolin monks shave their heads, but it's been a while since Liu was just a simple member of the temple, and he's letting his go.
You can see in the MK1 comic that this outfit came with a matching chinese-style jacket that Liu takes off when he fights. I considered using that for his alt, but that would've been too similar to his primary, so I'm saving it for a later game.
I wanted to jazz up the picture since otherwise, a shirtless guy in black pants is boring, so I drew one of his dragon-headed fireballs swirling around him. I like the dragon theme of his moves because I feel like it represents his faith in the gods and the idea that his strength comes from his spiritual connection, since the Elder Gods look like dragons/the MK logo.
MK1 Liu Kang alt - Liu's alt fits one of those two alt costume themes I like, the "origin story" one. It shows him in the orange robes that traditional Shaolin Monks wear. I experimented with having him bald in this costume to go with the outfit, but it turns out that Liu with no hair at all really doesn't look anything like Liu Kang to me, it just made him look like "generic monk", and I didn't want to lose any sense of the characters' identities in their costumes.
MK2 Liu Kang primary - After winning the first tournament, Liu is now a bit more decorative. He's got a nice new pair of pants and some wrist armor for the tougher battles that lie ahead, but more importantly, because MK2 is a tournament and that means he'll be defending his title as champion, I have him wearing the "championship belt" from MKvsDCU. (Note that Liu won't be wearing the belt when I draw his MK3 costume because MK3 wasn't a tournament so he's not defending his title.)
He's also got the headband now. I've always thought the headband should have the story that it's the one the Great Kung Lao used to wear, and Goro took it from him as a trophy when he killed him, and when Liu beat Goro, Liu reclaimed the headband.
I telegraphed both those things in Goro's MK1 alt where he's got a red ribbon in his hair and holding the belt in hand, because at that time, Goro is the champion.
And of course I replaced the swirling fireball with his most famous and awesome finishing move, turning into a dragon, because this is the point where he first gains the ability to do so. As a side note, drawing smoke clouds like that one without them turning out as big ugly blobs of nothing is a huge pain in the ass. I have got to figure out a new way to represent mist before I get to drawing Smoke...
MK1 Scorpion primary - Scorpion is the only "ninja" in MK who's actually from a Japanese ninja clan. I wanted to make him look as traditional as possible while still retaining elements of his identity, so I went with a look very similar to his MKDA outfit, with the gigantic baggy pants and the loose fitting hood. He's of course got the cloth mask from the original MK1 costume as well.
To make him look different from the other ninjas and specifically "Scorpion"-y, I gave him skull kneepads because Scorpion always wears skulls somewhere on himself as his specific logo, and his is the only one of the ninja costumes that has that diamond quilting pattern. I consider that pattern a Scorpion trait only and not a Sub-Zero or Reptile one for some reason. Mainly I think what I like about it is that softer padding makes the Shirai Ryu look more poor and mundane than the Lin Kuei, who have more decorated clothes and fancier armor.
Also, when I draw Scorpion's eyes, I like to make sure they look like the very heavily shadowed ones with seemingly no eyebrows that he had in MK2, I think that captures his scary undead look the best. I also made sure to give him a wedding ring, 'cuz, y'know, important part of his backstory.
MK1 Scorpion alt - Like Liu, I went the "origin story" route with Scorpion, I wanted to make his body look like he's just been murdered by Sub-Zero. I took away all the armor to make his costume look even less like a spectre who can control his appearance and more like an un-fancy Shirai Ryu. I removed his head and replaced it with his Spectre flaming skull because Sub-Zero killed him by Spine Rip in Mythologies (Note that Sub-Zero's alt is even holding Scorpion's head/spine) and made his flesh a rotting, textured gray color with bloodstains around his decap'd neck and wedding ring hand.
Also note that this is the only costume where Scorpion's kunai has a rope tied to it. See, the whole reason he's named "Scorpion" is he's famous for using that weapon, which is like the stinger tail of a scorpion. Now, as a spectre, Scorpion can make the rope come out of his hand magically. When he was still human, though, he wouldn't have had that power, he'd have to carry around the rope.
I gave him a sword too because I thought that as a powerless human, he'd have more weaponry, but on a personal note, I don't like Scorpion using swords so much like he does now in the games, I don't think he needs them at all and should slash and stab with his kunai more since that is his trademark weapon.
I also wanted to make the costume look more different from his primary by giving it a different color scheme. A real ninja shouldn't wear bright yellow, he should have darker colors on, so I drew inspiration from the Vincent Proce fanart and went with a "black clothes splattered with something yellow" look.
I will say though that in my version, the yellow isn't demon blood, it's just some sort of yellow dye the Shirai Ryu use for autumn camoflage.
MK2 Scorpion primary - For MK2, I wanted to show that, having done the semi-evil act of getting his revenge on Sub-Zero, and spending more time in the Netherealm, Scorpion is becoming more Hellspawn than Ninja. I also wanted more elements of actual scorpions in his outfit.
I don't like that H.R. Giger "ugly black bio-armor on everything" style of art though, like the jagged plates Scorp has in MK9. So instead, my idea of "more Hellish" is "more Heavy Metal". So here his under-clothes are all tight black leather instead of baggy ninja pants and his arm armor's got more spikes, studs, and belts Shaolin Monks/Deadly Alliance-style. He's also wearing fingerless biker gloves. Especially note the ripped part of the glove where his ring finger is, and that the wedding ring has gotten a bit of a black, tainted stain on it. This represents that listening to Quan Chi and following the path of revenge is bad for Scorpion's soul and takes him further from being able to rest in peace with his family.
