Honestly, I take goofy (Lt. Breasts) Mannequin over the Half-naked Anime babe any day.

The lack of pants and the provocative thong (not even counting that samurai sword and the silly thing on her hand) are a billion years more offensive and insulting than the lack of a shirt under her vest. Just my opinion.

Agreed. I think the art of her looks incredibly ridiculous. That's not Sonya at all!
Her in-game appearance is ALOT better than that...

Love that Reptile design.

So that's where that placeholder Mileena image came from, hacked from the demo...
(this link has several pop-ups, just so you know..)

I'm definitely glad the Mileena and Sonya ones were not used. They are unfitting, I think.
That Johnny Cage one looks fucking awful. Emo razor-cut hair, missing teeth, weird tattoos, obscenities written/tattooed on his knuckles.....horrible.
He looks disgusting, and nothing like a movie star. Apparently, Johnny Cage was going to be some psycho killer or something... *eyeroll*
The Scorpion, Kano, Raiden, Reptile, and Cyrax ones look fine, though.

The only design i find little complaint is Sonya,but not too much,MK9 Sonya isnt better than that,i dont like the porn star Sonya,what was their inspiration? Jenna Jameson indeed...whatever,MK9 character design is pretty poor and uninspired.The rest are awesome and somethng we've never seen in MK....

I LOVE that Reptile design!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like where Vincent was going with the Sonya design. Its not perfect and I agree that the panties look is a bit ridicoulous but the direction is good.

The sword and bits of strange armor reflects her travels to other realms mixed in with her military elements. Event the revolver holdster showing her Texan roots is awesome. It's a well thought out design.

Except this was for a remake of MK1, before she's ever been to another realm, so it doesn't make sense. Sonya's supposed to be the sort of character who's an outsider to the whole magic tournament thing and doesn't understand what's going on, she just wants to arrest Kano. He didn't exactly write in otherwise in the little backstories he came up with, all Sonya's said was that her daddy was a Texas Ranger to explain the sheriff's badge belt buckle and she uses her body to distract her opponents to explain walking around in underwear.

It doen't necessarily fit the MK1 tournament the most, but im sure Shang's island is filled with cool weapons and such aswell.

I find it's not as unfitting as people make it out to be, this looks MUCH more MK than her militairy porn looking MK9 gettup, imo.

Riiight, so you would rather she lost her pants than she lost her shirt... ;P

No, like I said I don't like the lack of pants. But I find the overall design has that MK flair that her MK9 design doens't have.

Compared to the two artworks Queve posted above, I don't find Vincent's Sonya sexual looking at all.

You mean that MK flair that YOU want the game to have. Because the art Queve posted... that's the real MK flair. That's what is in the game.

It's not the "flair" I want the game to have either, but sadly, that's what it is.

That's what im saying in this thread, I don't like the direction it went. I find they are straying from that unique look MK used to have.

I don't want to make it sound like im hating on the game's visual. I think it looks great, and it's probably the nicest looking game as far as art direction since MK2, especially those backgrounds.

Oh, you're such a hater. ;P

But no, seriously, I get what you are saying. You're more an ass-man than a boob-man, so Sonya not wearing pants is more attractive to you than her not wearing a shirt.

But really, seriously... Mortal Kombat never really had a unique visual look when it comes to character design. They copied many of their designs from something else, like that Chinese movie, Kitana/Mileena looked like Psylocke (X-Men) clones, Nightwolf looks like a skinnier T. Hawk (Street Fighter), Shao Kahn is a more evil looking Conan with a samurai-esque inspiration, etc etc...

As a fighting game, MK was unique because of the gameplay features, such as the Fatalities and the gore, blood and such. And it was unique because of the digitalized sprites in the 2D games.

I dare say that the art direction improved alot in the 3D games. The characters finally started to look more unique from one another without straying too much from their original looks. The designs became alot better and more interesting. And the newest MK offered some of the best designs... but also some of the worst. And sadly, many of the female character designs are for the worst. Mostly because of the oversexualization of them.

I don't find Sonya's new character design that bad though. Lose the heels and give her a white shirt under the vest, and bingo, her design is perfect. That is of course my personal opinion on the matter, should anyone misunderstand all this as a fact, by the way.

