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guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
So I have a fair number of toons, 82 level 40s as of this post, and while not all are original gems, some I think are worth sharing. I don't mind anyone borrowing something they see here, but please don't copy completely, have a different name or have some clear changes to make your character different from mine.

First up, the very first toon I ever made for Champions Online, a few weeks after Free to Play went live. I made a Blade and a blade is probably one of the worst archetypes around. Lucky for me I was hooked on the character designer and not the game play.

Presenting: The Harlequin Samurai


This was the first character design I ever had for Champions, there are a few alterations, like the sword which used to be on the belt, but for the most part this is my very first design.

After I'd gotten more comfortable with the tailor I refined and perfected my design, simplifying the costume in many regards, and I've been very happy with the finished product.

With costume drops I was able to add different looks. This is a very Harley Quinn looking Harlequin

My SCUBA version sadly didn't work as well IMO. I may revisit the character at some point to improve this.

Comments

  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Next up my behemoth, this character became my first level 40 toon, and was one of the characters I farmed and actively bought costume parts for.

    Introducing: Mary Mars


    This was Mary's first costume, I didn't start off with the voodoo paint, it was originally tribal, but this was a welcome and happy addition.

    Mary has a back ground liberally stolen from the original Wonder Woman, with a fighter jet pilot landing on a secret Mediterranean island only to find it inhabited by Amazons. One of the Amazons, Mary Mars, who was also once known as Penthesilea during the Trojan war, decides to accompany the jet pilot back to America. Some of Mary's Costumes reflect that Greek mythology

    Of course the Greek myths don't match up to Mary's memory of these events, she doesn't even remember even hearing about an Achilles, but she will tell the story about her meeting with Ajax the Greater.

    One thing I tried to do with all my costumes is maintain a color theme or repeating elements. Mary's costumes reuse a lot of the same parts and color pallets

    There are limitations of course, I could have voodoo chest paint as an option with jackets

    I also enjoyed playing with new costume sets as I bought them. And in the initial days of playing CO I was buying things with cash. Not every new costume set worked with my preexisting toons though. Mary doesn't make a good wrestler IMO.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So having used up my first two free characters I decided to increase my character slots, and then I decided to try more of the free archetypes, this time making a Mind character

    Presenting: L'Etranger


    My first thoughts were of a pulpy 1940s golden age spy character, someone who could blend in, who might look like anyone else save for the mask. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that women can't have pants on under their trench coats.

    Even with a short jacket you needed to have tights or skin. Now to be fair, these aren't technically jackets, rather skirts, but I do find it amazing that the designers never thought that female characters would want to wear pants even with a skirt.

    Another oddity I discovered early on about the tailor's is that they have a cummerbund in the belt section, but it can't be worn with formal shirts or jackets. Sure, I could wear a cummerbund with a tank top and jeggings (for those formal yoga classes) but usually I want to wear a cummerbund with a suit. So it's like having a flippers that can't be worn with a wet suit.

    Speaking of flippers, the sci-fi set became my all time favorite because not only could I build a kick **** looking ice tank (more on her later) but I also had great looking SCUBA options.

    A close second choice is the golden age set, though in hind sight I think I'd avoid white hoods. They look a bit Kluxy

    L'Etranger was the first toon I used up all my costume slots on early, bought extra costume slots, and even had to create a Super Hero Team to get the extra slot, and despite the limitations I discovered thought they all came out pretty well.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So by this time I'd had a look at at all the free archetypes and I was willing to put a few more dollars into the game, and so I bought my first "premium" archetype: the professional. Again, not a great archetype, but from my point of view I was unlocking all these costume parts, guns and swords, it would be silly not to use them. In the end though my weapon choices turned out to use the basic weapons anyways . . .

    Presenting: Red Leaf

    For this character I really felt happy with the costume early on, it had a lot of what I wanted, and the head in particular really looked great.

    The sad thing about the costume parts is that the weapons you can add in the tailors as part of your costume don't really match the weapons you can use. These swords on the back for example don't really match any swords you can use. I rectified this in my mind by saying the swords were high tech and folded out when drawn.

    Red Leaf didn't get a lot of costumes, I had a couple alternative looks like this one . . .

    But the final outfit was in my mind solid and something I really didn't think I could improve on

    And seeing as this was my first farming character I played Red Leaf more then most of my other early characters. Looking back I'm still happy with the final costume and I don't think I'd change anything about it.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    I found that Tanking and Support proved to be more to my preferred play style, and I'd heard from a friend who played Champions that a Grimoire was a great support character. This was my first experience with the names being unusable as I wanted my character to be Rakshasa named Rakshasa, but that name was reserved for a per-existing villain. I found a walk around though:

    Presenting: The Red Rakahasa

    Now the initial joke with the character was going to be like that of the Blue Raja from Mystery Men, called the Red Rakahasa but never actually wearing red, but I got tired of that joke eventually.

    The great thing about building a shape shifter was that I could have just about any kind of costume.

    Professor Stone here for example.