I also drew a lot of inspiration from his MKvsDCU outfit with the pointy shoulder pads and ribs-shaped armor because I've always thought that outfit looked like a graphical upgrade of his MK2 suit anyway, because it kept the diamond quilting.
I originally wanted him to have the logo of a scorpion somewhere like on his belt, like in vs DCU, but I couldn't make such an obnoxiously large belt buckle look right at a smaller size, so I decided to go with his MK9 belt instead. Also, I just changed the shoes to the MK9 ones because I like the sort of motif they have of spiked backbones or little segmented scorpion tails.
MK1 Johnny Cage primary - Johnny was the first character I ever redesigned, before I even had it in my head to do every single one. I always thought it was weird that he wore red in the first game and then suddenly switched to blue for every game after, so I wanted to draw him with a blue belt. Then I thought to add his name to his tights 'cause he's Johnny Cage, he'd personalize his stuff. Then I thought "well those slippers look silly, let's give him socks and tennis shoes like he wears in the other games".
Noting how similar his MK1 outfit is to his Deadly Alliance one, I tried a few variations of fancier armor on Johnny's arms. Eventually I decided it'd be cool looking if they were asymmetrical. One arm just has tape wrapped around it like a UFC fighter, the other has his spiked gauntlet from MK1. I also stuck a fingerless glove on his "Green Bolt throwing hand". It's not like he needs to worry about burning himself with his powers, but it seems stylish and Johnny's all about style.
MK1 Johnny Cage alt - Johnny's a street clothes kinda guy. I just pulled his suit straight out of the original MK1 comic because I thought "well he wears a black tux every damn game, let's do something slightly different from that." I like this one because I think the colors are tacky as hell and like to wonder what the hell Tobias was thinking when he colored it that way, but hey...it was the early 90's. Pastels were in. And that's Johnny for ya. Like I said, he's all about style...but that doesn't mean his style is good, lol.
Also note how in his alt, one of Johnny's Shadow-Balls is red. The red one will be different and random whenever I draw an alt of him 'cause that's how his moves worked in the olden days.
MK2 Johnny Cage primary - For Johnny's second go at this whole tournament thing, he's adopted a more "Cage-brand athletic-wear" look, hence the sweatbands on his wrists, the jogging pants, and the store-bought looking plastic shinguards.
Most games give Johnny's pants the white dashes up his legs, but those dashes didn't appear until MK4, so I didn't want to do that yet. (Dan Pesina did have the brand name "Otomix" in white letters on his MK2 pants in the original sprites, but that was edited out in the final version of the game.) Instead, I drew from his Shaolin Monks in-game model, which just had shiny blue stripes and a belt that made them look very much like long legged boxing trunks. I really liked the idea of that boxing trunks motif so I put his name on his belt in the "Everlast" font.
I also added the chest tattoo when his MK9 design debuted because I think having his own name on his chest is so wonderfully Johnny in style. I didn't go back and add to his MK1 design though because I thought it'd be cool to give it a story explanation.
See, after MK1, Johnny started making "based on a true story" movies about Mortal Kombat. He's now able to make a career out of playing himself. So I thought that because he's always playing the role of Johnny Cage, now he can have his own name on his body, whereas before, he couldn't get away with it because he was always playing other characters.
MK1 Sub-Zero primary - To me, the first Sub-Zero costume isn't the one from MK1, it's the one from Mythologies, because that's the prequel. So that's what I went with. One thing I wanted to do is make his clothes much "nicer" and more privileged looking than Scorp who's still dressing like a Feudal Japan ninja, so Sub's outfit is tight like spandex, his tabi boots are rubber soled instead of sandals, it looks like it's all been sewn specifically for him.
Another thing is I wanted his mantle to be very decorated with symbols because Sub's MK1 bio said that he could be identified as Lin Kuei by the markings on his uniform. So I did the stripes that Sub's tunic has in vsDCU, but I made them little Lin Kuei logos repeating over and over again instead of the sort of snowflake design he had there.
I also added some vsDCU elements to the armor just to make it look less plain and more personalized. But it was important to me that THIS Sub-Zero not wear any heavy metal or look too armored because it's Kuai Liang who wears armor in most of the games, not Bi-Han. So Bi-Han's armor is all blue plastic or some similar sort of lightweight material the modern, high-tech Lin Kuei would use.
The other thing I wanted to do with Bi-Han to separate him from his brother was put the ice on his arms. Kuai Liang gets the ice on his arms in Deadly Alliance because he's gotten more powerful from the Dragon Medallion...but I've always thought of him as less powerful than his brother before he got the medallion - not a lot less, only slightly, but enough that I'd want to show it visually, because Bi-Han was much later into his career and famous as the Lin Kuei's greatest warrior until he died. So I gave Bi-Han the iced-up arms to show how, even without the medallion, he's pretty powerful right now.
Also, I tried to draw his eyes thin and "Chinese looking". I think it comes across well enough.
And I put a spine in his hand 'cause I like every character to be posed using one of their special moves or showing some sort of personality, and Bi-Han was famous for the spine rip. I made the head belong to a Masked Guard 'cause I like them but didn't have any other place to draw 'em since they're not name-characters. Also, it's a very distinctive helmet design. You can tell right away when you look at it "that is definitely one of Shang's guards". I like that recognizability.
