Extreme Makeovers! | keo | Chrono

[keo]

Extreme Makeovers! | keo | Chrono
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/competitions/uploaded_thubnails/33-game-concept-art-1094-1182190470-thumb.jpg

keo has entered the competition!

[keo]

just staking my claim since it seems like charactes are first-com, first-served! once I figure out what I'm doing with him, I'll replace the Squaresoft character design.

Also: Chrono is from Chronotrigger (not -cross), which debuted on the SNES in 1995.

[keo]

alrighty, first sketches, mostly just making him realistic to start... not sure what else I'll do to change him up.

[Sordid23]

not sure what else I'll do to change him up

Well you can try to give him a "theme". Like Emo, and give him black cloths, fingernails and cover one eye with hair ^^

[FredH]

Looking good, looking good:) I wonder though if changing a character from cartoon to realistic will work in your advantage. This might be a little tough, but if you are up for the challenge, it should be ok;)

Yeah, like sordid mentioned, giving his clothing a slightly different color theme could work. I see you also made him much older then his kid like appearance in his first appearance. Nice.

Keep it up!:thumb:

[Enma]

Might be worth looking up Naruto and comparing his age upgrade in Naruto Shippuden. It's subtle, but works perfectly.

As a Chrono age upgrade, I gotta say, im not feeling it. As a stand alone character tho, it looks good :) It feels like it's alittle to far flung from the orignal concept in order for it to portray the character. Just my opinion though.

[keo]

hm, I'll keep your comments in mind when I work on this next... I'm mostly looking at how Square changed Cloud from FF7 to the Advent Children movie. I think if they were to make a FF7 2.0, he would likely keep his appearance from the movie. Even though Chrono's from a different world, the Chronocross game fits somewhere in-between Chronotrigger's cartoon style and the realism of the last two FF games. I think a next-gen game featuring Chrono would likely look more like FF11 and 12 than Chronotrigger.

I think maintaining the color palette is the key... lemme do a quick paint so I can you what I mean.

[keo]

25 minutes later...

[ThatDon]

Ohh man I'm digging the red chops, I hope he is sporting a fire crotch as well!

[Enma]

Im gonna be an ass and say that I still dont think it's conveying the character all too well. If it wasnt for the fact that they are standing side by side, then i wouldnt have known who he was. Maybe a revision in the face would fix this (looking more like a pirate at the mo) and fixing up the link style trousers (more folds for Chrono!) Sorry.. maybe it's my lack of artistic perception :)

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread, partly cos i love the game, but also because I think your a fine artist. Just hope you prove me wrong with this one :thumb:

[keo]

some more work on this guy, trying to get a feel for him.

[Dario]

i like your sketches so far. but i think it may be time to focus on the outfit, instead of changing some minor details in the face. the last page you posted shows the right direction, but you can push this much more!

think about new materials you can use for his clothings. full plate armor instead of linen, or blue tribal tattoos instead of his shirt.

put him into a specific world, so the people know why you give him such goodies. the manga world offers an unlimited amount of variatons without having to explain them. if you turn chrono into a "real" human being, than things get more complicated.

good luck! i'm really curious to see your coming work.

[Frozan]

the only thing that i think should be played with more is there hair. eben though so much more realistic u should stylize the hair more :) cool though i like!

[keo]

dario- yeah he's going to be rendered realisticly, but the technology/fashion style will not be as down to earth. his clothing in the original is fairly boring, just a typical japanese tunic with pants and boots.

frozan- i'm thinking some weird combination punk hair, part shaved, part dreadlocks, part sticking up/mohawk-ish

I think I'll have more time to work on him tonight, we'll see where he heads...

[Frozan]

coolness i cant wait to see where this one starts heading. the hair idea u speak of sounds pretty cool. best of luck to you.

[keo]

some more messing around, still playing with ideas...

[Frozan]

let us know when u have what u think u want :)

[Centrifuge]

been watching this thread a bit. I think you are headed in the right direction now getting into various outfits and different looks. Id like to see it go even more away from the original, not so much that it loses the character, but just enough to be able to see it as a reconceptualization of the character in every aspect, rather than a fan art illustration ya know. The last two posts to me are great, I like that you are exploring different appearence attributes. Keeping the color scheme of the original character is good when changing much of the appearence, I am going to keep my eye on this one still, gl.

[Jido]

I've been checking this thread out as well. I like the new sword and the new gear on post #16, but the like the face, sideburns and bandana better on the lower left side of post #11. The younger face is on the mark. Imo, the likeness in the older face needs a bit more tweaking if you're going the older route.

[keo]

ok, this is the direction I think I'm going in... Chrono is a time traveler, so I figured he should have gear from lots of different time periods, not just wear a typical Japanese ronin costume.

I'll probably tweak it from here, settle out the design for the steambot arm.

