Indeed. The pile of skulls beneath the foot are a nice touch.

Shao Kahn looks fantastic, absolutely fantastic but I expect nothing less you from you haha.

Love everything about it really. Pose is awesome too, something different to what I was expecting.

Two questions though, I thought you were going to have an unmasked side-pic for him too? or are you saving that for his alt?
Will his hammer be in his alt? (I think I recall you answering this before but I can't remember)

Amazing work as usual, Bring on Blaze!

Awesome!

THIS is how I wanted Shao Kahn to look in MK9. It is spot on and perfect! Like Spider said, the skulls underneath feet are nice touches.

Two questions:

1) Can you elaborate on Kahn’s height? His height is almost like Raiden’s,right? And he kinda looks like he is much smaller than Kintaro. Oh,I am sorry I forgot,but in his alt you plan to change spear to hammer,right?

2) I remember you mentioned that Liu Kang is designed after (obviously) Bruce Lee and you wanted to design Hornbuckle after Jackie Chan. Do you still plan to do something along those lines?

Overall,awesome piece,can’t wait for Blaze and Hornbuckle and the alts for everyone!

Yeah, I think Razor said the alt will have Kahn unmasked and wielding his mighty hammer.

He'll definitely be unmasked and have the hammer in his alt.

But I MIGHT also add an unmasked version of his primary to the NPCs picture with Human Sektor and Cyrax, just for the purposes of going with the story outline since there would be scenes in the story where he's wearing his normal outfit but with the helmet off.



Well...it's hard to judge in the pic because they're all standing on different levels...but if they were to be lined up side by side, my intention is that Kahn is right between the two in height, so like Raiden is 7' tall, Kahn is 7 and a half feet, and Kintaro is 8'.



Well that's my intention, but I can't promise how well it'll come across, like...not to be racist, but Asian faces are hard to not make look "all the same" (And young Jackie looked almost exactly like Robin Shou), and I could try to make it about putting him in a pose that reminds people of Jackie, but Jackie's most famous thing is always playing a Drunken Master, so like, if I pose him like he's doing Drunken style, is that stealing Bo' Rai Cho's gimmick?

A couple notes:

- I've added Unmasked Kahn to the NPCs pic.

- You'll probably see Kintaro's belt switch to red the next time I update the MK2 roster. I know the blue has grown on some people, but it occurred to me that his Armageddon outfit would not look right in blue, and I remembered that the whole reason I ever started re-imagining old costumes in the first place, years ago, was because it bugged the shit out of me that Johnny wore blue in every game, but red in MK1, so I wanted to draw an MK1 Johnny with a blue belt...so, obviously, colors staying consistent from game to game is kind of important to me and I feel I should stick to that.

Aw yeah, he looks even more badass, especially with the hammer.

Unmasked Kahn looks amazing. That is all. :)

Next thing Shao Kahn is going to do is troll all of his minions by saying Yes repeatingly like Megatron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2t4MBhGAg8

Bushy Brow Boon would absolutely be a fool to overlook your ideal character design concepts.

More random costume thoughts/questions.

Liu Kang:

-Since in MK3, Eddie Wong had longer hair than Ho Sung Pak did in MKII, will Liu's MK3 costume give him longer hair?

-Will the trousers from Deception's Konquest/his spirit model appear on both his zombie and spirit costumes? Maybe with an alive version on an MKDA NPC sheet? Or will he wear something different?

-Would he be more decayed in Armageddon or would Raiden's spell have kept his body from decaying any further?

Johnny Cage:

-Since his black tux will be his alt in MK3, but as a zombie, and I assume the same tux but alive will be his alt in MKDA since his Konquest mentions him wearing it to Shang Tsung's island, what about in MK4 since he also has the tux in that game. Maybe his alt could have him as a spirit like with Liu? Or maybe reference the DA Krytpt and give him a Smash TV costume with the reason being "Once Johnny came back he did a huge "Cage's Back!" event, claiming he had been taking a break from movies for a while, and his appearance on Celebrity Smash TV was part of that event". Looking back I'd rather he had that back in MKDA over the same tux from MK4.

Shang Tsung:

-I notice in the Deception intro his face looks much younger than in the Deadly Alliance into. The most likely explanation is probably technology improving over the two years between games and they can make him look better, but it made since with him getting that Soulnado. Will that be part of Deadly Alliance's plot?

Hornbuckle:

-Since Hornbuckle's capture of Blaze was long before Liu was born, and since basing his face on Jackie Chan seems to be causing problems with him looking to similar to Robin Shou, maybe basing his face on a martial arts actor from before Bruce Lee got really big could work? I know almost nothing about martial arts cinema though so I wouldn't be able to give anyone specific.

Well Pak had a mullet while Wong had a weird Superman-esque spitcurl thing going on in the front.

Since both look kinda stupid and I drew Liu's hair more Robin Shou-ish like he's worn it since MK4, I'm just gonna leave it that length.



Only his ghost costume will be the new and fancy one.

The zombie should be wearing the pants he died in, which would be the MK2/3/4 pants, but a ghost's appearance is a manifestation of its will, so he can be dressed however he feels like.



Let's go with Raiden's spell prevents further decay.