MK1 Sub-Zero alt - This was a tough concept to come up with, but what I eventually settled on was that I wanted some way to telegraph the Cyberninjas without using anything cyber. I wanted to show how the Lin Kuei is advancing in technology and takes a very modern approach to assassinations. So while Sub-Zero's primary is his "decorative" outfit, which he's wearing because he's at a tournament and it's good publicity for the Lin Kuei if a guy who looks obviously Lin Kuei goes in there and cleans house, this alt is what he might REALLY wear on stealth missions. It's very inspired by more "military" ninjas like Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe. It's darker, much less fancy or decorative, and has modern accouterments like night vision goggles, utility belts, a smoke bomb, the hood covers his whole face like a ski mask, etc.
I also gave him a sword 'cause, like I said, I had Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow in mind. Plus, it juxtaposes him from Scorpion, their swords even have different styled hilts.
MK2 Sub-Zero primary - First off, while obviously I keep the same pose for every character, in this case I wanted MK2 Sub-Zero to not be standing in the same pose or have the same face as MK1 Sub-Zero, because he's now Kuai Liang, not Bi-Han. When I do Noob Saibot, he'll be standing in the Bi-Han pose. And since I like the characters to have some sort of "prop" to show off, and spine ripping was more Bi-Han's thing, I went with "making an ice ball" for Kuai.
For Kuai Liang's first costume, I definitely wanted him to have two things: heavy metal armor, because that's a trait the character's costumes have all gained since the series went 3D, and simpler, less decorated cloth parts, because he's more of a rookie compared to his famous brother.
With the armor, it was important to have it, to me, because I see Kuai Liang as very "old fashioned" and caring about tradition, compared to his brother who is more about loyalty to the clan and therefore would stick closer to what the clan is doing as they modernize and upgrade to plastics and spandex.
People have pointed out that these personality traits were portrayed as being backwards in the original MK2 comic and Kuai was introduced dressed like a Hollywood agent, flying in a personal jet, handing out Lin Kuei business cards, and told Liu that his brother was the traditional one, but I have always thought that was an incredibly dumb idea and I'm pretty sure any sense of their personalities being that way was completely retconned away, because in all the games after MK2, where they're shown having personalities, Bi-Han is the super-loyal one while Kuai is the one who rejects cyborgs, and when he takes over the clan later, he makes everything in it super-old fashioned looking.
So anyway, I drew a lot from his MK9 outfit because it happened to fit all the things I was thinking of. I did change the armor though because I didn't want to use that "ogre faces" motif, which seems like it should be something only his MKD Cryomancer Armor has, but rather something more "Lin Kuei" style, so I used the shapes from the Mythologies armor again, but a bit more fancy. (Also, all those swirly face shapes would've been impossible to draw)
I did keep one ogre face on his belt, and the reason I did was I wanted something that would look like a "Sub-Zero family crest", and the Sub-Zero family is descended from the Cryomancers, so I thought maybe that's something that they'd have from their old culture, but what that face means has been lost to the ages. And when Sub discovers the Cryomancer tombs in MKD, maybe that'll be how he comes to understand that he's related to them, by recognizing the crest. (Bi-Han doesn't wear the crest, mind you, 'cause he doesn't care about his family as much as his bro does.)
I also wanted Sub-Zero to have a lot of elements that reflected things Scorpion is wearing, but in an "opposites" way instead of in a palette swap way. So now Scorp is the one in tight clothes and Sub-Zero is the baggy one, a reversal of their MK1 outfits. And while both have armor in the same places, Scorp's shoulder pads point up but Sub-Zero's curve down and Scorp's belt is concave shaped, but Sub's is convex shaped. A small touch nobody consciously noticed before I pointed it out, I'm sure, but I thought it was clever.
MK1 Raiden primary - My thought towards Raiden's personality and story in MK1 are largely based on Christopher Lambert in the movie. I always thought that for his entrance into the tournament and first meetings with the heroes, he'd want to sort of keep his godhood a secret, the way Yoda pretends to be a simple-minded native when Luke first meets him on Dagobah, to test how Luke treats him and how ready he is to learn. So I gave Raiden's costume sort of a "beggar's robes" look, with his long hair hanging out loose and everything...but the hint of his godhood is still there in the fact that his ropes are gold and under his robes is a decorative buttoned shirt.
I also downplayed the blue in his color scheme since he didn't wear any in MK1. I used that little "swirly clouds" texture in a very faint blue on his shawl, which is shaped like the one from Mythologies (two parts hang down from the belt instead of one loincloth like in the other games), because he had a similar texture on his clothes in Vincent Proce's fan art and I liked how it looked.
Also note, a very subtle touch: I actually keep very close track of the heights of the characters I draw, compared to one another. Raiden is the tallest non-monster, which matches his MK1 bio saying he's 7 feet tall.
MK1 Raiden alt - This is pretty much the most radical idea I had for any of the character designs and the reason I reached it is this: like I said, I like to go either "origin story" or "street clothes" on most alts...well this one is, in a sense, Raiden's "origin" costume. Not literally, but in that I wanted something that would reflect what the Shinto religion says the "real" Raiden looks like since that's where the character's name comes from.
And Shinto says Raiden was a big ugly red demon who beats a drum to create thunder. So here's Raiden with red skin, a Japanese demon-esque face, and holding a big drumstick instead of his staff. I also changed his lightning effect from blue to yellow just to mix it up a bit.
For his clothes, I largely drew on his MKDA alt because I thought the giant samurai skirt-pants and long gloves went very well with the whole "Japanese demon" theme.
