Awesomeness. I love Smoke's Leg Armor the most, and the Kusarigama with the spear is really fitting. Interesting how his arms are covered, unlike his counterpart ninja.

Also great that only a ponytail is showing instead of that ridiculous hair.
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Jade looks the best of all the ninjettes, and I lover her hair with the gold ring in it. She looks more exotic compared to them, and I can't wait to see JR's reaction. Lol.

Wow! I'm speechless on Jade's and Smoke's designs. Simply beautiful and amazing my man! I can't wait to see Noob, Kintaro and Shao Kahn.

That is some mighty fine work. Great detail.

Maybe it's my computer, but it's not letting me see the art, it keeep showing a red x when I click on the link to view them, hopefully when I restart my computer I'll be able to see them.

I really love Kung Lao. It looks exactly like MK9's, which I loved.

I like the new designs. They're true to the characters' original designs, but with your own, modern take on them. The colors and the amount of details did not go unnoticed. The touches of shading that you did, on some of the characters, here and there really highlight your talent.

My only complaint is Smoke's weapon. The kusari-gama is Japanese, and does not (as far as I can tell) have a Chinese equivalent. And the Lin Kuei are Chiense – shouldn't Smoke have a Chinese weapon?

I think it's there since it references the spear without stealing Scorpion's weapon.

Loving them. Been waiting to see some good fan art pop up for ages now and I like this a lot. Mileena's outift is incredible and I'd love to see something like that emerge in the game.

The only thing I can really comment on about Jade's appearance is that there seems to be too much fabric on her. I get the MK9 Refferences and I like them, but I think the fabric coming off her hips kinda overdoes it. It's still a beautiful drawing but it does look like she's very restricted with the hip fabric, especially since she does have a few gold rings on her costume that already create a binding effect. Leaving it with just the single sash down the middle would have been perfect, or even better have another set of chains going around her hips instead of the fabric.

Great job all around on the characters, but I guess I should focus on the two new additions of Smoke and Jade.

I'll start with Jade.

Overall I can't find anything really wrong with the costume. It all seems to be well designed and looks like it belongs on the character. Maybe she's got a few too many sashes around her feet that she might get caught up on, but aside from that I think it's a great look that's inspired by a cross section of her MKD and MK9 outfits.

Now then on to Smoke...

Aside from the mask it's probably one of my favorite interpretations of the character that I've seen on this site. If I could have this look along with his armored alt in MK9 as selectable choices I certainly wouldn't be disappointed. And I think the reason why is because this look still uses some of the stuff that's established in his default that I also like, but it feels more traditional. The best part is that you even managed to capture a part of his Shaolin Monks look, a design that I've always hated for the character and made it work. My only problem is with the two air filters on the mask. I get it, he's Smoke, let's give him some kind of gas mask, but it just makes me think he went down to the nearest hobby supply store and picked it off the shelf. I think that is the one instance where I'd prefer the version he has from his MK9 default. I liked the flow of it, and the side vented design more. That's just me though. Also, with this design, I can totally hear Smoke's current voice saying "Where there is smoke, there is fire." Despite you not being a fan of his voice as far as I can remember, you made an outfit that fits that tone to a t.

The kusari-gama is a nice touch because it references Scorpion's spear, it seems like a popular weapon for him, but now that he's got a sweet set of his own moves and powers, I think we can move past it.

Takeda was Japanese, Cyrax is African, Smoke is Eastern-European, the Sub-Zeros are half-American.

The Lin Kuei are headquartered in China. They started in China. But they are not Chinese-exclusive. There is no point to national pride or border adherence in a global organization.
And MK's set in the present day, there's no reason for a person to be limited only to weapons that were invented in their homeland hundreds of years ago. Not that culture would be important to Smoke, being an orphan who considers the clan his family, but if you did start bringing that sort of thing into it, wouldn't it be easier for a Czech in China to learn a Japanese weapon than it is for a person from an entire other planet to have sais or tessens? Furthermore, since the kusarigama is famous as a ninja weapon and canonically, all of Ninjutsu is techniques invented by and stolen from the Lin Kuei, my ass is sufficiently covered.

This is fan-fucking-tastic!!! 5/5
One thing though.

Did you intentionally not include Jade's bojitsu staff,or is it just because she didn't use it in MK2?

