Just an idea!

I've just had an idea, I think Mr x's tentacle hair should constantly move around like an octopus' tentacles. I think this will give him more character.

A Respone to Mr Pinnock.

Neil raised a good point when he commented how he thought Kung Fu was set in olden times, and how I should be more specific about my time period. Well, it has never been stated when Kung Fu was set, the only description about the game was that 'your girlfriend has been captured by Mr X, you must go and save her'. Talk about basic story, but that the beauty of the game, it's so simple and up for interpretation. I imagine Kung Fu is set in the seventies, when the Bruce Lee movies were at their most popular. Cutler is the grandson of Thomas (from the original kung fu), lets say Thomas and his girlfriend got married and had a son in 1975. Now lets say that son got married in 1998, and had a son (Cutler). I imagine Cutler to be 19 years old, thus making the year when the game is set 2017. Neil, made a good point, so I thought I would make it clear when I imagine the game is set.

One Page Sketches.

Here are some one page sketches that I have done. Mr X has had a few design changes. Firstly, his costume is quite different. I originally had him in a long sleeve shirt and black trousers, instead I have decided to have him wear a waistcoat. The reason behind this is I wanted the audience to see his arms more as I envisioned him having squid like suckers down his arms. I also dressed him in business trousers as I thought it would make him look more swave. The reason he is not wearing shoes is because he has suckers on the bottom of his feet that allow him to stick to walls. Cutler really hasn't changed much at all. I've neatened up his vest as I thought that if it was loose it would be more difficult to model, I also gave his sweatbands on his wrists as I thought his hands looked a bit plain. The main change to Cutler is that I drew him wearing a tight black t shirt under his vest. This is a homage to the white vest and black t-shirt that Thomas wore in the original kung fu. Snubbs and tong haven't really changed much. Tong has a few more black markings on his legs as I thought he didn't look panda like enough. I am pretty pleased with the designs (rubbish drawing skills aside), the only thing is I am very undecided about Sash's look.

Sash doodles

Here's some designs for Sash. I wanted to try and get Sash's feistyness through in the art, so I decided to not make her wear anything predominantly girly like a dress. I've noticed that in many games the female characters have skinny legs, so I wanted to do the opposite and give her a curvy figure. This also made me think that she could stand her ground more against men, as she could give them one hell of a kick in the groin. Anyway, I've been playing around with hairstyle and clothes, I'm a little undecided so any suggestions would be nice.

Bears in animation

Here are two research clips of bears in animation from Disney. The first clip is from The Fox and The Hound. This is a fight with a fox and a dog tag teaming the biggest bear in the universe. Seriously this bear is huge, so it's quite use full as the bear is very menacing. Plus it is also animated by the godly genius, Glen Keane. The second clip is from Brother Bear, arguably one of the worst Disney films ever. This clip is a montage from the movie, it shows good bear animation, as well as a little bear annoying the hell out of a bigger one.

Tong Designs.

Tong was very fun to design, as I've never really seen a scary panda. The first thing I did when designing Tong, was to shorten his nose and slope his brow, this would give him a more 'grumpy' exterior. I wanted Tong to seem really odd so I decided to give him a slightly humanoid body structure. However this ended up a little too disturbing, so in the next page of picture I toned it down. Grizzly bears have a hump of muscle on their backs so I chose to give tong one too, except I chose to make it more angular to accentuate it. Overall I am quite pleased with Tong, there is some more development needed but he was fun to draw.