A couple of the elements, like samurai shoulder pads and the antler-crest on his hat, are designed to make him look slightly similar to Shao Kahn. Not noticeably so, but just to imply similarities between the characters because I think this demon-Raiden makes a good basis for where I'll take "Dark Raiden" from MKD in the future, and Dark Raiden was hinted as sort of "turning into the next Shao Kahn" in MKD.
MK2 Raiden primary - For MK2, I decided "Well the cat's out of the bag on Raiden's godhood, now he's gonna ditch the beggar disguise and go traditional." So I just straight up went with his classic/MK9 costume, complete with lightning crawling all over his body.
I particularly like how the MK9 buttoned shirt seems to match the shirt I had already drawn for Raiden in my MK1 design. I obviously drew my MK1 Raiden like a year before MK9 was announced, so I had no idea it would turn out that way, but it's pretty cool how things work out sometimes.
MK1 Sonya primary - Y'know, it's really just her MK1 outfit with camo pants and combat boots instead of silly spandex and hi-tops. But the devil's in the details, so here's the important ones:
I kept her hair shorter than the long ponytail she usually has in most games, because it was shorter in MK1 and in the concept art for Special Forces. The ponytail will grow out in MK3. I like to show aging or progression like that sometimes when it fits.
Obviously she has some decorative elements now like the dogtags and gun belt. The old west-y pistol belt was an idea I got from, again, Proce's concept art from a year or two back. I think it fits her character because canonically, Sonya is from Texas. 'Course, Proce's had a sheriff badge for the belt buckle, but I thought a Special Forces logo would fit there better.
Note that there's no gun in the belt, because her gun has been confiscated by Tsung's island guards.
In most of the modern games, there's a few costume details that they keep repeating on Sonya. I don't know if people always notice it...but for one, she always has two belts on her left thigh. I kept those and attached a big pocket for a gun or knife to them to give them a reason to be there. I also kept the hiked up thong from Deadly Alliance/Shaolin Monks. People complained about whether or not it fit her character, but y'know what? When you repeat something two games in a row (three if you count the tan line in vsDCU), I consider it a signature trait, and I like to keep the signature traits for continuity, not ignore them or throw them away. Plus I think of the thong as a callback to the black underwear-on-the-outside look her spandex had in the original MK1.
One major thing I added to Sonya is the little wired device on her wristband with the pink sparks. My idea is that Sonya doesn't have any training for chi powers yet in her backstory, so she uses a high-tech Special Forces sonic weapon to shoot her Pink Rings. This is the crude, prototype version, which is why it's bulky and has exposed wires.
One thing I didn't get to do with Sonya is, she also wears a little black choker with a gold ring in the center in some of the games, and I wanted to include it like I did the thong, but obviously I couldn't because it wouldn't go well with the dogtags and her alt is a turtleneck. It'll show up for sure when I do her MK3 outfit, though.
MK1 Sonya alt - This one's mostly inspired by the first scene in the movie where Sonya busts into a club in combat gear and starts shotgunning guys. I just kept to that idea of "combat gear" with all the belts and pouches, kept the sheriff belt from her primary, gave her the MK4 hat and a ponytail (which is kept a bit tiny to match the shortness of her hair), and switched the two belts on the thigh for one big belt lined with shotgun shells, like she wore in MK4. I stuck to olive green for the clothes because that's Sonya's color and I'm a big believer in the importance of color scheme staying consistent.
One noteworthy detail is her little wristbands are the same ones she wears in Deadly Alliance. In future costumes, I'm sure I'll use a version of that shape as the basis for her smaller, more refined Sonic Rings wrist device.
MK1 Ermac primary - Storywise, I wanted Ermac to look like he's trying to blend in, to be confused for all the other ninjas at the tournament, because he's a hidden character. He's not actually a competitor in the bracket, the only reason he's on the island is as a spy for Shao Kahn, just to observe and report.
I kept several of his now-trademark design traits like the facewraps, the gem in the center of his forehead which serves as his psychic "third eye", a shirt that buttons down the middle, more wraps on his hands, and the fact that he's the only ninja with sleeves.
I thought putting a loose hood like Scorpion's over top of his facewraps would give him a more "MK1" look. I also made him the only ninja to wear the shinguards from the original MK2 ninjas, because I think those guards, in red, have a look similar to Shao Kahn's armor, and Ermac is the character here who is very much "I'm a soldier in Kahn's army and nothing more".
For his mantle, originally I had drawn him with a very generic and boring one with a sort of movie-style smooth leather texture, which I wasn't satisfied with, but then Jax007 did an Ermac design that I thought was genius. He gave him clothes sewn together out of patchwork and that's such a great metaphor for Ermac's own origin as a man sewn together out of a patchwork of many souls, I had to use it myself (with his permission, of course.) It really makes Ermac stand apart from Scorp and Sub without looking so different from them that he can't be hiding his identity.
MK1 Ermac alt - Ermac's newer costumes in the games have had a sort of "Arabian" assassin flavor to them, so for his alt, I wanted to play that up a bit to make him more unique from the ninjas.
The main things that give it that flavor I think are the more of a turban look to his mask, with a loose veil, the long sash instead of a loincloth, and the baggy pants with cloth-wrapped feet. I think I was thinking of Assassin's Creed when I came up with that belted thing around his waist, but I'm not quite sure what it's meant to be other than cool looking, lol.
Also, I don't recall if I've said it yet, but I love logos. When a character has a logo, it makes their costume something that expresses who they are more specifically. For instance, anyone can wear a blue and black ninja outfit, and they're just a generic blue and black ninja. Even if you added a scar to their eye...people will think "Sub-Zero"...but you could still be anybody, really. But once you add the Lin Kuei logo to that blue costume, now it's set in stone who you're supposed to be, it's like wearing a name on your body.
