So Im painting my own fantasy hero lineup for giggles

[shaowebb]

Working on something new. The other day I began playing a little brainstorming game.

I like superheroes and fighting games so I got the fun idea to do the following:

1. Come up with hero powers or stereotypes
2. Dont bother making up a story for them or a motivation...they are just supposed to visually "look" like certain kinds of hero themes from the 90's
3. Write up a quick rough of how I'd like them to fight.
4. Do a cast of 50 for an original all super hero marvel vs capcom sort of game. All heroes, all original, all based off of 90's comics and other popular hero themes I grew up with

Well before I knew it my pages were filling with notes because without having to come up with an out of suit design, any kind of persona, or any kind of motivation or rogues gallery I was suddenly listing dozens of hero design tropes I grew up with.

One stood out...the Patriotic flag wearing hero. Every one has one. So my idea was make them use guns like Cable in MvC2 because NOTHING is more American than using a lot of guns, dress them in a flag like "Guardian" from Alpha Flight, give them a striped Flag cape and have their Hyper Viper Beam shoot a waving striped flag patter alongside of their pistols shooting stars.

I just kept designing ridiculous USA themes into the character until I said to hell with it...they will be the PRESIDENT of their world and they will tell America to "stay free".

Sooooooooooo....now I'm painting all these characters. Here is a preview of the character "PRESIDENT AMERICA".
(yes that is what I plan to call this hero because he IS America!)

I'll post more as I work on it and I'll reveal characters I wrote up for this fantasy game as soon as I begin work on them and have stuff to show. Once I paint them all I may just go ahead and model them in 3d and animate them. Thats a third of a game if I do that so hey...you never know. Could happen some day. Mainly I just want to work on this though because coming up with designs for a 90's comic book themed game idea is fun even if I never really get to make the thing. So for the record nothing is in production or planned, but its a fun creative exercise and I'll be seeing it through till the end to have some fun designing over the top heroes themed after things I grew up with.

For now...time to make him a pair of star spangled side arms and a flag rifle!

 

[shaowebb]

Been doing some beat boards lately for fighting game animations.
(No Im not working on one yet...I just wanted a theme for animation practice)

Generally I just do my anatomy geometry for each pose of the board but I really like one of the boards I did with a spear move where the character would shoryuken someone into the air with the spear, stop in midair, throw the opponent on his spear back to the ground, then dive kick back down to wear the spear landed to continue juggling the character he had impaled on it. Its a fun animation and I decided I'd design another hero around this weapon.

Since I'm doing a spear animation I went with themes that fit it. I gave him a helmet and since he pauses in the air and floats I figured I'd give him a cape to signify "flying hero ". Mixed in a celtic symbol since their famous Hero of Light was a spear user, and I got this.

No name for this guy yet, but I definitely think I'll stick to it as a Celtic Myth empowered Superman character theme.

Here's the rough I'll be cleaning up.

 

[shaowebb]

Hmmm...in hindsight Im thinking I'd like to try a Dragoon style helmet over this plain one.

Some hair might look good and putting some points and corners on his helmet would help balance the sharp angles on the spear tip. Plus it'd open up his lower jaw for expressions. Think I'll go with like an Ibex or Gazelle Skull since horse-like skulls make kickass helmets and horns would look good.