Return of Kanpani Girls
Our second Kanpani Girls redesign. Fixing more soldier waifus!
So this character is supposed to be the highest ranking soldier among the Holy Knights (whatever they are in the game) and basically is supposed to be perfect leader and fighter, including über-pretentious part in character description:
There’s not a single hole in her fighting technique. The spear is actually a perfect metaphor for her existence itself. She very rarely takes center stage.
Mary-Sue-ish description aside, I gotta admit that Elmina’s stance and *parts* of uniform do inform what a confident authority figure she is. Then there are ridiculous patches of bare skin, schoolgirl face and ridiculously busy costume shape.
First, obvious thing to fix were the random cutouts. Then I decided that whatever that giant pauldron thingy on her right arm is supposed to be looks just too absurd and uncomfortable to leave it as it is. Instead I recreated her left pauldron best as I could, to make it a simple symmetrical uniform.
Next thing was to give her face conveying the experience and age you’d expect from a high ranking officer. I made her look older with a bigger nose, some minor wrinkles and a tiny bit more detailed lips and jawline. Crossing scars over the bridge of her nose communicate that she acquired her mastery of the spear at a cost – no real badass warrior authority should go scarless.
Also she got a haircut. Her cape is epic enough to blow in the wind and the long hair just asked to get stuck in her weapons or armor.
The rest of the stream I spent reversing all those tiny little ornamental shapes from her uniform into simpler, bigger shapes that don’t tire the eye so quickly. Most such changes can be observed on her greaves, as her legs were the least exposed part of the costume.
~Ozzie
I decided to tackle the lovingly-rendered but very unfortunately dressed Helga. She has no backstory that I found, so nothing was stopping me from doing whatever I wanted. Insert evil redesigner laugh!
I started by giving her an actual breastplate to replace the…. um. I’m not actually sure what she was supposed to be wearing in the original? It’s not pasties, but there’s not enough coverage to call it a bra… anyway. I got it outta there fast. I also gave her a sleeve while I was at it.
I used the same breastplate design as I used for my other Kanpani Girl redraw, because the metal bits under her breasts lead easily into it. I just moved it down to that it’s an actual armor. And thanks to feedback on the previous design, I knew to give her a brigandine under that breastplate: that’s what the metal rivets are.
Next, I debated over what to do with her legs. At first, I wanted to give her a tabbard and get rid of her massive skirt almost entirely, but I actually like the skirt. It goes well with her flowy sleeve, and I decided that she was a noblewoman who learned sword-fighting. No backstory, no rules!! It wouldn’t be the most practical, but I decided she still held onto vain nobility ideals and thus kept the skirt. I just made it a little less wide.
I also noticed that her short inside skirt had the beginning shapes of pants, and I ran with that. The trademark Poofy Pants™
make an appearance again, with white tights underneath for contrast. I moved her stocking decorations to her shins and made shoes out of them.
And finally, I made her actually look determined. She feels like a person who only recently picked up the sword, so no scars for her yet.
I definitely had fun rendering this out, though having to switch to a different idea part-way through once again meant that I didn’t finish this during the stream. I’m better about it now, I swear!
-Icy