Well, Ermac got a logo in Deception, it was a symbol on his back and the red seams on the front of his outfit were in the same shape too. It's sort of "Two letter E's back to back and turned to point up and down like sais". Who knows what exactly it's supposed to mean other than maybe "E for Ermac", but I like it, so I wanted to use it. Hence the two disks on the belts down his chest.
As for the mossy stone covering his arms, that's a callback to the fact that Ermac disguised himself as a Warrior Shrine statue in Shaolin Monks. I figure he probably did the same in my version. It's a good hiding spot. I dunno how he got inside a statue...though I guess he could make all that stone cling to himself with Telekinesis.
MK1 Goro primary - Uhh...it's Goro. It's what he always wears. I know there's an argument to be made that it's too simple and that they really detailed him up in MK9, but I'm just not feeling that one with all the belts and spikes, to be honest. Especially since the spiked shoulder pad feels like he's starting to rip off Kintaro.
A couple character details I want to specifically point out though are that, for one, I always make sure to draw Goro with little spikes on his forehead, because that's how John Tobias used to draw him, and because in the games, Sheeva has spikes on her forehead and Goro and Sheeva should match since they're the same breed. For another thing, I changed the yin yang on his belt. I replaced the dots with that red slashes shape. Basically, his yin yang looked like that in the movie, and I decided to use it because the Yin Yang is an Earth design, and I wanted him to have a version that looks like the Shokan invented it instead, since it's also seen on the flags in Kuatan Palace and everything.
MK1 Goro alt - The theme of Goro's alt is to show him as both a prince and as the General of Outworld's army.
So for the general side, I gave him armor based directly on Reiko's from Armageddon, since Reiko is the general in that game. Also note that I added a little spiked crest to the skull on his chest, to look more like Kahn's helmet and not step on Scorpion's toes in the skull logos department.
And for the prince side, I gave him a crown with the Shokan Yin Yang on it, the Shokan flag as his loincloth, and a big red cape like the one he wore in the MK1 comic. Also, he has the other Shokan logo, a stick figure of a four armed man (which first debuted in Deadly Alliance), as his belt buckle since he already has the yin yang on his costume twice. (counting the Kahn skull, that makes four logos in a line down the center of the dude's body. Too much? Maybe, but I like it.)
And as I mentioned under Liu, Goro's status as Champion of Mortal Kombat is also shown in this costume with the red headband as a hairtie and the title belt in his hand.
MK1 Shang Tsung primary - I just stuck to his MK1/Shaolin Monks costume exactly. I don't believe Old Shang needs any updating, he looks great already. I especially love the skirt hiding his feet, it makes him look cooler when he floats, like the Shadow Priests do, which fits because Shang IS a Shadow Priest. Very disappointed he wears pants and walks in MK9, but I digress.
Interesting piece of trivia, though: that katana at his hip? In the game, he was originally going to have a Fatality where he decapitates the opponent with it. It's a shame the bosses didn't get finishers, but at the same time, it would've been a shame for Shang's only finisher to not be stealing your soul. Still, I like the sword, it's decorative, it fits his "retired as an honored competitor from the tournament" theme.
MK1 Shang Tsung alt - Shang's alt falls under the "origin story" category. It's what he used to wear when he was young and fought in the tournament, according to the Official MK1 comic. Specifically, I drew from the graphically updated version of that outfit that was his Deadly Alliance alt.
The shapes on his pantlegs are intended to be a stylized version of a cobra, because Shang's outfits often have a snake motif. Fellow artists take note, the two primary rules to Shang Tsung character designs are he loves gold and he loves snakes. (And I haven't drawn Quan Chi yet, but while we're on the subject of sorcerers and animals, his stuff sometimes has a spider motif.)
I also changed up the magic in Shang's hands for his alt. The primary has a flaming skull in one hand and green soul-energy in the other. The alt has a screaming stolen soul in one hand and in the other, multicolored energy that's meant to represent two things: Shang's ability to copy the moves of anyone else with his sorcery when he morphs into them, and Shang's MK2 friendship where he made a rainbow, lol. I always liked that one.
MK2 Shang Tsung primary - Shang's MK2 costume is what it always was, his costume from the MK1 comic with the colors changed from red to black. I think it works from a story perspective because it makes sense that upon getting his youth back, he would immediately go back to wearing his old tournament duds, but the black looks better for him now because it expresses he's more evil and dangerous than ever. Also, the two bands around each arm are gone, which makes him look a bit less restricted and more able to flex his young, strong muscles again.
MK1 Reptile primary - Much like Ermac, Reptile's MK1 story has him NOT participating in the tournament. He's there to remain hidden and protect Shang Tsung as his bodyguard, and the fact that he's there should be kept secret from the fighters so if anyone does make a move against Shang, they'll never see Reptile stopping them coming. As such, Reptile is dressed for stealth and deception, he's trying to dress similar to Scorpion and Sub-Zero to blend in with the crowd, and he's disguising the color of his scales with his chameleon-powers, to look more like a human. (the moment they look at his feet, cover's blown, but you can't get shoes in three-toed Saurian size, lol)
I deliberately designed Reptile's clothing to look both the most generic and devoid of logos or identifying marks of all the ninjas, and the most underprivleged and ragged, very much like Scorpion but even moreso. The first helps with his stealth and the second demonstrates the poor treatment and disregard his masters show him. Reptile is the whipped dog of MK, after all.
