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Serpine's Gallery
serpinecoh
Posts: 353 Arc User
Since it seems like a fun thing to do and it could hopefully generate some useful feedback, I've decided to post some of my more frequently used character designs. A lot of my characters (most actually) are attempted rebuilds from my City of Heroes roster, so I'll have the appropriate image from there included in such cases as a frame of comparison.
For the first image however I'll go with a character made entirely for CO, and then follow that with the two characters I'm on the most:
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Jolly Rodger
Rodger is a pirate flag that came to life and he gets a lot of positive (and puzzled) reactions. I tried to build an Arnim Zola sort of character I was happy with for years in City, but the dark armor chest components in CO finally made it a possibility. One fun thing is that every time he hunches over it looks like he is biting.
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Larch (CoH version on left)
Larch is a rebuild of the first CoH character I made, which was actually on my wife's CoH account until I got hooked and rebuilt him on my own. He is more of a spellcaster now instead of a spine scrapper, but he was never about the powers. The point has always been being the best tree he can be and getting the occasional person making a Monty Python remark. Incidentally, the only reason he ended up called Larch back in CoH was because Shrubbery was already taken...
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Robo-Santa (CoH version on left)
My use of Robo-Santa oddly started on The Sims Online, where I strolled around with the android body and a Santa head and had an appropriately bizarre backstory to explain why. He ended up the second character I made when I got my own CoH account, and to keep with tradition he was my second CO character as well. This last holiday season I set him up with an evil looking "Santa Claws" alternate costume which changes only the stance and two costume parts, but gets a far more frequent positive reaction then the normal version: Go figure.
For the first image however I'll go with a character made entirely for CO, and then follow that with the two characters I'm on the most:
- - - - -
Jolly Rodger
Rodger is a pirate flag that came to life and he gets a lot of positive (and puzzled) reactions. I tried to build an Arnim Zola sort of character I was happy with for years in City, but the dark armor chest components in CO finally made it a possibility. One fun thing is that every time he hunches over it looks like he is biting.
- - - - -
Larch (CoH version on left)
Larch is a rebuild of the first CoH character I made, which was actually on my wife's CoH account until I got hooked and rebuilt him on my own. He is more of a spellcaster now instead of a spine scrapper, but he was never about the powers. The point has always been being the best tree he can be and getting the occasional person making a Monty Python remark. Incidentally, the only reason he ended up called Larch back in CoH was because Shrubbery was already taken...
- - - - -
Robo-Santa (CoH version on left)
My use of Robo-Santa oddly started on The Sims Online, where I strolled around with the android body and a Santa head and had an appropriately bizarre backstory to explain why. He ended up the second character I made when I got my own CoH account, and to keep with tradition he was my second CO character as well. This last holiday season I set him up with an evil looking "Santa Claws" alternate costume which changes only the stance and two costume parts, but gets a far more frequent positive reaction then the normal version: Go figure.
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Vermis is a fairly direct D&D mind flayer, though I opted for the tentacle explosion instead of the more subtle vine look. I actually set out to make a mind flayer pirate based on a crewmen I made in an iPhone app called Lil'Pirates and an encounter in a recent game session I had run, but ended up just keeping him generic, for now.
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Omnimouse (CoH version on left)
Omni was my City of Heroes main and the first character I created in CO. I used to purposely mispronounce ominous this way and one day thought: "Hey, that would be a pretty funny character."
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Mouseanthrope (CoH version on left)
Mouseanthrope was a villain universe alternate to Omnimouse with a similar word-butchery name: They had the same rescued-from-a-lab background, things just turned out differently. To date I've only used him as a Nemesis in CO.
The "inspiration" behind Weremuppet should be obvious (more or less). It is definitely more of a "Let's see how badly this turns out" sort of thing, but he gets a few laughs when I pull him out of storage, perhaps less so since some more toothy revisions.
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Formicidae Scout (CoH version on left)
Formicidae Scout is my insect alien invader. The crazy level you can adjust sliders to in CO produced some hands and feet so small that I literally stare at them for several minutes every time I bring out this character to play.
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Counterclockwise (CoH version on left)
Only used as a Nemesis so far, this one is mainly just about building a CoH style clockwork, but it got a bit away from me in the CO version.
The rabbit in the machine...