    Doctor Simbi here walks the streets of Vibora

    However the Grimoire turned out to not be the best class for me, and I didn't revisit this toon till after I bought my lifetime subscription and had leveled every other toon on the first page up to level 40. I rather liked the Red Rakshasa's costumes, but the powers seems a bit lackluster for me, and once I was able to change him into a freeform character I leveled him up quite quickly.
  • guyhumual wrote: »
    This was my first experience with the names being unusable as I wanted my character to be Rakshasa named Rakshasa, but that name was reserved for a per-existing villain.

    you could've tried to do what i did for one of my STO characters - put an apostrophe between the k and the s, so you get Rak'shasa; dunno if it'll let you do even that, but it would've been worth a try

    and funnily enough, my rak'shasa is a feline too​​
    #LegalizeAwoo
  • themightyzeniththemightyzenith Posts: 4,599 Arc User
    edited January 2016

    and funnily enough, my rak'shasa is a feline too​​

    I blame D&D.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakshasa_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)

    zrdRBy8.png
    Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User

    The original costume of the Red Rakshasa was directly inspired by Trampier's original artwork.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So earlier I was mentioned that I bought a premium archetype just so show off my new unlocked weapons but then just used the ordinary weapons? I really liked the flintlock pistols and the blunderbuss and so I decided to make a soldier so I could use them. What sort of "hero" uses black powder weapons? A pirate of course!

    Presenting: Rabja the Red

    The name is a mix of her first and her last names: Rabi James.

    Rabja's outfits are sexier IMO then anything else I'd made up to this point, there were a lot of plunging necklines, pants cut to show off the legs, and even though Mary Mars showed off far more skin, Mary, with her muscles and war paint, never really felt risque.

    Rabja no the other hand was a bad girl, she seemed the type that'd entice you into a dark alley with promises of pleasures and delights and then rob you at gun point.

    Not all the outfits were sexy, distracting men (and some women) with her appearance was all well and good, but she couldn't dress like that all the time.

    Just most of the time.

    I also used Red Leaf to farm ghost pirates for the achievement that gave you the hat and Harquebus so Rabja could use them.

    Though when Rabja eventually visited the undersea she rocked that bathing suit
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So for my next toon I decided to dip into the premium archetype bag again, I'd also bought the jet pack travel power and so I asked myself what archetype would likely use jet packs, and seeing as the power armour set hadn't been introduced yet, I decided to go with the Inventor.

    Presenting: Captain Darling

    Now it had been a long time since I'd seen Black Adder and so it slipped my mind that there was a Captain Darling in that. I've started google searching the names to make sure I didn't steal anyone else's names or concepts. I liked the idea of a military title beside a very non threatening surname though.

    Darling initially used costume parts I'd already had, and I was disappointed that I couldn't have the art deco nose plate to go with the crest, something that bothers me to this day. However, over all, I really liked the design and color scheme.

    So much so that I ended up buying costume parts that fit with the art deco theme.

    It irks me that they don't have glowing parts for the hip gear though. Everything glows except the torso.

    I had variant costumes for super groups

    As well as costume variant that fit in with the Darlings' golden age origins. Captain Darling, not unlike Black Mask, comes from a dynasty of heroes. Captain Darling's family goes back to the early 20th century, with Captain Darling being the 5th Darling.

    When I finally signed up to become a lifetime subscriber Captain Darling's costume was the first one I altered to use the new parts. This outfit was supposed to be an imitation of the Tiffany designed costume the first Darling, Diva Darling, wore in the 1920s at the height of the art deco movment
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Around this time there was a promotional offer to give away free archetypes and a costume set for free, I can't remember the exact company that gave the offer, but I do remember the archetype was the devastator and the costume set was the viking warrior. I love the heavy weapons set but for some reason this was the last of my toons to make it to level 40 on my first page. I retooled the character as a free form heavy weapons character and it was one of the fastest leveling I think I've ever done. No complaints about the Devastator archetype, it's just that I was busy leveling other toons, then bought my lifetime membership, and this character was the last one I got back to.

    Presenting: Abba Aries

    Now Abba here is linked to Mary Mars, they come from the same tiny forgotten island of Amazons, but Abba came to the modern world not for adventure but to bring Mary home.

    Abba is in fact Hippolyta, queen of the amazons, and in myth Heracles needed her magical girdle as one of his tasks, and in some versions of the story Hippolyta gave it to him willingly. Heracles makes an excellent villain in my mind, and in Abba's version of events Heracles was little more then a bully and a thief.

    Unlike Mary I didn't really feel Abba had as distinctive a look, and her personality was more wet blanket then true hero. However I got to twist myth a bit with her backstory which is always fun. This costume was made as soon as I got the veteran rewards (which weren't all awarded the moment you bought your lifetime subscription back then).

    I tried to include an armored belt for most of her early costumes to represent Hippolyta's girdle but by this point I was just playing around with costumes.

    quite a few of these costumes were just for fun, they weren't really in keeping with the mythology of the character. But it's always fun to play around with the tailors.

    I did eventually settle on a costume I really liked though, not dissimilar to Mary's main costume, minus the tribal paint, but with armour, and I called it my "This is Sparta" costume.

    However I continue to play with the character, trying out new costume sets, and when I bought the Cosmic Costume set I couldn't resist playing around to make a homage to fairly well known comic hero.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So, continuing with the archetypes, one of my favorites from back when I was silver was the Glacier. I bought the Sci-fi costume set specifically for this character, and although I went back and used it with a lot of my older characters as well as many new ones, I consider this my quintessential sci-fi character.

    Presenting: Sophia La Mort

    So, Sophia is a bit of a Mr Freeze clone, there are even some similarities in the back story, however Sophia has no hopes of resurrecting her dead husband, and it is she who is clinically dead inside her cold steel suit. Her heart and lungs no longer work but her suit keeps her higher functions working.