Regarding Smoke though,I agree with someone about his mask with gas holes being too weird. And why did you cover his arms rather have them bare?
And why did you not include Lin Kuei symbols on Smoke's attire?(that pentagram looking symbol like in Kuai Liang's attire,yup)

Other than that it is great. Waiting impatiently for Noob,Shao Kahn and Kintaro.Do we have chance seeing Skarlet too?

There's one on his belt buckle. It's partially covered up by the handle of his sickle but it's there.

And yes, I'll be doing Skarlet. Also Blaze and Hornbuckle.
As for the rest of your questions, I'll cover them shortly. I'm about to write up a post of artist commentary for every character I've done so far (most of which will be copied over from the previous thread, but the Smoke and Jade comments will of course be new).

Oh,sorry,didn't see the symbol first time,it is there,it is just I am butt-hurt about little things

Impatiently waiting for that artist description character by character that you did in your previous ones,kinda want to refresh my memories about your style. And looking forward for Smoke's and Jade's.

Artist's Commentary

Kano: MK1 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 crimeboss.

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.


Kano: MK1 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.


Liu Kang: MK1 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.


Liu Kang: MK1 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.


Liu Kang: MK2 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.


Scorpion: MK1 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.


Scorpion: MK1 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 some of the armor and/or made it look cheaper, 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 and whip it around like a ropedart, since that is his trademark weapon. So if this were a game I was making, the sword would just be a decorative costume element.

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.


Scorpion: MK2 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" style of art though, like the jagged plates Scorp has in MK9. My idea of Hell is sorta "heavy metal" and bondage-y (which meshes pretty well with the way the BotS members dress, particularly in Mythologies), not xenomorphs and cancerous growths. 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 could be some of Bi-Han's blood that won't wipe clean, or it could just be some of that demonic look spreading over his clothes, but it 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 vsDCU, 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 went with the shoes of his MK9 primary because I like the sort of motif they have of spiked backbones or little segmented scorpion tails.


Johnny Cage: MK1 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.


Johnny Cage: MK1 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 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.


Johnny Cage: MK2 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.


Sub-Zero: MK1 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 interesting. 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 end result looks somewhat plain compared to Kuai...which fits the idea of an MK1 costume, they're all more plain than the ones in the sequels...but it also has to make justified sense from a story point of view, and in this case I think it does fit Bi-Han's character as a very simple, unemotional, unattached man concerned only with loyalty, to have a very un-personalized, standard Lin Kuei uniform - albeit with the tunic markings because he's a high-ranked member, since Sub-Zero is said to be the single best warrior in the clan at the time of MKM/MK1.

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.


Sub-Zero: MK1 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 accoutrements 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.


Sub-Zero: MK2 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 this 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 reversed in the original MK2 comic, 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 old-fashioned and behind the times, 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 who doesn't concern himself with the past or other people much, while Kuai is the nostalgic one who cares about his family and legacy, rejects becoming technological, 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 was first seen on his Deception armor and therefore seems like it should be a theme that belongs to the Cryomancer race only, which Sub obviously doesn't discover for a long while yet. Instead, I wanted something Lin Kuei-specific, 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.


Raiden: MK1 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 see if he's a good person 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.


Raiden: MK1 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.


Raiden: MK2 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. (Though obviously, I chose not to include the little medallion he wears in 9 because it's a dumb plot device invented for the reboot timeline and he never wore it any any game before so he doesn't wear it in mine.)

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.

Sonya: MK1 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. 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.


Sonya: MK1 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.


Ermac: MK1 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, or perhaps to try to assassinate humans who win too much.

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 one of the only ninjas who ever wears sleeves. I also went with a shade of tan for his skintone because I liked his slightly dark skin in UMK3.

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.


Ermac: MK1 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, I feel iconography and branding are very important in establishing a person's identity in a visual way. Logos have a power to communicate complex ideas in a single, elegantly simple image. Just look at how recognizable things like the Ghostbusters symbol or Superman's S are around the entire world no matter what language you speak.

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.


Goro: MK1 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.


Goro: MK1 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.


Shang Tsung: MK1 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.


Shang Tsung: MK1 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.


Shang Tsung: MK2 primary
Shang's MK2 costume is what I believe it was always meant to look like, 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 rejuvenated-back-to-his-prime muscles again.


Reptile: MK1 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 coming to stop them. 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.


Reptile: MK1 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 belonged to Ryu 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.


Reptile: MK2 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 the Saurian 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 "main character" ninjas in the group 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, so an interesting coincidence.


Nimbus Terrafaux: MK1 primary
Nimbus' 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".


Nimbus Terrafaux: MK1 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.