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Office Knight (CoH version on left)
In City of Heroes, no character I've had has been deleted and recreated with a different power set more then this guy. Swords, assault rifles, martial arts: I just keep trying but am never happy. The suit has changed color just as often from brown to green to black, though it kind of settled on blue for a while now. In CO I'm on my third version of him (power armor this time). Maybe it will stick... maybe in won't. I reecntly worked up a "steampunk" variant of him that I'm pretty happy with.
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Officer Casteel (CoH version on left)
Basically this guy was and is a PPD hardsuit cop: When they gave the option in CoH to use a full transform I of course used that, but I kept him as close as I could get so his face-plant / powers-off version would still look relatively reasonable. So basically he is an homage of an homage at this point... There are chest plates I would much rather be using, but the warlord bracers are annoyingly specific about what upper body slots they go in (most of them limit you to just using it on the left arm).
This is my latest character: I've been trying to build something like it purely offline without owning the shark tail, but ended up getting the pack to compete with a variation of this in a Disney themed CC. Now that I have the actual parts making it a full character is actually viable.
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Goldzilla (CoH version on left)
He had a different name in City of Heroes, but the spirit is the same. Until I started experimenting with the helmet and the nighthawk head (which can have a huuuuge chin) I really wasn't feeling it worth even doing in CO, since the existing monstrous heads didn't appeal to me for the purpose. To be contrary I decided against the wings, though he has phoenix flight so he still gets big flaming ones when he takes to the air.
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Leichendiener (CoH version on left)
The first CO character I had reach level 40. I keep trying different jackets (lately the New Shadows ones) but keep getting stuck with this fairly bland one since they tend to be to overbearing for an undertaker's outfit.
I keep adjusting this City of Heroes / Circle of Thorns homage. He originally didn't have the chest plate and a had a rope belt, which combined made him a much more direct take on the source idea. But with the changes I like him a lot more and anyway, he is pretty bitter so adding some new gear could be what he needs to do...
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Ar'Kesh (CoH version on left)
A simple farmer from a dimension were humans are big red horned things and legends of demons describe short pink people with no hooves... This guy frustrates me a lot: I like almost every element of his look individually, but as a whole something about him always puts me off. It could be the way the texture of the robe (or lack of it) looks. Or just that I really need him to have the horns positioned like the old days (all reasonably close CO side-horns I am aware of frustratingly cover the ears). Still he is close enough for my needs, and he gets a cool pair of "sabre-goats" (aka raptors) to follow him around and that's pretty cool.
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Hell's Marshal (CoH version on left)
My demonic archer has only been used as a Nemesis, though I'm likely to start using him once I free up more slots (have to get back to leveling other characters to 40). Like several CoH to CO remakes, I'm much happier about him in this version, though I will say that I wish the Persian belt had a rear cloth (you can't see it here but his rear area is a bit overly plain).
Rusala is brilliant, Weremuppet is hilarious, Office Knight looks really cool and different.
What I liked was how those designs looked great in CoX, but look even more expressive in CO.
In particular, Larch, Robo Santa, Mousanthrope, and Goldzilla. Their personality shines through.
But pleeease do not post your winning costume for Kolor Klash, the one that's like a color out of space.
It was awesomely done, but it gave me nightmares of a blind, gibbering god of cyclopean proportions.
(But seriously, more than excellent craftsmanship, it's your epic ideas. Beautiful, beautiful work.)
And guys...don't tempt him to show That Forbidden Garb. That insight is not worth the insanity.
Trust me on this.
More action at Champions Online Comics @ http://co-comics.webs.com
Atta Girl was my eventual villain main on City: Not my initial villain main, but the original one to hold that title stalled in the 20s and Atta went all the way to max level. At the time she was of course intended as an answer to the question of where the female trolls were at, as well as a chance to use what I thought was a cool play on words for the name. Now she is of course more of a general homage to the green gangers of a lost universe and their well-known named leader.
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Reindeer 2.0 / Snow Goon
These two designs I mainly dust off (and occasionally upgrade) for holiday themed costume contests (though they haven't actually won any). I apply them to characters every so often but so far haven't been able to really get into playing with them for long. They amuse me more to look at then use I guess.