    One of the things I liked about this costume was the cape, it's different on the inside then the outside, and the other thing I really liked was how bulky the suit looks with a glimpse of Sophia's pale body trapped inside. La Mort translates to the Dead. My french isn't very good.

    I didn't feel the need to make many variants of this character's or costume, the idea that she was trapped inside a suit of her own design kind of didn't allow for her to have multiple suits, but I did play around with a sleeker model.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So, still loving the tailors, still spending money on the game at this point. I could get an archetype and a costume set for $20 back then, and so I bought another premium set. This time I picked up the Savage. Rather then make a bestial character I went with something more akin to Sabertooth or Wolverine. Also, I'd bought the skin pack for Rabja the Red earlier and I was looking to use it on another toon.

    Presenting: Lady Fellstrike

    So with a very high regeneration factor the lady here can take a lot of damage, however even if you can regrow body parts you want to protect certain areas of your body because even if you can regrow them losing them is going to suck. Lady Fellstrike's first costume has a lot of bare skin, but her neck, eyes, ears, and groin are protected.

    With the golden age set those concerns with the neck, eyes and ears remain, groin apparently no longer a concern . . .

    Eventually I find a costume I really like, and this, for Lady Fellstrike was it. The costume felt very X-man like without copying the group exactly, showed an appropriate amount of skin, and with those gloves and shoulder pads, the savage's natural attacks and stances allowed from some dramatic stances.

    Case in point.

    Again, I fooled around with different sets, I really liked the Iron age set, and the 90s costume from the PRIMUS recognition vendor.

    I also played with the unlocks, but I feel the Lady's first and 3rd costumes were the strongest, and so when ever I play Lady Fellstrike I'm usually in one of those two costumes.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    More Archetypes, this time my interpretation of the Unleashed. A very solid archetype I felt and I loved the mix of force powers and dual blades. However I wasn't going to make a Jedi.

    Presenting: Scheherazade


    I'd originally bought the magic carpet power for the Red Rakahasa however it didn't really fit the concept, and the teleport was much better for a Grimoire, as teleporting in and summoning runes usually gave you the drop on your opponents. Dual scimitars and magic carpet plus the Arabian Night costume set at the character practically designs herself.

    I wasn't exactly thrilled with the costume set, a lot of the pieces didn't exactly fit the way I wanted, and ultimately a lot of my costume designs for this character I felt were somewhat lacking. The two I'm posting though I was very happy with. Although I might go back and do some changes now that I have the Urban Anime and steel shadow sets.

    This was the look I liked the most, it show cases what I was trying to do unsuccessfully with just the Arabian nights set. Scheherazade is not as powerful as Mary Mars or Abba Aries, but she's a warrior with strong powerful legs. Most of her damage is done with a spinning blade and it's her lower body that truly moves the blades.
  • holloweaverholloweaver Posts: 582 Arc User
    edited January 2016
    My favs are Rabja and Darling. Captain Darling last costume is just amazing.
    Each time I tried to do a corsair/pirate outfit, I couldn't make anything I like. While I don't have all your costume parts, your Rabja is definitely going to help me to do a corsair costume.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User

    My favs are Rabja and Darling. Captain Darling last costume is just amazing.
    Each time I tried to do a corsair/pirate outfit, I couldn't make anything I like. While I don't have all your costume parts, your Rabja is definitely going to help me to do a corsair costume.

    If you'd like to know the parts to any particular costume I'd be happy to list them. Rabja uses mostly Vibrora Bay vampire parts but sadly I don't think those pistols are still available. The good news is that both the harquebus and blunderbuss are available, the bad news is that they're unlocked during the Christmas event, and since that's over if you didn't unlock them last month you're going to have to wait nearly another year to get them next Christmas.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    More Archetypes, this time another premium archetype, the void. This costume fell into place completely organically, that is to say I had a couple costume parts I wanted to play with, namely the Golden Age 2 collar and Jewel of Edom, I used the random color generator, and then began playing with parts. This was planned as a Void character, but as the costume came together I realized that this would be perfect for some kind of dark power set.

    Presenting: Kid Darling

    Kid Darling is the great grandmother of Captain Darling and the daughter of Deva Darling, the first of the Darlings, and after her mother retired Kid Darling became the New Deva Darling . . . However she'd been forced into the super hero gig by her mother and she'd despised the "Kid" moniker so naturally it had stuck.

    She died back in 82, and was buried in a nice little plot in Detroit, but some ten years later that city would be leveled in a battle with Doctor Destroyer. The grave of the forgotten Kid Darling was lost in the reconstruction efforts.

    Then Takofanes used his dark magic to raise the heroes of Detroit to do his dark bidding, however another hero rose as well, one not bound to will of the dread necromancer. Kid Darling had returned, and despite the pale completion, and the need to siphon off a bit of life force off her foes, she seemed none the worse for wear.

    In fact, considering she'd last been active as a hero in the 1950s, and now, in 2012 she looked 60 years younger then when they'd put her in the ground.