Since each ninja has their own thing going on with the mantle: Scorp's is quilted, Sub's is embroidered with logos, and Ermac's is stitched patchwork, I did give Reptile one small element of uniqueness, the texture of his is tiny scales.
MK1 Reptile alt - Reptile's alt is designed to say "I am a monster who lives at the bottom of The Pit." He's showing his true colors, his clothes are made of rags scavenged from the dead bodies at the bottom of the pit (his bloody pants and karate belt are Ryu's from Street Fighter, lol), and he's got shoulder armor made from the skull of a Goro's Lair Oni, hence the little bits of rotting blue skin.
The red and white warpaint he's wearing in this outfit is intended to be a small reference to the movie version of Reptile. I hated that Reptile was a tiny creature who...merged with a magic statue or whatever that was supposed to be about, but I wanted to do something different with the character and I thought of those red and white stripes he had all over his body in the film and decided "that would work, but as warpaint" since he's not really striped.
MK2 Reptile primary- Shao Kahn has entered him into the MK2 tournament so Reptile no longer has reason to be in disguise or hide. Therefore, this costume is meant to represent him showing off his Zaterran heritage proudly. He's wearing armor that's specific to his reptilian people and their crude jungle society (note the turtle shell texture on the shoulders) and logos on his clothes like the claw-print ones from Shaolin Monks. The belt buckle with the entwined snakes has been in several games, but I believe first showed up in Deadly Alliance. It was a bitch to draw.
I kept the black gauze headwrap from MKSM though because Reptile is still the Outworld version of a ninja and remains dressed the part, and because I think this looks better on him than a hood and plated mask like the other ninjas wear. Plus, this allows him to use his spit and tongue without having to remove anything in the middle of the fight.
It's kinda interesting to note how all three ninjas so far in the MK2 cast shot are wearing shoulder pads that have exactly three circles on them. That was deliberate in Scorp and Sub's cases, but Reptile's just kinda came out that way 'cause they were there in Deadly Alliance.
MK1 Nimbus primary - Nimbus Terrafaux's appearance is drawn directly from the EGM hoax pictures he comes from. The pictures showed a black guy with a flattop and what I think looks like a "Lemmy beard", wearing a black gi with no shoes and boxing gloves. One picture showed him in Test Your Might and the other showed him doing a Fatality where he kicks the opponent's head off with a backflip.
For my version, all I did was give his gi yellow stripes and patches to look like Kobra's and suggest that maybe they come from the same dojo. Storywise, I added Nimbus to have a little more diversity, and moreso to have a character who would represent all the nameless, faceless guys who were invited to the MK tournament but have no superpowers and died during the bracket, because after all, MK1 is a deathmatch tourney and there were like 50 people invited, not just the seven you get to play as. Storywise, the seven main characters were playable because they're "the only survivors".
MK1 Nimbus alt - the main characters in MK1 were all based on stereotypes or characters from famous kung fu movies. Kano is the Terminator, Liu Kang is Bruce Lee, Johnny Cage is JCVD in Bloodsport, Raiden is Lightning from Big Trouble in Little China, et cetera. So for Nimbus, I wanted an alt that would suggest the tradition kept going, and what I settled on, since he's a black boxer, was an homage to Apollo Creed from the Rocky movies. I just changed the color scheme from red, white, and blue to Nimbus's colors of black, white, and yellow.
MK2 Kung Lao primary - It's his Shaolin Monks/MK9 outfit. I happen to think that's already a perfect upgrade from what he wore in MK2. Kung Lao's gimmick as a character is that he's extremely proud of his heritage and serious about honoring his ancestor's name with glory as a warrior, thus I think it behooves him to have such a costume that's very fancy and decorative, as opposed to the simple "blue robe with an apron over top" outfit he had in the original MK2. (Though I may do a version of the original too down the road as an alt.)
One thing I specifically did with it though was I used the shinguards from SM instead of the ones from MK9, because I thought the MK9 ones will look better on his MK3 costume when I draw that one. (trivia note: his MK9 shinguards are actually the same ones he wore in Deadly Alliance) I changed his loincloth a bit too, to end in prongs like a ribbon instead of just a flat rectangle. I think it adds just a slight touch of "proud and dressed like a champion" to him.
I also didn't think he needed bands around his biceps. Enough characters have them already. And I used the cute little rabbit from his Friendship as his character prop instead of trying to add a blue glow to his hat or make it look like he's spinning or teleporting. The bunny amuses me.
I do wish I was somehow able to draw his back though, 'cause the "Wu" symbol from his MK2 shirt really ought to be visible somewhere, but I couldn't find anywhere on the front of his body to put it that looked right. I thought about putting it on one side of his chest instead of the little lion-dragons, but that made his shirt seem too plain. Oh well. It'll definitely be visible on his MK3 costume.
MK2 Kitana primary - I really wanted something that would evoke her MK2 outfit without looking plain, particularly the way her gloves and boots were drawn with two black stripes at the tops in some of the comics. To get there, I sort of combined her MKDA costume (the one everyone always calls purple, but it's not, it's indigo), because of its elegance and the look of the fishnet areas, with Mileena's MK9 costume because I like the gloves and boots of that outfit as a basis for the three Outworld girls. I also gave her a loincloth instead of a swimsuit crotch because once, years and years ago, I saw some fan art of the ninja girls in their MK2 costumes where the only thing changed was loincloths draping down, and I've loved it and thought about it ever since because it made their outfits look like sexy evening gowns instead of swimsuits, which I thought improved them vastly.