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Gamer Girl
Gamer Girl was actually put together as a team effort by my wife and me. We were aiming to build a mundane character with realistic looking non-thin proportions, and threw ideas and costume save files back and forth with different components and sliders refining the design. It was a lot of work for something this simple, surely. Anyway, we both have used it (with slight variations) to place well and even win in contests with extremely uncomplimentary categories like "Gluttony" and "Blind Date From Hell". An uncomfortable laugh between us usually follows: It feels sort of like being a bully...
Holy catfish on a stick... you mean it's actually possible to make a fat girl in this game?
One of my very first threads was dealing with the apparent inability to make a bulky-looking female character when it was so easy to do for males... you mean I was wrong? Please, what is your secret?
* Body Mass / Shoulders / Arm Length / Hand Length / Feet = 25%.
* Chest Depth / Hands = 75%.
* Chest Width = 95%.
* Leg Length = 0%.
* Neck / Arms / Bicep / Forearm / Waist / Legs / Upper Leg / Lower Leg = 100%.
Note: The above percentages are approximate and take a bit of fiddling or it starts getting lean / muscular looking again.
* Breast size doesn't matter, but low or mid range is probably best.
* The face takes a lot of trial and error, but generally start with a wide but otherwise average overall size, small mouth / eyes / chin, and large cheeks. Having actual pictures of real people handy to look at really helps to reality check what your doing in this situation...
Like I said in the thread I linked, a lot of the problems that exist, and the need for tricky use of particular parts to get past those problems, could all be overlooked if the Body Mass Slider for females was given the same broad range as the males...
I wanted to build a nice lizard man shaman one day and this is what I came up with. I use a purple Nighthawk cape to represent some feathered "robes" which I'm pretty happy with, and lately gave him a helmet because I like that thing doesn't have any blockage from being used with bestial heads.
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Equinoxia (CoH version on left)
I had a thing about building renegade members of villain groups back in City, at least a half dozen of my characters had that background. As with Atta Girl, on this one (which was a renegade Vampyri) I had swapped the gender to be different. The CO equivalent has far better hands and pretty cool boots, though the net effect is a bit more cartoonish then I would hope. The face I've yet to be able to even approach the awesome ugly that the City Medusa head was able to achieve, but I'm working on it.
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Teslette (CoH version on left)
Originally called Electroaccoustica, colored red/yellow, all teched up, and built as an entry for a game radio contest, this character underwent a lot of changes in City, particularly when I tried to get her into Gods of the Golden Age (getting passed their entrance requirements for instance resulted in her changing to pink / blue, swapping to a more generic tights outfit with cape, and changing her name to Tesla Lass). Then I left them, swapped servers (to one were both her prior names were in use so she ended up Teslette) and adjusted her costume to be more like her original except keeping the new cape and colors. In CO I decided to boost the tech but pull back the head to more what it was during the GotGA era... Not sure what random event will trigger a big revision next now, but I'm sure one will happen.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Click up there if you want to find more about the costumes behind my heroines.
Well then, now if you can work out a way to emulate a solidly muscular woman as well, then you'll truly have won me over.
Beyeron
I honestly never thought I'd have a use for many of the components of this build. Firefighter jacket? Dino costume gloves? Magical Girl shoulders? Yeah right. But it I also figured I'd never have a cyclops I was remotely happy with. So... yay!
Hambush
Like a few of my characters, this guy is the result of a mispronounced (or at least misheard) word. I actually had a pain of a time trying to figure out where the gasmask piece was located: I new it was there, but couldn't find it. The search capabilities of the character editor could really use an upgrade with how many parts / categories we have. The Nighthawk head really saved the day here, as it actually gave a better structure to the ears then other options, and generated a distortion under the "nose" that looks like a mouth.
Officer Casteel comes up next (blue's my favorite color, ha) followed by Ssyth for that Aztec-like outfit. Well done stuff!
Ever totally miss your design goal? One day I sat down specifically to build a robotic catgirl using some pieces I thought would look well together (and because it is something I don't normally do), and somehow I instead ended up with a dracolich using just about every invisible part combo (shoulders, back, legs, and head). In play I find the addition of Dark Aura jazzes things up a fair bit. I actually started with yellow energy in the cracks but switched it to orange/red to better fit the aura...
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Repose (CoH version on left)
Repose was the first character I ever considered a main on City of Heroes, but unfortunately I increasingly lost interest in him after his "story" was complete. Intended to be a rogue Eidolon that had turned against its master, after the quest line where you defeat Doctor Vahz anything beyond seemed anticlimactic. I still sort of miss comments when in teams of how the others kept trying to attack me or paniced when I came around a corner since their brain kept registering his silhouette as "enemy".