Artist's Commentary ...Continued. (I had no idea MKO had a character limit 'til now)


Kung Lao: MK2 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.


Jax: MK2 primary
Honestly, I don't have a lot to say about Jax. I've had this one in my head since Shaolin Monks came out. I loved his costume in that game, but I felt the stripes should've been red and white like in MK2, not purple like in MK3. Then it occurred to me that red and white camo would look more serious-military than the flag stripes, and would match Sonya's MK1 camo pants a bit. There's some MK9 elements in the thigh belts, kneepads, and boots too.

I gave him a wristwatch because the USSF characters seem to have ones that work as communicators in the newer games. I wanted some indication of his "world's strongest man" powers too but if I'd drawn him in a Ground Pounding position, some of his costume would be obscured, so instead, I went with "purple glowing fist-in-palm".

The head was a little tricky, I was going for a cross between John Parrish, Michael Jai White, and MK9 Jax. I think I pulled it off pretty well, though.

Fun facts: I actually drew Jax in separate sections and then copypasta'd them together: first the torso, then the arms, then the wristbands and shoulder straps, to make sure that his musculature underneath the arms was shaped properly. Also, I paid close attention to character sizes as usual. Jax is second-tallest, after Raiden, and naturally has the biggest arms. I think he may also have turned out to have the biggest head, lol.


Kitana: MK2 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 and manga (They often wear these mesh undershirts, perhaps it's some stylized form of armor like a see-thru kevlar sorta thing?). But in Kitana's case, 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?), I designed Kitana's to look like a stylization of the letter K. Also, Kitana's kneepads are rounded, whereas Mileena's are spiked squares and Jade's are 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, to keep them to a "identical twins who fight as a team" theme like they had in the original MK2.

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, my ninjettes fight in heels. I don't care about "realism", character designs in fiction are about expressing character traits and it makes them look elegant and regal (which is why Sonya in combat boots works, not because it's practical for fighting, but because it shows she's rough and tomboyish).

(Side note: I've found that on some flatscreen monitors, the shade of indigo blue I used for Kitana looks bright purple, and Mileena looks more pink. If you've got a flatscreen, to get it closer to the true colors it should be displaying, you might wanna fiddle with the "gamma" setting and lower the brightness.)

Baraka: MK2 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 wearing his 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.


Mileena: MK2 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.


Smoke: MK2 primary
Smoke was a bit difficult on the concept level because I didn't get to him until MK9 came out, so I had to either accept or resist letting his newest in-game look influence me. In the end, I decided to resist for the most part because I honestly HATE both of his MK9 costumes. I think they're the worst designs in the game. They just don't fit the character concept at all, both of them have him wearing this weird skin-tight armor plating that looks like a bulletproof vest or something and doesn't have any logos or identity on it, it just looks generic (which is especially weird since he'd acquired some logos BEFORE MK9, as I will point out...). What I decided to draw inspiration from instead was his last two "Human Smoke" looks that came before that: Shaolin Monks and his Deception nano-body outfit. I did keep the long white hair though, as a personal challenge to myself to see if I could make it visible without looking terrible, and I think I succeeded pretty well with the ponytail sticking out of the cowl idea.

Anyway, the first thing my Smoke needed to have was very loose-fitting, billowy clothes, with as little extra layers or heavy armor as possible, unlike Kuai Liang, to fit his air-based element thematically. I decided long sleeves on his arms would fit that, and I liked how he looked with sleeves in MKSM anyway. For his V-vest and loincloth over top of that, I decided to give him the same kind as Kuai Liang. I figure they must have come up in the clan together and trained together a lot to have become friends, so they'd be a similar rank, which means very plain clothes because like I said under Kuai, the decorative stripes and symbols on MK1 Sub's outfit denote his prestige as one of the best in the clan. He also has the same arrow-shaped shoulderpads as Kuai, though Smoke's have a bit of that quilted look. You could call it a tiny reference to his Scorpion-clone days, or you could say I took it from MKvsDCU Sub, either works. Smoke and Kuai also have similar shaped belts, though where Kuai has his family crest on the buckle, Smoke has the LK logo because the clan is the closest thing he has to a family.

