Tag: soul calibur

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Return to Soul Calibur: Cassandra, Part  2

Soul Calibur IV/V: The Worst One

I don’t know why I do this to myself, but I decided to tackle the worst out of Cassandra’s outfits. The design started kind of silly at first, with me giving her a butt armor plating pretty much immediately. If she’s going to have a bunch of butt attacks, she might as well pack a real punch with those cheeks.

But as I was trying to figure out how to redo her entire upper half, which I hated all of, I ended up looking up some traditional Greek clothing for inspiration. Even though this is a while after Cass left home, I still wanted to include something that tied her back there. As I was explaining during a stream, SC has all these varied characters from all over the world, all with their own motivations, and yet their designs (especially in the later games) are so focused on the fan-service that any actual storytelling is lost.

In the end, I maintained the color scheme, and even the overall shape spread, with the legs being the biggest shapes (although reversed), and the small shapes breaking up the larger shape of the jacket. I guess the only shape I really broke up were in the arms, because I hate her stupid gloves lol.

I got rid of all of her pink ribbons because they just seem out-of-place no matter how you look at it. Guess they were tying the pink of the shield into her outfit, but they were too stupid. Rest in Pieces, ribbons.

This design would probably suit an earlier game, but whatevs. Overall, it’s pretty passable, if I do say so myself.

-Icy

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Return to Soul Calibur: Cassandra, Part  1

Soul Calibur’s Cassandra, much like her Greek mythology namesake, is cursed. But instead of no-one believing her accurate prophecies, no-one ever gives her adequate costume!
And, as per usual in the franchise, designs basically only get worse over time. So we agreed to do a double-Cassandra stream and fix two different outfits of hers. 

Soul Calibur 6: Orange-white minidress 

While this is her latest iteration, I wouldn’t call the SC6 Cassandra dress the worst by a long shot. Still plenty shitty, though! See its bingo here.

It is rather surprising that after years of her main color scheme being blue and pink with white details, latest game changed it to orange and white with blue detail. The new, complimentary, colors look nice together. I don’t think the palette change was necessary, but unlike many designs we comment on, this one’s artists have their basic color theory in check. 

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Obviously, first thing to change was the boob window. I decided to color in that whole part white (not orange) and connect it with her collar, to give the remaining orange part a vest-like look. Moved its hem a bit higher, too, so that it stops implying low cut cleavage. Some subtler, but still annoyingly sexualized parts, like sideboobs and the belt on her chest, also had to go.
I usually don’t mind bare shoulders, but this design looked better with some poofy sleeves, in lieu of our stream redesign staple, the poofy pants.

I decided to extend the front and back flap on her dress, and to add two side flaps under the tassets, as an additional splash of color and some padding. And while I appreciate how comfortable her shoes looked, I turned them into longer boots that look much better with this cut of costume. 

Rather than a massive overhaul, it was the kind of redesign that consists of many small changes that add up. And I’m quite happy with the whole thing. Hope you enjoy it!

~Ozzie

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The Soul CaliBoyfriends

We decided to post a double stream redesign of guys we sexified last year as our own submission for @magicmeatmarch​! We also decided they’re probably together.

Raphael Sorel 

Glad that Icy suggested I fixed this vampire daddy, as I had just to finish a work someone else started. That particular outfit was obviously designed by someone who was thirsty, but not allowed to go full-on sexy on Raph. Just look at those lovingly sculpted ab shapes on the breastplate (?)… and then there’s the crotch. ?

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I seriously only followed what was already there – painted abs and pecs just as the stylized ones on his armor looked… then made his already very detailed groin area grow a size bigger and get a tiny bit more highlight, for emphasis. 

You’re welcome. 

~Ozzie

Grøh

I decided to redesign this dude who is new to SC6. Apparently he’s some kind of secret agent or something, and half of him became evil, I guess? So I figured I’d keep some of him covered to evoke that. I could have taken away most of his jacket, but because half of him is evil, he gets a bit more coverage. The stockings and boots are a reminder of his professional obligation, cause they’re so fancy and stylish. The one garter is again, a call-back to his dual nature.

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And finally, because he is A Man™

and we have to see the Dong for him to Clearly be A Man™*, I clearly outlined his junk. Just to make sure that his enemies don’t forget that he is A Man™ either, I also made his double-ended dong sword more dick-shaped on the ends.

I guess you could say that he’s a Grøhwer.

-Icy

*Just clarifying that this is all in jest, in response to cisnormative standards for women (big bazongas, camel-toe, etc). One’s junk obviously has no bearing on their gender.

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My redesignoriginal design

j–mno-art:

@bikiniarmorbattledamage has now done two redesigns of this version of Tira from Soul Calibur so I decided to take a stab at it. While this is my first time doing this type of redesign/paint-over I think it turned out pretty well. I decided to lean into the jester look for her clothing while also incorporating the bones from her original design. I like that she ended up looking somewhere between a jester and a witch.