    The truly strange thing is Kid Darling's powers were similar to her mothers, she was capable of phasing through objects and manipulating force, but the resurrected hero has completely different abilities. What's the real story? Well most of my early characters constantly hit the bio character limit and I didn't do much RPing back then so I guess we'll never know. I enjoyed designing a dark, potentially sinister character for a change, and this isn't the last character tied to the Darling dynasty.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Finishing off my first page of super heroes, the first lockboxes in the game had the cursed costume set along with the cursed archetype. I tried chasing the costume parts but getting access to a new archetype was very exciting. Unfortunately the AH was selling these Archetypes for more then my silver cap would let me spend. Luckily I had a friend who had a LTS, so I was able to pool my money and have him buy me the archetype.

    Presenting: Kyra Kyton

    So I managed to get some costume unlocks from the lock box, chains and glow effects, this was years before auras so they were the hot new thing. Not stuff I'd ever use these days, but they were cool when they first game out.

    Although I think you can really go overboard with glow effects, here we see flame flight travel power with the effects of Aspect of the Infernal, she was bright to the point that you can't make out details on the character.

    It did look pretty neat flying around though. It was a bit of a mess but it was kind of fun being all glowy in a game that didn't have many glowy characters at this point.

    This is what that second costume looked like without the travel power and form activated.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So, one last Archetype, this time the Celestial. By this time I was pretty hooked on CO, and it became apparent that this free to play game was costing me tons of cash. It occurred to me that saving up and buying a life time subscription was the way to go. I still had a free slot though, so I made this toon to tied me over while I waited till I had the cash for a LTS.

    Presenting: Gabriel Divine

    So Gabby is a human given divine powers, a nice contrast to my last toon who was a straight up devil.

    I didn't use Gabby too much, I like playing the healer in D&D type games, but none of my friends were really playing CO which kind of left me making new friends online. However, On Alert had just launched and this made quick pick up games easier to play.

    When I got to turn Gabby into a free form, new travel powers opened up, and while they initially seemed cool, in actuality they were a mess on screen. I like the idea of divine energy shooting out of her, it fit well with my specializations, but the novelty wore of fast. Ideally you should be able to cap the effects a power has, some of these travel powers just get uglier at higher ranks. What would be nice is if you could have a rank 3 power but visualize what it looked like back when it was only a rank 1 power.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Around this time I decided I was spending too much on a F2P game and decided to buy a lifetime subscription. Suddenly I had a whole lot more costume options, more character slots, and I began to slowly buy up costume sets that I hadn't already bought with my stipend. For my first free form character I decided to play around with a power set that I hadn't yet seen, the fighting claws, but when it came to design I was a bit stumped. What sort of character would have fighting claws? I didn't want a wolverine type, I already had Lady Fellstrike, and so I decided to go in a completely different direction.

    Presenting: Markhet Khatar


    Markhet was from an alternate Earth, one ravished by nuclear war, where anarchy rules.

    Biker gangs rule the streets and only the strong survive.

    Naturally Markhet wants to find a way back home. She was able to build a good life for herself there and while gangs quickly came to fear her here as much as they did back home. Killing them doesn't bring the same sort of satisfaction as it did back home as these gangs were soft by comparison.

    A couple of constants with character design: Markhet always wears her gas mask as the air of her earth is sometimes highly toxic, and her cardboard cut out wings on her back. Her catch phase (stolen shamelessly from bioshock) "I'm making angels", refers to the fact that she sees herself as a sort of valkyrie.

    Markhet is happiest in the desert with the sun's dark heat and violent inhabitants. One day she can return to her merciless waste land, to her Soylent Green, but until then she can take sollace in the fact that her nemesis, Doctor Humungus Esq., somehow also managed to get sucked into this world with her.

    Presenting: Doctor Humungus Esq.

    The wastelands most prominent doctor/lawyer/pit fighter, that is until Markhet soundly defeated him in the Thunderdome. He would later argue that the rules clearly stated two MEN enter, but he was overruled by the violent majority.
  • with those katars, markhet could pass for the assassin from diablo 2...if she were wearing significantly more clothing and wasn't wearing a gas mask​​
    #LegalizeAwoo
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User

    with those katars, markhet could pass for the assassin from diablo 2...if she were wearing significantly more clothing and wasn't wearing a gas mask​​

    I never played Diablo 2 I don't think, or if I did it didn't make an impression because I had to google the assassin, I did play a few of the Soul Caliber games though, and I think I got some inspiration from Voldo. He also uses katars.

    Also, I should have had a better static picture of her main outfit, I posted three distinct costumes here, two with the serpent armor (where you can see her bare mid-drift), two action poses where she's wearing more of a traditional leotard with scraps of armor, and the last full body shot in front of Grond.

    Thanks for the feedback though :D
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    My next toon again explored a power set that I hadn't tried before, certainly playing archetypes there were characters that dipped into the power armor set but I didn't build a character using the Invincible archetype, so instead I played around with it in free form using the archetype as a guide.

    Presenting: Gustovitch

    The name actually comes from an artist, Mike Gustovitch, who did work for a lot of the RPG companies from the 80s and 90s but I first saw him in Palladium Book's Heroes Unlimited.

    The costume is very similar to Captain Darling's outfit, besides the color scheme there are a number of subtle differences, but these outfits are pretty similar.

    This powerset didn't wow me, and so this character didn't get a lot of love, but when I eventually came back to her and leveled her up to 40 I did see the potential and retooled her using my advanced knowledge of CO.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So, as a new lifetime member I was able to go back and retool all my old characters, switching them from archetypes to free form, but I hadn't yet grasped the things that went into a good build. I decided to fool around with some powers that I had some experience with, namely munitions, which I liked from the professional, but take out swords and instead insert psionics in their place. I had this concept of a super soldier, something from the silver age of comics, and that meant Nazis.