When I get to doing Deception costumes one day, I want to make him look more like he did as a human, except for, y'know, having smoke for a body...so this is the costume I'll be drawing from when I get there. Therefore, the gloves and the red trim and straps on his arm/shinguards are pulled from MKD Nano-Smoke, and from the Nano-Smoke concept art in the MK9 artbook (Man, I wish that'd made it into the game like Dark Raiden did...) I also just wanted a little color on him, because he seemed to look unfinished or unfitting somehow in all-gray, and red worked best. I also tried it in the bright indigo of Cyber-Smoke and it just didn't work, so instead, I deciced that the main gray of his costume should be slightly blue-purpleish in tint and that would bring his color scheme closer to Cyber-Smoke's. It also makes the gray look more interesting than pure desaturation would.

Smoke's armor is exactly the same generic Lin Kuei standard issue gear as Bi-Han's in MK1, except in plain, unpainted metal instead of Sub's lightweight blue plastic. Again, he's younger/lower rank so he'd have gear that's a bit older and clunkier...and also, silver/metal is just the best choice for a guy whose color scheme is gray. The crest on his head is designed to recall a similar looking one he had in MKSM, and the odd "Green Ranger coin"-esque symbol Cyber-Smoke had on his chest in MKD. I'm not sure what it would mean for him, but I like the way it looks, especially on a headband as it's very ninja and Smoke is one of the most ninja-y of the ninjas with his "disappear in a smoke bomb" style. His personal logo is the symbol on his shoulders that looks like two wisps of smoke around a big dot. It's taken from his clothes in MKSM (it's also on the boots of Nano-Smoke in MKD, I wonder how many people ever noticed that.)

A few people complained that they don't like the gas mask parts sticking out of his mask...I don't really have any counterpoint to that, I put them there because I really like the way it looks. I wanted his mask to look somewhat personalized, like the mask Sub-Zero has worn in the games since MKDA, and I thought of Cyber-Smoke's mask in MKD with the two hoses coming out of the cheeks and wanted something that would have a similar "two protrusions on the sides" look to it. It's not like he breathes smoke or needs to breathe through his own smoke, it's just a cool bit of decoration that outwardly expresses what his power is, and I like it. The only other alternative I had thought up was to take the mask in his MK9 primary, which I don't much like because its shape doesn't really look like anything or make sense to me, and turn the rails on the sides into a series of pipes like on the side of a hotrod or motorcycle...but I couldn't find a way to draw that without it looking silly as hell, so this proved to be the far superior idea.

As for the kusarigama, it's pretty simple: Before MK9, we all used to have conversations about what Human Smoke's moves should be like, since he obviously couldn't keep copying Scorpion...and some people were in the camp that he should have a move SIMILAR to the spear without it directly BEING the spear. I wasn't always in that camp, but eventually the idea was hit upon of him using a traditional ninja sickle-and-chain to hit or hook people with. Now me, I love rope and chain weapons, the way you can spin them around, lever-and-pulley them around your own body and whatnot before whipping them out at the enemy. So I've always supported Human Smoke with a kusarigama.

Now, one might argue that he no longer needs a Scorpion-esque weapon because his moves in MK9 are badass. Me personally? While I like his MK9 moveset...it feels like he doesn't have enough special moves, that's maybe why people spam too much? The teleport punch and cloud toss are great, but I feel like he needs a little more offense to vary things a bit. He doesn't need to hook people and reel them in like Scorp of course, but I think it'd be cool for him to have something he could use as a simple projectile attack and/or as a weapon that comes out during his combos/fatalities like Kabal's hookswords. Also, it's easier to go from a spear-like weapon to Cyber-Smoke's chest-trident than it is from nothing to the trident. The cyborgs are supposed to be equipped with weapons that simulate how they fought as humans, after all.

The biggest reason I went with it though is this is an art project, and I love the way rope-weapons look in the hands of posed characters. For instance, the way it looks on a Daredevil comic book cover when he's got a billion feet of cable from his billyclub/grappling hook thing spinning around and around him in all these crazy loops as he leaps off a rooftop or what have you. I wanted a look similar to that. Drawing a chain link-by-link is the biggest pain in the ass in the world though, so I scaled it down to just one spin and him angling it off his foot.

Anyway, he needed some smoke coming off of him too since, y'know, that's what he does. He smokes at all times. I didn't want to obscure the costume any so I put it behind him. I was lucky enough to find a custom brush tool somewhere on the net that produced a perfect looking wispy cloud shape, I dunno what I'd have done if I couldn't find a real-looking enough smoke cloud effect. I remember I had originally drawn a smoke cloud by hand for Liu's dragon and it kinda looked like crap.