[brian_h]

Great idea using the character like that but hold the look. The steampunk thing is a bit done but it might be a nice touch gelled with something else like feudal Japan...lots of possiblities...great stuff.

B

[keo]

yeah, I think you're right, brian. one of my favorite artists, nic klein (http://nic-klein.com/), has done several diesel/steam cyborgs, a couple of them were feudal japan.

I'll keep pushing on to some newer ideas... good thing I have a few more weeks!

[keo]

tweak tweak!

Moving in the right direction now, I think... D&D fans might be familiar with the vorpal blades, chrono now carries a temporal blade. Instead of allowing time manipulation like the Dagger of Time in the Prince of Persia series, the temporal blade cuts by forcing radioactive decay on the elements it cleaves through, causing electromagnetic and thermal damage as well as the usual slice & dice.

... yeah that's it, no one argue with me regarding the actual rules of science... lalalala (fingers in ears) :)

[Bbox85]

Looking good. I'm really digging the steam punk theme. My only thing is that Crono appeared to me to be youthful yet wise. If at all possible, I'd try to capture more youth in his face. Otherwise it's looking great dude.

[FredH]

He is looking good so far, but I wonder if you are getting a little carried away with the make over. By cutting off his arm and giving him a robotic limb and by giving him an old and scruffy look with side burns and a mohawk, you might be reducing his appeal as a main character of a game or as a character that everyone would like to play. There is still alot of time left, so I am curious to see where you take this one next:)

edit: oops, didn't see there was a page 2:s I was refering to your colored pic at the end of page 1.

[keo]

yeah, I only cut off one of his legs this time :)

I think I'm going to move away from artificial limbs towards a mixture of medieval european & japanese and space marine armors.

we'll see, we'll see. good thing I started on this at the beginning of the competition so I have time to explore this . :)

[ThatDon]

I really like that clock/sword design you have going on there, perhaps make it more squaresoft-ish and make it more of a buster design with lots of cool bits and pieces on it, it could be a really nice touch to the character, maybe it's even how he travels through time now? or act like a pda sorta thing in-game! lots of neat potential.

[scorn-maniac]

Great character choice from a truly awesome game. I dig your various variations of Chronos. Its like seeing different Chronos from parallel universes.

The clock sword works for me. ThatDon has real neat ideas for that. I also tink there's a lot of potential in it. Slice vertical to cut through time, slice horizontal to slow down time or something like that. Not that fond of the gun.

Well good luck man. look forward to see more. :)

[keo]

changed some stuff up, tried to make him more appealing and more of an obvious time-traveler.

[Kalango]

Hah! im loving it man, loved the pirate looking gun...outfit looks nice as well.

[Dario]

very cool progress! i would pretty much stay with your last design and try now to make the shapes more simple, so the concept gets clearer and easier to read.

best wishes! this entry is running for the first ones, i would say. :)

[keo]

ok, spent some more time on this, not tons, been a bit busier lately.

I cleaned up the design and made the face look more like "leading man" material, but I think he lost some (if not all) of his moxie.

I took some embarassing reference photos of myself, we'll see where it goes...and time is growing short!

[ThatDon]

I freaking love the sword! Good job reworking his face as well, I'm sure color will bring this bad boy to life!

[brian_h]

Gonna be tough to beat...this is really nice stuff. Can't wait to see the color.

[FredH]

He is looking a lot better:) What do you think about adding his head band from one of your initial sketches - here - (http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=261&stc=1&d=1182394863)(the one on the left. It goes up over his head a bit)

I kind of liked that one (see attached)

Regardless, it's really coming along nicely. Looking forward to the colors:cool:

[keo]

ok, got the ortho just about done, need to finalize it then get started on the winning pose/illustration

[Kalango]

Well looking pretty nice man :), loved his gun and the overall look xD

[FredH]

These layout shots really came out well man. I am really liking the gun too.

[keo]

anh, so I went from "cleaning up the ortho" to doing full greyscale :)

[alexisys]

Wow! Looks great :thumb: Cant wait to see full color illustration

[FredH]

Looking cool looking cool. Just a small thing.. perhaps put in a clean cut hole for where his shoulder meets his arm in the side shot. since you smoothed everything over, he looks sort of like he doesn't actually have an arm there. Something like this...

http://www.hawkprey.com/tweaky.jpg

It's like an egg shape thingy to show where her arm would start if it was there.

Otherwise, it's looking great man:)

[keo]

finished image:
I think it turned out pretty well, but I wish I had spent more time planning the pose and composition. Did the whole thing in about 14 hours yesterday and tonight.

Fred: thanks for the crit, made the change in the final submission.

[keo]

here are the other files submitted:

[brian_h]

Nice work...great finish...glad to see you finished. Really nice work in the final pose.