    Presenting: Sybil the Skull

    Just because you were born and raised to be a super soldier of the 3rd Reich doesn't mean that you're going to be loyal to them, especially if you have superior intellect and can see into the future. Sybil here, like Dr Destroyer, would have defected, if she'd had the chance, but like certain fanatical villains from the Marvel universe Sybil was put into suspended animation, though very much against her will.

    So the back story served a double purpose, they explained her powers, but they also gave me a good reason to use these skull tights and armour. I didn't want to make another punisher clone, there were a few of those after this set was released, and evil Nazis sure liked their skull motifs. Sybil here isn't actually a Nazi though, never really was, but in a country ruled by fanaticism simply surviving meant pretending to follow along. She couldn't be a hero back then, but now, with her super powers truly awakened, she's trying to make amends for things that were truly always out of her control.

    Now in the modern world Sybil can distance herself from her unfortunate origins whilst realizing that the skull motif was useful for striking fear into the hearts of her enemies.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Well now that FoxbatCon is over, time to get back to posting in this thread. So one of the archetypes I didn't get to explore was the tempest, and now as a free form I could play around with the electricity power tree. I was still not particularly good at building characters, but I still loved designing characters and costume part, and with my latest design I wanted to make use of that jacket from the 90s set.

    Presenting: Eir Ampre


    Eir's eyes are protected by a visor, ears protected by a nice electric bolt ear caps. The thing I like most about Eir though turned out to be her chestnut hair.

    I used the electrical skin tights and it's hard to see here, but those boots are the golden age short heels. Over all I like the outfit, I wanted the tights to be lighter in my original design, but I could make the cut outs distinguishable or as striking without the darker colors.

    Some of my other versions of Eir included one without that short leather jacket.

    A sensible jacket and boots, along with full tights as cut outs aren't as sexy at twenty below

    some underwater gear capable of holding a charge underwater

    And lastly something more appropriate for the desert heat.

    I kind of liked Eir's original look but would have preferred lighter colors

    But that hair, that I was very happy with, and I'd later get better at coloring toons but that was some of the best hair I've ever colored.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So this next toon I consider a complete failure from start to finish. I picked up the Steelhawk costume set and was eager to use it, the set has some great parts, however I don't think I used it to it's full potential. As to the toon itself, I had made an inferno early on and I did not have much fun playing a glass cannon, but now, with free form, I could make a beefier tank. I included psi blades into the build as well as I hadn't had used them yet and was excited to try them out. Overall the build worked but the costumes I felt didn't. After leveling her I never used her afterwards.

    Presenting: Lady Redhawk


    Now my first set of problems amounted to poor palette choices and bad costume parts. The Steelhawk has two sets of tights with the set and I picked the wrong set IMO. The Dr Ka wings were not a good fit with this character either. I think regular bird wings or perhaps the more mechanical wings light have also worked but I think the Dr Ka wings work better with more magical or mythical construct looking toons.

    Now my terrible choice in colors wasn't noticeable with my chosen travel power but I wasn't at all happy with how the character looked on my character select screen. So did a redesign.

    Here I picked the other set of tights, I lessened the use of that orange and picked a more neutral steel grey. I liked the arm wings but I wasn't super enthusiastic about the shoulder pads

    I dropped them in this next incarnation and also played with the colouring a bit. I think this was the best looking version of the four I made for her but overall I can't say that this is a solid design.

    One of the other things I did was try to play around with the Dr Ka set, only to discover that parts didn't work with other parts. I was peeved. Not sure if this is still the case but this is the only toon I tried this with.

    So this is a more learn from my mistakes rather then check out this totally rad costume I designed post today but the next costume I post I was very happy with. It takes the leather Jacket that I tried to use with Eir and makes it work much better. Stay tuned for that :)
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So I felt I was really getting the hang of costume design, but I wasn't doing very good at building heroes in CO, that would all change when I decided to try out someone else' build to see if I could learn anything from it. This was a major turning point in my CO experience, for the first time I had a character that was not only pretty cool looking but now they had the ability to back up that look. The Build I used was called Tammy Waffles if any of you want to check it out, and many of my later characters used a few concepts I picked up from this build. The author I believe is Wimpizoid and although I don't see her logging onto champions much anymore her work with helping people optimize their archetypes was something I appreciated before actually trying on of her freeform builds.

    Presenting: Sigrig Stomvind

    Sigrig is Norwegian, lead singer of a metal band, with a devil may care attitude. I started out with her civilian cloths, trying to make her appear as ordinary as possible.

    And when trouble is afoot she transforms

    I liked to imagine that this is the costume she's forced to wear by some super group she joined. I mentioned a jacket last time. Well Sigrig might have to wear the outfit . . .

    But she's free to accessorize.

    Over all I really liked this look way better then Eir's look. Same jacket, different accessories, but the lighter tights really made the jacket work so much better IMO

    The power selection also worked quite well with this toon.