Jade: MK2 primary
Jade wasn't too hard since all I had to do was follow the same motif Kitana and Mileena are wearing. The gloves and boots are self-explanatory in that regard, except for the fact that I went with solid cloth instead of fishnet, I just thought that fit Jade best, she's never really had fishnet or transluscent cloth in any of her past costumes unlike the other two. The diamond kneepads and the little gems on her straps come from her Deception outfits. My first draft had a symbol on the knee, like on Kit and Mil, meant to be "J" in some Outworld alphabet I'm obviously making up as I go along (I guess in Outworldish/Outworldese, every letter is symmetrical? lol I dunno) but it occurred to me that 1) it looked way too much like the cross-with-an-arrowhead-on-the-bottom design Tanya always wears, and 2) Jade is the secret character, the black-ops-iest of the ninja girls, the one Kahn sends when stealth is required. She shouldn't have her name decorated on her outfit.

Since K and M's outfits both have a unique "texture" to them that no other character really has, Kitana having the velvetty detail and Mileena being shiny...I originally planned on Jade having a third choice for texture unique to herself, maybe something like the little squares that she has in MK9. Nothing really looked right though, and I couldn't leave it plain because something about the sea-green color I started with just looked unfinished and bland. I settled for making her shiny like Mileena because her outfits look shiny in Deception and 9 anyway. I guess that makes Kitana the unique one, but hell, in my universe she's the favorite daughter anyway.

The top over panties and garter belts look I took from her Deception alt, which is my favorite Jade costume of all-time. I decided to have the top cover more skin though to keep her looking more like her MK2 self than her UMK3 self. Of course, she needed a long loincloth to match the dresses K and M are wearing, so instead of the ring-on-a-string obi K and M are wearing, I gave her a chain and sash inspired by her MK9 primary's belt. Somewhere along the way, between the belt and the garters, I noticed/decided Jade would have this "things wrapped around gold rings" theme, hence the ones on her wrists and ankles and particularly the one in her hair, which is otherwise based on her MKD primary's hairstyle. Personally, my favorite hairstyle for Jade is the oxhorn pigtails...but I'm saving that for MK3 when all the ninjettes wear their hair up...and also maybe her MK2 alt, haven't decided yet.

For her weapon, I originally drew her holding her staff, but then I thought she should be holding her boomerang too, and it should have a bronze-ish color, to reference the bronze fans she had in MK2. I couldn't make it look right sticking out of the hand that's on her hip though, so I decided to save the staff for her alt costume.

The toughest part of Jade was her face. I've never drawn a "black" chick before to be honest, and facial features are very important to me and my style. I actually did her whole face with nose and mouth, then drew the mask separate and added it overtop. I know some people like to argue she's supposed to resemble Middle-Eastern rather than African...going by her face in Deception and her MK9 alt I'd disagree, but whatever. From my version's eyes, she looks like she could be either, at least to me, so hopefully everyone's happy...unless they think her skin's too dark. I did my damnedest to match the reddish-brown color she is in MK2, Ultimate, and Deception. Also of some small note, I made her eyes olive because the games can't seem to decide if they're green or brown so I split the difference.

Been waiting forever for you to continue these. The new ones look AWESOME.


Can't wait for MK3, my favorite game of the original trilogy.

That is the coolest fucking Jax I have ever seen.

The costume is amazing.

Love your work, I really enjoyed reading the commentary too. Can't wait to see more.

Man, these things are awesome. I really like what you did with Smoke, and all the others of course.

Do you think you might do some MK2 bonus characters like Hornbuckle and maybe Skarlet? I'd love to see which ideas you have for them.

He is:



Looking forward to Blaze. He's underused, and a lot could be done with him.

I can't wait to see Blaze and Hornbuckle..

I wonder what you're going to do with the Holy Man most, and if it'll compare to my Hornbuckle design.

And, I can see why you aren't doing those really lesser known characters like Emerald, Red Robin, etc... But in the unlikely event you consider it, I have the perfect design for her.

I've honestly never heard of either of those and sometimes I get the sense that people just sit around and make up these supposed rumor characters in the present day that were NEVER real rumors back in the arcade days.
I mean where could someone named "Emerald" possibly fit? There's already both a male and a female ninja who wear green, and emerald and jade are both a type of gemstone, so how uncreative can you get?

I have never heard of them until I read it at the Kombat Pavilion..

http://tabmok99.mortalkombatonline.com/kombat_pavilion.html

Yeah...I can promise you I won't be using any of those. You'll get Tremor in 3, Belokk in 4, and that'll probably be the end of it for rumor characters.