This outfit is designed to heavily say "kunoichi", because to my eyes, Outworld culture looks VERY heavily like Feudal Japan, just more twisted and evil, and Kitana is an assassin in this Japan-esque culture. Hence, she is an Outworld ninja.
I went heavy on the fishnet motif because I've seen it used a lot on ninja girls in anime, but the net sections are also colored only partially see-thru like dark stockings because, after all, Kitana is the modest one. She shouldn't be showing too much skin. Her belt is designed to look like a geisha's obi to keep the oriental assassin theme going. That "two stripes" thing I mentioned, I created by giving her fan holster belts on her thighs, which is an idea I'd actually seen Jax007 do first and liked a lot. Her fans are the MKDA ones 'cause those are my favorite fan design (except with seven blades instead of five. I think the ones in the games look a bit flimsy 'cause there's too few.) and I intend to keep them exactly the same in every game. The kneepads are designed to match Mileena's, but where Mileena's symbol looks like it could be some sort of stylization of the letter M (perhaps Outworld alphabet?), Kitana's looks like a stylization of the letter K. Also, Kitana's kneepads are rounded, whereas Mileena's are spiked squares and Jade's will be diamond shaped.
The mask with the floral pattern is the one she wore in her other DA outfit, and I made sure to give Kitana a headband like she had in MK2 (but note that it doesn't look like a tiara like her MK9 one. In the old canon, Kitana's princess-ship is not something that was celebrated in Kahn's kingdom, her "father" treated her mostly as a warrior to kill people for him). I also gave her a Tifa from FF7-style ponytail because it keeps her hairstyle loose enough to look like it did in MK2, while at the same time recalling her many-segments ponytail from DA. Her hair hasn't grown out anywhere near that long yet, though. I don't think she should start looking like her mother until she's actually MET her mother as an adult, y'know? So it shouldn't be all crazy-long until after MK3. Note that her earrings are little fans and her eyes are brown as they are in most games. NOT blue like her costume. Some people are naturally drawn towards the idea of coloring a character's eyes to match their color scheme, but Kitana and Sub-Zero should have brown (at least until Sub's eyes start glowing from ice magic...)
Each of the three ninja girls will look like members of the same team and have uniform elements, but I wanted to personalize them down to the cloth by having a different unique texture to each. It might be hard to see on Kitana, but the same floral pattern that's on her mask and fan covers all the blue parts of her clothes to give it a sort of velvet fuzz texture, since she's the fancy princess one. The shade of blue in Kitana's costume was important to me too because I don't like the pastel blue they use in the games lately, it seems too weak and girly to me. So I've brought her back to the dark blue from the original MK2, but I tinted it towards indigo/purple to make her costume just slightly closer to matching Mileena's.
The ribbons on her arms and ankles are mostly just there to keep her gloves and boots from getting boring at the bottoms. The arm ones are slightly based on ones she had in vsDCU, but mainly inspired by a piece of fanart by Bleed, the guy who does all the MUGEN stuff. The ankle ones I put little bows on 'cause I thought it wouldn't hurt to have one little "girly" element somewhere, and because I saw the same thing on a drawing when I was researching female ninja characters to get inspiration, and liked the way they looked.
And yes, Kitana and Mileena fight in heels. At least they're not stilettos.
MK2 Baraka primary - Baraka's costume is just sort of a mishmash of things he's worn in previous games, all combined to create something that looks like an upgrade of his MK2 look.
First of all, note the head-spikes from Deception. I am not a fan of the idea of adding something to a character's anatomy and then forgetting it was there two or three games later, I don't get why they would do that. And besides, I like the look of them, they match well with the ones on his arms. Second, his eyes are a glassy black and red. They were red in the old Tobias art and hidden in shadow in his actual game sprites, which made some people think they were always solid black, so I went for a combination of the two that I think looks extremely creepy and cool. I've hated them being yellow lizard eyes ever since the first time you could see them in MK Gold. My Baraka also has forearms that are out of proportion and much longer than on a human, to help accomodate for having to sheathe his blades. And his skin has a mottled, freckly complexion, particularly on the chest, like he has in a couple of the past games (though to be honest, I can't tell if those spots are his skintone or if he's just walking around with the blood of his victims constantly splattered all over his chest. Either way is nice.)
He's got the MK9 version of his red and white tanktop because I like the Tarkatan skull logos a lot, though I have changed the textures a bit. The red trim is like rope and the shirt is made of thick, rough thread, I think it makes it look more rugged and primitive. I also changed the padding on the shoulders. The game has little studs in it, but I didn't want him to look too similar to the shoulder pads all the ninjas are wearing, so I replaced that instead with stitches to show how the shoulder part was crudely attached to the rest of the shirt. I also find that the shoulders being the color of the skirt-thing spreads out his color scheme better, whereas before, he was all white on top, all dark on bottom.
From the waist down, he's more or less his in vsDCU costume, with the color scheme changed to match MK2, though the spiked metal loincloth is based on the Shaolin Monks one. The padded skirt is meant to replace the weird white pockets his MK2 pants seemed to have, and I think I got the giant red rope holding it on from more fanart by Bleed. I specifically wanted the layers of red armor on the side of his shins because the original MK2 Baraka had red dashes on the shins of his pants a bit like Johnny Cage's, and I always thought that looked too manufactured and modern to fit an Outworlder so this armor creates the same "red dashes" look in a more appropriate way.