I mean realistically, a rotting corpse walking in the hot sun with no ability to heal ought to fall to pieces or be eaten by flies in like three days, tops.

That's why a Walking Dead-style zombie apocalypse, if such a thing were possible, would never be anything to worry about. Just chill indoors for a while, by the time you need to make a grocery run, the situation's resolved itself 'cause they all tore their own ligaments and tendons off trying to chase people on decomposing legs.
Now...if the "zombies" were living people with super-rabies like in 28 Days Later or Left 4 Dead? Then we're fucked.



My notes regarding MK4 and 5 costumes are vague and incomplete. I'm not sure what a "Smash TV costume" would actually look like...(the characters on the game's box art appear to be dressed like 80's Tron, I'm not sure that would fly on Johnny with the weird helmet and all...) but it's something to consider. I might draw inspiration from his unused MK9 designs instead.

Either way, I think I'd rather keep the tux for MKDA and give him something else in MK4. The only time he wore the tux in-game was in his ending where he wins an Oscar for...something? And the crowd pelts him with tomatoes during his acceptance speech. I'm gonna go ahead and call that scene non-canon, on the grounds of "dude just came back from the dead, what movie did he even have time to make?"



Canonically, souls only make Shang STOP aging for a while, his age can't actually go backward from stealing them.



I don't think there IS anyone famous pre-Bruce Lee. The kung fu movie genre was pretty much invented in the 70's.

With the Smash TV thing I was thinking more of player characters' in-game appearance where they're shirtless. It'd probably fit him more than on the boxart and it makes the helmet look less odd.

I really like your Smoke and female ninjas, especially Skarlet's. Her actual uninspired and bland look in the game just made me feel indifferent about her. I know sex sells, but shit the girl from Shao Kahn's win pose might as well be a character too.

I remember back when me and Jironobou help give ideas for Goro's alt. But I forgot who gave the idea for Sub-zero's alt.

So do you need any ideas for some characters alternate costumes?

Umm...I think, outside of maybe Sheeva, I pretty much know what I'm going to do with every MK1 thru 3 costume.

I have some blank spaces in my notes once they get to MK4, but that's, y'know, years from now til I'll draw that stuff.

all your designs are amazing! this is the first time i see your mk2 smoke, jade, noob, and skarlet.. AMAZING!!

It's been a bit since I had anything substantial to share, so I thought just for fun, I'd upload some sketches I've done over time. For the most part, they're ninja designs I plan to use when I get to MK3, but there's also a Hsu Hao revamp I've been toying with since he's an MK1 NPC. Hsu's pic is too big for the board, Click Here

Now I quickly cleaned them up a bit, but these are doodles scanned out of a notebook so they look pretty rough.

Those all look legit! I kinda expected Reptile,Scorpion and Ermac to look like they do from the info you have provided before.

Kitana looks surprisinigly different,but still good. But don't you feel she reveals a little too much skin on her torso where her corset is tied? I just feel it is something Mileena would do. Or is there some story explanation about how Kitana found these clothes while on the run from Kahn's army on Earthrealm till she met Liu Kang and Co?

Hsu Hao is the most surprising. He already looks like semi mutated Oni lol, not Chinese military agent. Or is it not MK1 period? Other than that he looks fantastic.

Looking forward for your next costumes,how are Hornbuckle and Blaze coming along?

Hsu wasn't meant to come out quite so gorilla-sized, it's just that as I was thinking over what to do to make him look cooler, I decided to emphasize his "pro wrestler" side, so I was looking at art of WWE guys and found a particularly cartoonish drawing of Hulk Hogan, so I cribbed the pose and a couple of the clothing elements like wearing a ripped shirt from that. So that's why his arms look so big. You can see the notes say "upper body not to scale", meaning the final version will have more realistic anatomy.

As for Kitana, well the laces bare the exact same area of skin she did in MK3 and 4. But storywise, yeah, she arrives on Earthrealm with her MK2 gear torn up from battle and picks this up by looting a store, Kyle Reese in Terminator 1-style. (Also of note, I know you can see her underpants through it in the sketch, but the corset won't be see-thru in the final version)
As far as the Pit II gang, I've got how I want to pose them worked out, still roughing out the clothing though. (Or in Blaze's case, the rock formations...)

Any plans for MK2 alternate costumes?

Don't spam the threads, bro. I'll start them after Blaze and Hornbuckle.

I'm curious to see how you'd design the MKDA-MKD characters. (Mainly Bo' Rai Cho, Li Mei, Havik, or Nitara)

I honestly didn't like Nitara's primary costume in DA. I thought it looked a little too funky and showy (doesn't fit someone who's been trying to free her realm for thousands of years), but the alternate costume was awesome. If I were to do a re-do, I would replace her red jacket with a black or red kimono, but not fully clothed like this artist's depiction to fit along the Japanese vampiric/yurei theme.

http://yangyang24.deviantart.com/art/MK-Anime-Nitara-195453833

I would also make her more animalistic with the wings and claws like in this depiction minus the cleavage and stockings lol

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/190/c/f/bloody_templar_nitara_by_letticiamaer-d6co6a0.jpg

I can't say that I'd like the monster-looking Nitara very much. But I dig the kunoichi dress, maybe she could even wear a complete kimono.