This is so cool! Thank you for @-ting us! 

I think it speaks both to what garbage the original is and how much lost potential Tira has that each of us came up with completely different fix for this un-costume.

Hope Icy doesn’t mind, but I think you managed to solve Tira’s wardrobe problem in the most cohesive and creative way out of us three, @j–mno-art. I really love the jester/witch look, the bone detailing, her hairstyle and the little cape. 

~Ozzie 

The hair and the bone details are bomb. Personally, I still think that the Bird Connection could be expanded upon to add some texture variety with the feathers and whatnot, but that’s mostly detail stuff. She definitely looks way better than the original, now that she actually has a design, rather than just Underboob.

Maybe one day we’ll all take her Soul Calibur 6 design to the livestream, cause that “shirt”…… Yikes.

-Icy

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Soul Calibur, as always, happy to disappoint with generic skimpy female outfits, this time for Sophitia’s sister, Cassandra Alexandra.
Sadly, not every character named Cassandra can be awesome and designed with attention to detail by the artists. 

And in case you guys doubted whether this should even count as sexualized or if the cleavage is that bad, the reveal trailer leaves no doubt over what the boob emphasis is for [spoiler alert: it’s jiggling]: 

Not an impressive bingo score, but she gets a sideboob count and half a point for those feeble tights as “no pants”. Sparing her from “high heels” count, as the shoes look relatively reasonable, comfortable even.

Reminder that this is what she looked like last time she showed up in the franchise, making the new design an “improvement” just over a tiny technical margin of covering a few square inches of skin more: 

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Since they already decided to give her a new ridiculous costume, why not go all out and consider butt armor, to match her signature butt attack? 

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~Ozzie 

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Old Redesign Switcheroo Part 2

Why did I pick this concept art with this pose…….

As a person who used to actually play Soul Calibur once upon a time, I wanted to try my hand at redesigning Tira. As Ozzie pointed out in her own redesign, she is definitely the poor woman’s Harley Quinn, so I went on the fan wiki to scour for any material I can use to make her unique. I discovered that she has a connection with crows, apparently, which is presumably why there’s one in this concept art. So I ran with that as far as I could!

I started by changing her hair and face, as usual. I smeared her lipstick also, cause I feel like she’d the type to put on makeup and then forget she has it on. Basically, mood.

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I then incorporated an actual crow motif by giving her a feathered collar and feathered tights, sort of. And yeah, she’s now wearing tights with the legs from some poofy pants and feathers. It’s a definitely a Look. She’s supposed to be very eccentric, is my excuse.

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As for her shirt, I honestly had 0 ideas, so I did a simple white sleeveless shirt with a vest, to at least add some good lines that would lead toward the poofy and feathered legs.

My rendering for this ended up being sooo basic. I blame the pose. Painting is my passion.

Ozzie and I agree that the original design is pretty much unsalvageable, unless we’re given like 2 weeks to do research and thumbnails to redo her from scratch. I did end up going way over the time limit for this, cause I kept redrawing various elements, but at least I put some thought into it. 

-Icy

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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

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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

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bikiniarmorbattledamage:

The tragic evolution of Sophitia’s costume (source unknown). Fortunately Sophitia was spared the indignity of whatever Soul Calibur V would have inflicted upon her.

Hard to believe that Soul Calibur IV was also the game that introduced us to Hilde Von Krone, badass beyond compare. (image from IGN’s Positive Women in Fighting):

(More images here)

I don’t understand… is there like an in house limit of how many female characters can be taken seriously per game?  Or is the prophecy real?

– wincenworks

This week’s throwback, as the followup to Tira bingo, is the gradual downfall of Sophitia’s character design in Soul Calibur. 

Saddest part (beside Hilde being an easy proof that SC can do female warriors well if they want to) is that this is by far probably least absurd and demeaning female costume change out of many in the franchise. 

Remember when Taki exchanged her titninja full body condom for this… thing by Mari “Bayonetta isn’t sexist because a woman designed her” Shimazaki? Or almost anything Ivy wore after this? Yeah, they can and do get worse.

~Ozzie 

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So, remember how Tekken had a “please pay for this sexy lady” DLC character? Well it turns the management at Soul Calibur thought that was genius and they’d do that for themselves.

Thankfully she doesn’t look like she’s basically an alternative version of another iconic Soul Calibur character… I mean that would be embarrassing.  Almost as embarassing as this fighting fucktoy intro.

– wincenworks

Thing I notice about Soul Calibur is that with every installment of the franchise new costume designs are introduced for established characters and they usually go the pretty straightforward path of de-evolution (see Sophitia as an example and keep in mind she’s far from the worst). 

We already devoted a couple of bingos and stream redesigns to them, but with the SC’s momentum leading up to the prophecy, we will probably never catch up completely to every awful version of every female character in the games. 

~Ozzie