MR X doodles

Here is my designs for the main antagonist, Mr X. Because he is part 'ogre' I wanted him to not not look human, then again I did not want him to loose his swave personality. So I had to create a blend between the two. Both in Japanese and Chinese mythology there is alot of tales about people that are part animal or that transform into animal, so it became evident to me to blend him with an animal. After a little thinking I realised, the world had seen were-wolfs, and half man half pigs, but when have you ever seen part fish....okay except for mermaids but they don't count because its only their bottom half that's fish-like. Anyway, I got to thinking about some fishy designs. The first page of designs that I did, weren't fishy enough. He looked too human. However, on the second page I decided to get a little crazier with the designs. Firstly I looked at a sharks face, however when I applied this to the character it didn't look menacing or swave...it just looked ridiculous. I then decided to look at a more oriental fish, the koi carp. The first man-carp design looked a little stupid, but the second one looked okay. I gave him, pronounced cheek bones, no nose, gills on his temples and a little carp-like moustache. I wanted my character to have hair, because I thought that bald was boring, so I gave him locks of hair that looked like octopus tentacles. I quite like the overall look of this design so I took it to the next step and drew him, full bodied. However, my drawing ended up quite bad, and the costume design was terrible. I'll have to think harder about that one.

TONG

Allthough Tong is originally a Panda, he is transformed into a giant bear. The biggest bear I can think of is a grizzly bear which is an absolutly huge animal, sometimes weighing upto 1200 pounds. It also has a giant hump of muscle on it's back. Here is some sketches of grizzly bears that I drew, at the moment they are quite realistic but I will be designing and styling Tong later. I hav also uploaded a video of a grizzly bear hunting. This not only helps understanding how they move anf fight, but also who powerfull they are.

Here is a few doodles and designs of Cutler and Snubbs. Cutler's hat was inspired by a weird piece of headgear that I saw a girl wearing. I thought it was so interesting that I had to use it. The NES Kung Fu had Thomas wearing mainly black and white, I decided to keep this motif but update it with a vest, 3/4 length shorts and converse shoes. With Snubbs, I wanted to keep it simple, basic dot eyes and no mouth. But I wanted to spice it up a bit so a gave him a spot on his left eye, and a cape...I just thought I've never seen a pig in a cape. I also made the decision for cutler to have dreadlocks as I thought it would make him stand out more against the sea of bald space marines that is currently flooding the video game world ( I also secretly based his looks on the musician John Butler as I think he is quite visually interesting). I've also started mapping out some movements of the character to get a feel for how he will move across the screen. Overall, I think it is a good start, Cutler needs a bit more work, but I am quite happy with Snubbs.

KUNG FU!

I thought it would be wise to uload some footage from the original 'Kung FU'. Here is both the Arcade version and the Nintendo Entertainment System version aswell. Seeing this, really makes me want to find my old NES, but alas...it is lost! :(

BRIEF

Character Design



“The task of this project is to design and model characters for a sequel to the 1984 videogame ‘Kung Fu’. Pupils will be required to create 2d conceptual work for five characters. They will then be required to model and texture two of the characters in a 3d computer package. The characters should be worked up from the following list.”

Cutler- “A wise-cracking twenty-something who is the grandson of ‘Thomas’ from the original game. Much like the original game, his girlfriend is captured and he must try to save her. He is a lot more ‘trendy’ than his grandfather was. His personality is similar to Ash Williams, from ‘The Evil Dead’.”
Snubbs- “Cutler’s pet pig who accompanies him everywhere. Snubbs is more useful than some might think as he can be used to attack enemies as well as to scout out and observe the area ahead. There are some points in the game where the player will have to take control of Snubbs.”
Mr X- “This is the very same Mr X from the first game. He has been reborn by combining his spirit with half of that of the mythical ogre, Oni. He wishes to complete his transformation by spilling the blood of any descendant of ‘Thomas’. However, Cutler proved too tricky to capture so he captured his girlfriend instead. He wishes to trick Cutler into entering his mansion so he can kill him. Mr X has a very smooth ‘James Bond’ like personality.”
Tong- “ A clumsy Panda that Mr X transformed into a giant beast in an attempt to kill Cutler. During the transformation he has lost a lot of his Cute Panda qualities.”
Sash- “ Cutler’s girlfriend who is captured by Mr X. She is a feisty young lady who does not take being bossed around very well.”

Students should consider the following…

Be stylistic; make it interesting, not realistic, heavily cartoony (feature animation like design).
Keep it light hearted as this game is about stringing together crazy moves and having fun.
Gameplay wise think 'Veutiful Joe'