    Also Sigrig was a rocker long before the rocker set came out. I may revisit her at some point with some of these new costume parts, but Sigrig felt like my first successful hero, good design, great build. I've since revisited my other heroes since Sig, but I consider Sigrig a real milestone character in my CO experience. It only took me 20 characters to get there.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Now continuing with exploring power sets, one of the sets I hadn't tried was the martial arts set, and, around this time, there was a new travel power introduced at this time called Flag Speed to coincide with the American independence day. Now I'm not American myself, but I am Canadian, and so I'm very familiar with American patriotism and not at all put off by it. I decided to make the most American hero I could:

    Presenting: Patriot

    Now Patriot didn't start out looking like a Captain America clone

    My initial interpretation was more bars and stripes then stars

    But those leg stars didn't look very good over stripes

    And I also felt they didn't look as good with the travel power as the legs had vertical stripes but the flag had horizontal stripes.

    I didn't abandon those vertical stripes completely, but they became more of an alternate costume like this cold weather outfit.

    Blue became more of a primary color and red a 3rd pallet choice at best.

    I'm sure this is because of the travel power, with it's blue and white stars immediately after the toon, with the bars and stripes separated almost completely. I even started to use those colors for Patriot's civilian clothes.

    Of all my designs for Patriot this became my favorite. It does borrow heavily from Captain America but I think it's different enough to be unique. Plus, Patriot is a lady, so that's a major difference right there.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So a quick update for today, I don't really much to say about this toon, I started trying to make an Earth character but that power set didn't do anything that I was interested in, and so I decided to switch her over to a giant growth/might build. I loved the toon before the Int nerf, now the build isn't as fun as you can't get big, or stay big, as often.

    Presenting: Sarah Slate

    So in her human form Sarah isn't so impressive, she's still a big lady, Robert Kaufman is an averaged sized man and she's a bit taller then him.

    But when she starts to transform the height difference becomes apparent.

    And when Sarah has the chance to stomp some villains she gets very big indeed.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So archery was one of the power sets I tried out as a silver with the marksman archetype, I liked the set but didn't get much higher then level 20 and I eventually deleted the character as silver players have limited character slots. I decided to revisit that set with some of the new costume unlocks I'd gotten.

    Presenting: Flechette

    So, everyone remember the 90s?

    So Flechette is a time traveling ninja from another dimension who uses bows and arrows because where she's from they're the high tec weapon of her world, much like texting is the new way of communicating in ours . . . despite telephones being invented about a century earlier.

    Anyways the iron age set along with the 90s set from the recognition vendors work quite well together and I was happy to have a toon to use them on. Probably should have given her swords but playing an archer is what I wanted and sadly single blade doesn't really play well with other sets.

    Now I realize that flechette is a ballistic term, they are (in modern warfare) rocket or even shotgun loads, and there was already a Flechette II in the game, but flechette does look like a girl's name and it does mean "little arrow" in french. Basically I'm going to use the time traveling alternate dimensional ninja angle to excuse myself from current CO lore.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Okay, so the galley is called Guy's guys and gals, and thus far we've had a lot of gals but only one guy, and a Rakshasa at that. Well today's post will rectify that. Here's another guy :)

    Presenting: The Upright Man

    Upright as in honorable and honest, perhaps he was a rum runner back in the 1920s, it's not like he robbed banks.

    The upright man wasn't a fellow prone to violence, but if the need arose he was more then willing to play the mugs a tune on his fiddle . . . in the key of 45

    Upright grew up in the west side of Detroit, learned to use his fists, and later his wits. He's not ashamed of where he comes from.

    However, just because you're born poor doesn't mean that you have to dress that way. Upright is a bit of a dapper Dan, always dressing up for the occasion.

    He's not a man to dress down much either.

    The Upright Man has lots of suits, but no winter or underwater suits yet.

    This however is his iconic look, and if you see him in the game this is what he's most likely to be wearing.

    Upright is fun to play, and with only three attacks, Assault Rifle, Submachinegun Burst, and Steady shot, he's very simple to play as well. Probably nowhere near as effective as most tanks he still does pretty well at maintaining threat and surviving.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Well with that bit of court ordered diversity (not really) it's time to get back to the ladies, and today we're getting to look at one of my cuter characters. For this toon I tried a new to me power set, Psi Blades, and I really had a lot of fun. Plus this was my first attempt at a younger character. I tried to make this character look to be preteen though I couldn't quite get her as small as I would have liked. The character height was a bit taller then I'd have liked, plus the breast sliders seem to assume B cup is small. Thankfully I was able to conceal that to some degree.

    Presenting: Ren

    Let me start out by saying I love the Harajuku girl set. It's so cute and it lends itself very well for making younger characters.

    The details that came with this set, that backback, the bow, these are things we don't seem to get with newer sets. I miss these small pieces.

    I made a cold weather outfit for this Ren as I usually do most of my leveling in Canada

    You can't quite see that cute little panda tail

    I also tried to do a traditional kimono but the sleeves were going to be a problem as long sleeves haven't been added to the game till this nightmare event.

    I also got to make an adorable little dragon outfit.

    One other thing worth noting is that Psionic powers have a default coloring of pink and rather then change that I decided to work that color scheme into my costumes.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,916 Arc User
    what are those energy blades?
    ChampsWiki
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  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User

    what are those energy blades?

    those are psi blades, from the psi blades powerset
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,916 Arc User
    AH, ok. never mind then.
    ChampsWiki
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    My characters
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Well it's been a while since I've updated this thread, but we're at the bottom of my second page of heroes already! and seeing as this is a showcase of my level 40 heroes, I can say at this point 26 down 63 to go. Anyways, today's toon, like our last three ads a little diversity, Upright is one of my few male toons, Ren is childlike and Japanese, and today's toon adds a little more cultural diversity. Albeit she is a bit of a racial stereotype and I can only apologize if anyone is offended:

    Presenting: Madame Mystere

    I love the voodoo paint, and as soon as I got the compete set I knew I was gonna use it on a toon. Madame Mystere Just happened to be the toon I made just after I collected the compete set. Mary Mars, from back on page 1, got her look updated.