MK2 Mileena primary - Mileena is pretty much Kitana's costume in purple (not pink) with the modesty removed. Naturally, this works out with it looking a lot like her MK9 outfit, because like I said, I used MK9 Mileena as a basis for Kitana's gloves and boots when I drew her first. The unique texture of Mileena's outfit is "smooth and shiny", unlike the tiny pattern on Kitana's that makes it look fuzzy like velvet. Also, added the spikes motif to her mask and the striped areas of her gloves and boots.
I took specific care to make sure her hair and skin are the exact same color as her "twin sister", and her eyes are brown as well, though Mileena's hair is cut a bit shorter and her eyes have a jaundiced yellow look of disease to them instead of being bright yellow with slits like in MK9.
Her kneepads are the same square ones with spikes that she wears in Deception, though that weird symbol has been added (Again, I choose to think of it as the letter M in the Outworld alphabet). Like the ribbons on Kitana's wrists and ankles, Mileena has black gauze wrapped there like in MK Gold and big gold jewelry hoops like in her MKD alt. On her obi, Mileena has a little leather strap with buttons instead of a string tied to the gold hoop. She and her sister are both wearing eyeshadow in their colors, though Mileena's is darker. I also gave her a slutty pose to fit her "look at my body instead of my face" personality and added a sparkly magic effect to her sai, since her projectile move in the games shoots out magic laser sais.
Aaand that finally covers all the characters I've done so far. The end.
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4) NO SERIOUSLY, KUNG LAO!
Have ya checked the picture in the first post today?
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Yay, new art! Aww, Kung Lao got his cute little bunny with him. ^^
About Me
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So just out of curiousity, after I finish Jax, who does everybody want to see me do next, Smoke, Jade, Noob, Kintaro, or Kahn?
(Gee, I wonder who J-R will vote for...
)
(Gee, I wonder who J-R will vote for...
About Me
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I'd like Noob, if not him then Smoke.
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Noob Saibot, please.
Are you doing these for MK4 and on as well?
If so, which one will Sareena be in?
Are you doing these for MK4 and on as well?
If so, which one will Sareena be in?
About Me
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Spider804 Wrote:
Are you doing these for MK4 and on as well?
If so, which one will Sareena be in?
Are you doing these for MK4 and on as well?
If so, which one will Sareena be in?
Yes I am and maybe she will, I'd have to think of a story reason for it.
My current plan is that MK4 will be the first time I branch out from strictly sticking to the roster of the game and into fan-fiction territory, adding more to the characters/canon. The reason being that more than anywhere else in the series, MK4 is the game that needs more meat on the bone.
I'm going to make Belokk because he's the "Nimbus Terrafaux" of that game, of course. But beyond that, I'm actually going to add Kabal and Mavado, to expand Jarek's story a bit and make him a more worthwhile character, and also because continuity-wise, Kabal and Mavado need to meet each other and fight before Deadly Alliance so I figured adding them to MK4 would be a good chance to do that. And maybe Sindel too, since the whole plot revolves around the villains conquering Edenia and I have an idea for her that relates to that.
I'd also like to add Cyber-Smoke, but I'm not sure how to get around the whole "stuck in a dungeon" thing to do so.
Other than that, I doubt I'll include anybody else, but I love Sareena and she does closely relate to the villains of MK4, so making her fit might not be out of the question.
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RazorsEdge701 Wrote:
So just out of curiousity, after I finish Jax, who does everybody want to see me do next, Smoke, Jade, Noob, Kintaro, or Kahn?
(Gee, I wonder who J-R will vote for...)
So just out of curiousity, after I finish Jax, who does everybody want to see me do next, Smoke, Jade, Noob, Kintaro, or Kahn?
(Gee, I wonder who J-R will vote for...
*clears throat and breathes in*
JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADE!!!
*takes a bow*
Thank you. ^^
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Awesome.
I wish Stryker was in more games before MKA.
I anticipate your redesign. Wait, will they be the original versions or the updates? MK3/UMK3/MKT, MK4/MKG etc.
I wish Stryker was in more games before MKA.
I anticipate your redesign.
About Me
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My MK3 is the Trilogy roster, my MK4 is Gold's. I always pick the one that's most canon.
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Awesome. And, shit. That's gonna be quite a wait. 
About Me
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Spider804 Wrote:
That's gonna be quite a wait.
That's gonna be quite a wait.
At my pace? At least two years from now before I get to MK4, yes.
So anyway, 2 votes for Noob Saibot, 1 for Jade.
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I can wait that long. I think. XD
Still doing Skarlet, Blaze, and Hornbuckle for this?
Still doing Skarlet, Blaze, and Hornbuckle for this?
About Me
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Spider804 Wrote:
Still doing Skarlet, Blaze, and Hornbuckle for this?
Still doing Skarlet, Blaze, and Hornbuckle for this?
Yessir.
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Excellent.
And now I'm gonna set an hour aside to read the longass post up the page. Excuse me.
And now I'm gonna set an hour aside to read the longass post up the page. Excuse me.
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Jade please ) Then Smoke )
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Woot, I remember the MK1cast thread for long ago, forgot all about until I saw it again, which in turn led me here.
Awesome work Razor, look forward to seeing more :)
Tell me, would you be willing to take on commissions one day? I'd love to see you work this sort of magic on my own roster of original characters
Awesome work Razor, look forward to seeing more :)
Tell me, would you be willing to take on commissions one day? I'd love to see you work this sort of magic on my own roster of original characters
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RazorsEdge701 Wrote:
An awesome wall of text.
An awesome wall of text.
God had Mercy on my soul, and that was one of the best things I've ever read in my entire life. Keep up the awesome work, my man!
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