Soul Calibur – please put some clothes on!

This was our first attempt at fixing some of the most egregious excuses for costumes we could find in Soul Calibur games. Both those heroines would return to our streams on other occasions (including a special, already released post).


Ivy

My mortal enemy, Ivy Valentine’s declining standard in outfits. Ugh. I chose her because I love to play her when I do get to play SC (not often these days), and because she’s supposed to be a Machiavellian Immortal Super Villain (sort of), and boy, do none of the lingerie designs communicate any of this.

So anyway.

I picked this concept art from SC5 cause at least it’s redeemable. I always liked her more suit-like designs, because that shows off her personality better, I think. So I went with that and gave her a functional, high-class (cause her fam’s rich) kind of suit. Due to a personal preference for 3-piece suits, I gave her a vest to go with it. I mean, she’s still hot as hell.

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I gave her pants, obviously, and of course, actual shoes with thick, sturdy riding heels. My last addition was this thigh sword sheath thing, because I didn’t want to break the lines on her waist and hips with a belt, but it might have been better to give her a belt sheath that hangs in the back. Like this:

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It’s not as silly and I could hide the belts under her suit or something. I also wanted to incorporate the snake motif more, so I did a derpy sketchy one on her knee there.

Oh, and the face!

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I hope Cassandra is proud.

-Icy


Tira

Tira’s aesthetic not only is “poor man’s Harley Quinn”, it’s also clothes so incredibly tattered, there’s no way they’d stay up under any circumstances. 

I wasn’t particularly inspired during that streaming session, so I concluded that as long as her clothes look wearable, it counts as improvement. 

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Can’t say I’m all that proud of overall design, especially the cut of her blouse and pants, but they came out of desperation to save her from chilly winds and to layer the tights and undershirt I gave her. I guess it’s supposed to be a vaguely clown-like outfit without resembling Harley’s. Got the pink for the tights from her eye color and super faded pink-ish highlights in her hair…

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…speaking of which, since her weird pigtails looked detached from the rest of the hairstyle, I got rid of them altogether and left her with a bob. Then recolored (and added some more) highlights matching her overall color scheme. 

While the clothes I gave her are a big meh, I’m quite proud of the changes to her face, expression and makeup. Tira is supposed to be super unstable, so a runny mascara matches her personality much better and gives her more intense gaze.
Also two-colored lipstick, to compliment the highlights. And I gave her much bigger mouth with more wicked smile, a bulbous nose and a unique jawline – now you can recognize this lady by her facial features, not just color scheme. You’re welcome.

~Ozzie

So, a while ago the ever classy Soul Calibur announced that for #6, there’d be a couple of guest characters: 2B from Nier Automata who you can dress like Kaine and Geralt from The Witcher… who you can dress like generic Geralt.

So why is Ivy* in the bingo?  Well, apparently she’s critical to 2B’s… something.

Because it seems that the marketing at Soul Calibur are now so over invested in the generic myth that never pays off that even 2B was not sexy enough, so she doesn’t even get to make an appearance until 30 seconds into her own intro.

And the story is apparently… all about Ivy for some reason?  None of it seems to fit with either game, and more importantly none of it explains why we don’t have a “just got out of the tub” Geralt costume.

Give the people what they want you cowards.

* Original bingo by Icy here

– wincenworks

Gotta love the video ending on the classy note of a panty shot.

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Thanks, I hate it!

-Icy

Ivy & Starfire: Fan Feedback edition!

Jumping ahead for this post to past weekend’s 50th Stream Extravaganza Finale so we can showcase two pieces that would not exist without our Fans


The first was a response to our Soul Calibur 6 Ivy reveal Bingo, telling us to just “let them be hot.” 

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I decided to take them up on their advice, and made Ivy into a hot, firey, Machiavellian goddess. She’s so hot, she’s even sweating a little! 

And in case you’re wondering, everything below the waist there is Fire–as it should be.

-Icy 

The second is an attempt to meet the very vague expectations that some random new commenter left under the old Injustice Starfire redesign. They implied that compared to the super-skinny original, my stouter version actually wasn’t muscular… and at the same time implied that this alien humanoid might be too heavy to use her power of flight

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Following this very helpful comment, I used two newer, better quality images from the game, redid Star’s bodytype and gave her a costume redesign I was working on in my free time. 

NOW princess Koriand’r is of perfectly muscular and aerodynamic shape, not to mention the adequate weight to get off the ground and get decent momentum! 

~Ozzie

[Pictured above: A fighter with a “Machiavellian philosophy and appearance.”]

Oh boy, it’s what I’ve been dreading when the Soul Calibur VI character releases started; another uninspired lingerie-esque outfit for Ivy

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[ x5 ]

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It’s so aggressively boring that the details they added, like the lace on her stockings and the cords around her sides, somehow make it even less interesting. She looks like she’s cosplaying herself. They also seem to have removed the snake motifs she had previously, and replaced them with… uhh, generic skulls, I guess? Cause that’s intimidating and not overdone at all.

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[Ivy, thinking “What, you thought this was going to be a good design? Ha!” with a knowing smile]

I guess I’ll give the devs credit for giving her a boob window while also showing off about 70% of her breasts (the lace doesn’t count as covering). That’s some next-level dedication.

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What is it with companies thinking that professional, Machiavellian female characters wear fetish outfits?

-Icy

Guess who’s back

There is a prophecy we shared upon this blog, and it seems the guys at Soul Calibur are doing everything in their power to make it come true.  

Think I’m joking!? This brilliant design which is a limited time collectible on Lost Swords was designed by a Hentai artist.  Now I should clarify, I don’t mean an artist who happens to have done drawn some porn at various times to pay the bills – I mean it’s his preferred genre and the one that he’s built his fanbase on.

I guess they figured his expertise would add polished professionalism to their already porntastic costume catalog for a game that already incorporates destroyable armor.

Thank you to pinchtheprincess for directing us to this one.

– wincenworks

Promo video here | More on Soul Calibur