    So Madame Mystere is a summoner, able to pump out a lot creatures but she's also a healer with limited DPS

    Most of her powers are natural, in fact she was well into her late teens before she realized that most people couldn't hear the dead. The fetishes she wears hold spirits that she liberated from dark practitioners but the souls wished to aid Madame in her fight.

    Her base of operations used to be Lafayette, but with the troubles in Vibora Bay, she's since relocated to that city.

    Although working for UNTIL has had her working all over the globe

    Her cold weather outfit could use a little work though :D
  • capspectacularcapspectacular Posts: 12 Arc User
    Rather impressive. I'd show off some of mine, but some reason, I can't get the Print Screen option to work on my old laptop.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    So, onto page 3! I love designing characters costumes, but sometimes they're not completely flushed out as characters with personality or motives, such is the case with this week's toon. Overall I really liked the design and it worked really well with the travel power however I haven't touched this character since I leveled her to 40. There are some worthwhile design choices here but otherwise there's not much to this toon.

    Presenting: Raven

    So these are parts from the steel hawk costume set that mostly don't work well with actual flight powers

    However with the swinging travel power we get to spread our wings and kind of fly about the city.

    Her cold weather outfit adds padding to the tights and a white cloak for blending in the daylight

    I've also added a luchador version for fun, but without the side wings it's not nearly as cool


    Color scheme was good, I made her arms and legs particularly long, and so I was very happy with how she looked, but I never bothered with a particularly interesting concept for the character. Thus, by the time I leveled her to 40, I was pretty much finished playing her.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User

    Rather impressive. I'd show off some of mine, but some reason, I can't get the Print Screen option to work on my old laptop.

    Thanks! I'm not sure if anyone is getting anything useful out of this thread but if someone is getting ideas it won't be a waste. Good luck getting your lab top up and running
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So, some toons are very much paint by numbers, I wanted a blind swordswoman and to make her I used the samurai set. It doesn't get much more basic then that. I fiddled with the colours a bit, added and removed parts, but for the most part I was happy with how the toon looked. I think she's visually very self explanatory, like you look at this toon and you know what her deal is, and from a design standpoint I think that's a success.

    Presenting:
    Hyu The Wanderer

    Hyu's eyes are practically covered, many people like to have their blind swordsmen with a blindfold but I think Hyu's hat does a fine job of suggesting that she doesn't see in front of her.

    With that simple rope belt you get the idea that all Hyu's worldly possessions are in that backpack strung across her back.

    Her cold weather gear is a few more layers of clothing under her main set of clothing.

    Her warm weather outfit is a tad more fantastical, mystical, perhaps not in keeping with the main design but I liked the look

    And her mystic Hi-Pan armor is certainly not something that would fit in any small backpack, so it suggests it's something that can be summoned.

    Hyu was more of a costume concept then a character. I wanted to design a swords woman, something out of ninja scroll and this is what I came up with. I really liked the look and had fun leveling her, but as far as back story or character development she was quite light. However we are starting to get into the meat of my regular characters and costumes and background won't be lacking in some of these next toons.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Well it's been a while, I blame double Exp month, events, and general laziness on my part.

    So one of the first characters I started actively RPing with was a kind of ex-VIPER agent, who was kind of a hero as she opposed VIPER and their current doctrine, but kind of a villain as she didn't exactly reject their goals. She was a very neutral, morally ambiguous character that liked to hang out at Club Caprice.

    Presenting: Serpent Supreme

    I call her Sue, short for Supreme. Sue's back story is that she was genetically altered in the womb, her parents were both VIPER scientist working out of a cell in South America, and Sue simply joined the family business without putting much thought into it.
    Sue was a brilliant scientist, making great advancement in non lethal sonic weapons and force field technology, but despite her great strides and contributions for VIPER she soon discovered a glass ceiling, and when she was passed over for advancement in favor of the tyrannical and mentally unstable Draconis, Sue had enough and left the organization.

    It wasn't until she was outside looking back in that she discovered the true sickening nature of VIPER, the unethical science, the pointless terrorism and brutality. Sue isn't exactly a pacifist, she understood the necessity of breaking a few eggs to make an omelette, but violence should be used as a last resort rather then the go to move.

    Sue realized who was to blame and who she needed to oppose: the Supreme Serpent, and as a result Sue fashioned her armor to look similar to her advisory, and set out assisting UNTIL with bringing him down. Sue isn't a rat however, she still has people she cares about in the organization, but she has no problems assisting UNTIL in taking out the vile and villainous enforcers of her former group. She despises Ripper, Draconis, and Freon for example, but has a soft spot for Viper-X

    Realizing that not everyone at Caprice was comfortable with a former VIPER agent in VIPER armor, Sue has recently added a holographic overlay to her armor so she can appear less threatening. She never takes her armor off in public though as she doesn't have powers on her own, save for her intelligence and a minor venom immunity.

    She doesn't ever really take her armor off until she's in the safety of her moon base, a 1960s cold war experiment that they never could get running properly.

    Sue spends most of her free time just keeping the base functional and the life support on.