But the concept art of her, posted by the OP... That's nothing like Sonya. It doesn't stay true to her character. The photoshopped version of it with the military pants - That's Sonya.

Looks pretty nice!

Reptile:
+ : looks very original and stands out as an awesome character.
- : looks more like an underwater creature than a reptile.

Scorpion:
+ : love his hood, mask and his baggy pants.
- : wristbands and belt are too much detail from distance, looks good when zoomed in tho.

Sub zer0:
+ : white fur makes it look very cool.
- : the circles/snow flakes

Cyrax:
looks just superb!

the least nice designs are,

Sonya: what is that on her left hand? looks very ugly.
Johnny cage: 2much tattoos and he looks like he a drunk on drugs...

Sonya should be more Linda Hamilton, and less porn star.

Hell yeah
http://scifimafia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/linda-hamilton-terminator.jpg

(How the hell do I put images in these forums BTW?)

The original character designs might have been a bit plain, but the games had a realistic and serious tone, it looked like a Kung Fu movie you could play. Vincent's design are basically more intricate and unique versions of those original designs. That's what I like.

MK3 and MK4 looked like aerobics game with all the colourful spandex going on lol. I did love the urban MK3 setting tho.

The 3d games (MKDA-MKA) is were MK lost it completely imo, not just in gameplay. Ruined by goofy design elements, plastic cartoonish character models and plain backgrounds devoid of any kind of feeling. It just became one big caricature of itself. Not to mention the sterile menus and forgettable music. It was not the Mortal Kombat I liked and I know a lot of fans who used to like MK's look felt the same way.

I feel it's back on track with MK9, the backgrounds have that Mortal Kombat atmosphere. The menus have a strong chinese design influence. I think it's just missing those realistic character models and designs. But that's just my thought on the series.

Wow, that Cyrax is amazing! I'm not digging the Evil Johnny look though. It makes him look like some sort of white trash version of Sagat.

Exactly my feelings.

Despite how much I dislike (and resent) the lack of a simple-easy-to-do-and-completely-OBVIOUS shirt under her vest (and maybe the high heels a tiny bit), Sonya's overall costume in this game is very cool.

The designs in her vest and most specially in her pants are wicked! I'm a big fan of the stripes/fabric designs in her pants and the cool straps around her body.

She should have featured a shirt and no high hells. That's it, and this design might have been my favorite instead of her MKvsDC primary.

Her alternate, however, is an absolute win. Simple, yet so freaking badass.

My favorite Sonya costume, ever.




I respect your opinion, and understand your point, I personally find the mixed elements very messy and unfitting instead of "well thought out".

I can agree that maybe he did think deeply about why he chose all those elements, but, I honestly think that its way too much of everything without a real solid focus on what she truly is. I don't think he succeeded. I think that his Sonya is so drastically different from anything we've ever seen about her that it's hard to appreciate his art as "Sonya Blade".

No pants. Tattoos. Swords. Weird unfitting weapon in her hand. A single thong.....it just doesn't work for me.

But, yes, I understand your point and respect your opinion.



This!



No way! Her MK9 costumes are totally "MK" all the way!

And even though Vincent's Sonya doesn't look sexual in his art, his small description of her makes it seem that that was his intention anyways.

Either way, she looks ridiculous without a shirt and without the pants.



Yes!

You have been Officially promoted to King of the Universe.

PS: It's so sad about the females. Up until MK9, I was extremely proud that they always kept Sonya's reputation intact. Sure, she's still very far away from looking indecent and half naked, but, the lack of a shirt was so stupid that it was a serious low-blow to her overall character.

It just doesn't make ANY SENSE!

So unfitting that even I had to rant about it in a thread that almost got a thousand responses when she was first revealed....and will continue to do so until they give it back to her in the next game.

I swear, if Sonya's ever designed to look like the rest of the half naked chicks in MK I'm going to loose all faith in their art designers/team.



There you go.

And yeah, Sonya's not far from that, actually:



Nor far from this (which is absolutely glorious!):





OMG BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*spanks you where you don't like it*

In all seriousness though, I completely disagree with your entire post.