    It did come with a giant space laser.

    Something Sue would never abuse.

    As far as character design goes Sue is a rip off of The Supreme Serpent, but is a tech based character, her main offense is supplied by her sonic blaster . . .

    Which as two settings. She also makes use of that space laser but I didn't bother getting a screen shot of that as we all should know what an orbital cannon blast looks like. In combat Sue is mostly support, using her shields to keep her team alive, tanking wherever necessary, and supplying her team with limited healing. While she's not my most useful or successful character Sue has always been fun to play and so I often go back to her on a regular basis. Seeing her in the game is likely.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    So, when I first started playing CO there were dozens of Hulk clones running around, they're a bit rarer these days, but he's still probably the most popular clone in the game. The concept is really good, who hasn't wanted to smash the hell out of things at some point? Our self control keeps us back, but not the hulk, no he does whatever he wants. So to that effect I thought I'd play around with this concept for myself and build a toon that also gets to "hulk smash" stuff.

    Presenting: Vampyre

    Meet Elizabeth Vettroy, falsely accused of murder and treason and buried alive in an iron coffin in 1455. She'd also been accused of practicing the dark arts, but on that count it had been a fair cop, and with her dying breath she cursed her enemies with the most vile curses and black magic she knew.

    Centuries later, when they were building a car park for a mall, diggers accidentally opened the unmarked grave and emerging from within:

    Vampyre, a blood drinking monster, filled with an unquenchable thirst and seemingly unending rage. Elizabeth is able to tame the beast, when her mind is calm and free from distractions, but little things can set her off, and than the Vampyre awakes!
  • themightyzeniththemightyzenith Posts: 4,599 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    Nice stuff. I really like the Upright Man. I can see him teaming up in a dime novel with my pulp version of Leatherwing (in my signature, below) :)
    zrdRBy8.png
    Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Thanks! Yes, the Upright Man was really a ode to the golden age of comics, back when super heroes were rare and hard boiled detectives and masked detectives patrolled the streets using their fists and brains rather then some super powered gimmick. I'll post in your thread in a little bit to talk about your designs.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Okay, so I really have to get on the ball here, I've got over 100 level 40 characters now but I haven't even got to my most used character yet. The one most people would see me as in game. So I got two more characters to get though before I can show Masq, including today's toon.

    Now on the first two pages I introduced the Darlings, a dynasty of heroes going back to the 1920s, and two of the Darlings, Captain Darling (the current version of the Darlings), and Kid Darling (a reanimated corpse of the second Darling) in particular. While today's toon is a clone of Doctor Darling, the 1960s generation of Darlings, who rode a motorcycle and later a jet pack, and current grandmother to Captain Darling. The thing is, Doctor Darling did work on a cloning project in the late 80s early 90s, but she certainly didn't give a sample or agree to let the British government clone her for science. Although it's clear she's the spitting imagine of Doctor Darling in the late 50s early 60s, like all Darlings, she always concealed her identity, and so the Darlings need to investigate behind the scenes or else risk having their identities known to the general public.

    Presenting: Code Name Crimson

    SAS, MI5, UNTIL, Code Name Crimson has been a member of them all. Her real identity has been buried deep within the British Intelligence department but it's now widely suspected that she's a product of secret cloning program conducted in the 1960s through to the late 80s.

    The most likely source of her DNA: the 60s feminist hero Doctor Darling, third generation of the legendary female dynasty Darlings. The fact that the two seem to share abilities, the fact that the cloning program began in the 60s, and the fact that they fairly closely resemble each other (no known photos of Doctor Darling without her helmet exist) would seem to support this theory.

    Records suggest that Code Name Crimson joined the military in 90s, though the exact date is unknown as files gained though freedom of information acts were highly redacted, but through personal interviews with people who served along side her it's thought to have been around 96.

    Given the dates Code Name Crimson was likely born in the 80s which would fit nicely with the cloning theory.

    Doctor Darling retired in 1988 and has completely vanished from public life after the death of her successor Gia Darling. A 5th generation Darling, Captain Darling, the 6th generation Darling, has appeared to take up the Darling mantle.

    For her part, Code Name Crimson, possessing the superior mental faculties of the the Doctor, has long suspected that she may have been adopted, but the possibility of a secret cloning program has never crossed her mind. The government likes to keep her very busy though so she doesn't have a lot of time to look into these things.

    Doctor Darling could dot the i on a pepsi can, 100ft off the road, doing 180 on her motorbike with her left hand. While Code Name Crimson's exact abilities remain classified, she does appear completely ambidextrous, and incredibly accurate with a pistol, even whilst firing on full auto.
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,395 Arc User
    Wow, another anniversary come and gone, I know have even more level 40s, but still haven't covered some of my more commonly played ones. Masquerade, my most commonly played toon is finally next . . . after today's post. A savage woman from a savage land.

    Presenting: Uwimana


    Uwimana comes from deepest darkest Africa, part of a snake hunting cult that has battled the worshipers of Nama for centuries.


    Uwimana knows her people fight an unwinnable war against an over powering enemy, but she also knows it takes a monster to fight monsters.

    And when it comes to being monstrous Uwimana fells that she's more then capable of meeting the task.


    However with the arrival of UNTIL she suddenly realized that her people's fight was not as hopeless as it seemed. She found new allies and new lands . . .

    . . . where she can continue her fight against the followers of snake god.
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