Almost, because I do agree that the music/game menu in MKDA was (for the most part) very weak and very forgettable. But, that's about it.

MKDA was the beginning of a new wonderful era and brought MK to a fantastic and amazing new direction. MK needed this and I'll always be happy and glad MKDA came to be. MK9 is a lot weaker in terms of character artistic design (most costumes not backgrounds, obviously), imo. Sure, its got some beautiful and epic winners (Ermac's and Sonya's alts, for example), but, its got an incredible amount of uncreative overused boring designs and terrible terrible ones that come off as offensive. (I know, a bit dramatic but you know my point). All of this is my opinion, of course.

However, we've also seen a lot of fans who've been very disappointed with the "step back" in regards to the character designs that MK9 delivered. no?

MKD and MKA had great music tracks and their in-game menus are (by far) a billion times superior to the freaking annoying and boring "Scorpion VS Sub-Zero" bullshit that we got in MK9.



Oooooh, wait, I see what you mean by "menus" now.

Well, I still think MKDA, MKD, and MKA and even (if we count it) MKSM did a brilliant job with their menus and stuff in comparison to the classics (though I too totally missed the "asian" feeling from the first 2 games).

But, MK9 ultimately triumphs in almost every single aspect (that doesn't involve the ninjas being shove down our throat, of course).

Its not just about the clothing, everything from the guys all having roided muscles and the girls looking like big breasted barbies. That all started with MKDA. It's all part of that realism Im missing. It just has a silly look right now, can we not agree on this? This is all part of MK's aesthetics.

I mean I liked alot of the costume elements but It was all to much exaggeration to the point of looking caricatural.

A character design should fit the character's background and personality, it should be a visual display of who they are and what they're all about. That's...that's just common sense.

Not much about picking up heavy spiked armor that was just lying around Shang's island and putting it on really fits Sonya or displays that she's "a modern American military agent on a manhunt" nor does any of the rest of what she's wearing, it's just a bland attempt to make her look more "hardcore" and "dangerous" and primitive to fit in with all the other designs. I'd argue that tattoos make no sense on her either. The most "Sonya" idea anyone ever had when designing her was her flight jacket in DA, her "dress uniform" DA Alt, and her camo pants in Shaolin Monks.

He's clearly an amazing artist in terms of skill and technique, but idea-wise, I just don't think Proce has shown himself to be a deep enough thinker to really capture the character of a character like a good costume design is supposed to. I will give him credit for being the first guy to think to put a wedding ring on Scorpion, though. That was the kind of stroke of brilliance I expect from a costume designer.

The spiked armor on Sonya is just a detail that could be changed. I mean it is my least favourite of the MK1 redesigned gang. But I can take this Sonya more seriously than the one we have now; Stilletos and breasts in the air aren't exacly more fitting to the character. Is that not a thoughtless attempt to make her look sexier?

Looking at the bigger picture, his take on the characters are just more realist and serious than what we have now. And that's what I would have liked.

me to



i have to agree. now it all seems so cheesy and exaggerated.

Hey, I never said I liked her MK9 design either. I specifically said I've only felt she looked right in DA and Shaolin Monks.

But my feeling is that I think this guy could paint any costume and you'd call it more realistic because it's the art style, not the clothes, giving that effect. Quite frankly, I don't think any of these, going by JUST the clothes, DO look more realistic than the clothes that characters like Sonya, Jax, and Kano wore in the MKDA-thru-A era that you called "too fantasy". I get the impression that when you think of the MKDA art style, you're thinking of new characters with too many layers of clothes and overdone armor that I will admit did look shitty like Dairou, Bo' Rai Cho, and Kai. But Proce did not draw Dairou, Bo' Rai Cho, and Kai, did he? He drew characters who looked GOOD in Deadly Alliance and don't need any rethinking. (Well...maybe Raiden was overdecorated in DA, but the solution is not to directly steal the Big Trouble hat and throw a pointless jeweled dagger in there, I assure you.)
I think it's that the painted faces and bodies look like real people with real skin and hair is what's getting you. Just like the bluescreen graphics made the 2D games look realistic and now people complain about 3D models not being able to capture the old mystique.