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Huntsman Rafferty (CoH version on left)
Originally named Trooper 46, Rafferty was my first City of Villains character, using the helmet/cape/logo that came with the preorder/collectors addition. He was an Arachnos trooper before their was a dedicated archetype for it.
like the pig one
"Gentlemen, this fallen angel is the illegitimate daughter of art and science. A modern marvel of engineering, clockworks elevated to the very natural process which even now is in your blood, racing, your eyes flashing at such irreproachable beauty." - "Herr Drosselmeyer's Doll", Abney Park
So I decided to try and build a puppet character, something marionette like (a female Pinocchio essentially), but most of the things I tried for the hinges just didn't look right, or didn't have consistent material options. As I fought with the build I started thinking of the film classic Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the more modern songs "Herr Drosselmeyer's Doll" from Abney Park (quoted above) and "Creepy Doll" from Jonathan Coulton. With such inspiration she finally began to take form as a windup creation and one of my favorite recent results.
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Doctor Cutzoph (CoH version on left)
I've been wanting to make the "good" doctor for some time, but lacked a suitable back option. In City, he was represented by the Arachnos Crab Spider archetype (they of the crazy backpack rig) called Doctor De Cutio, and was actually intended to be a deranged plastic surgeon with his operating room on his back. Of course even in City this was a limited version of what I *really* wanted since the backpack of Freakshow Meat Doctors (with the scary tools and buzzsaws) wasn't available to players. Anyway, thanks to a somewhat recent purchase I now have a back option that while lacking in the size of the the Arachnos one, more then makes up for it in variety. So finally... the Doctor is ready to see you now.
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Crush Hat (CoH version on left)
Alas poor Crush Hat, I knew him well.
Back in City he was one of the first characters that I tried to break the purpose of a piece, specifically treating the hat goggles as eyes and an eyepiece as his nose. This is old hat (heh) these days, but I felt pretty proud at the time. The transition to CO has cost him most of his menace and ornate detail: The closest boots just didn't look right (not using them), the closest jacket doesn't color right, and the face parts... they were just to specific to the old game. But, what he has lost in style, I suppose he has gained in comedy and rampant cheerfulness: He is now sort of a garish cartoon version of the Crush Hat that was, so I'm accepting of his evolution, though obviously the hunt for the parts for Crush Hat Classic will continue.
>Costume File<
Lord Recluse
I would have rather had a non-tattered cape of course but to have both cape and spider back, its a worthwhile trade.
>Costume File<
How did you get the tattered cape?
What mouth is that for the cyclops?
* The tattered cape on Recluse is the Archer Cape from the Archer Costume Set (Heartstring Lockbox). Unlike other capes it is a neck slot item rather then a back item, which lets you do a few cool things with it.
* The mouth / eye of the Cyclops is the "Robot Samurai" (from the store set of the same name) head type version that female characters get. The look for male characters is radically different and not useful for this purpose.
UGH! I hate when they take cool costumes and make them gender specific. I could do a lot with that Robot Samurai head if males could use it too. Since all of my characters are male.
What chest plate is that on the last one?
"Good can be found in heights, even in the deepest pits of evil" but "The valleys of evil always exist in the mountains of good."
~me
How did you make certain parts invisible on Draco?
"Good can be found in heights, even in the deepest pits of evil" but "The valleys of evil always exist in the mountains of good."
~me
Invisible arms can be achieved using the jackets category. Invisible legs are female-only, using the long dress category. Invisible head comes from the huge opaque helmets category.
For a fairly detailed breakdown of invisible part options look at the second post in the following thread:
http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=276501
"Good can be found in heights, even in the deepest pits of evil" but "The valleys of evil always exist in the mountains of good."
~me
Was messing around with the Project Clockwork pack (the eye accessory pieces specifically) and came up with this dashing cousin to Beyeron. Since the eyepiece sticks through the back of the head I added some rear facing small horns to help make it looks like it belongs.
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Puttyanna
This was just something thrown together for a recent CC intended to represent a stretching / squishing power in action.
And yeah that Cosmic Knight weapon is probably the closest thing to a Nemesis Staff I think we can hope for...
Lord Nemesis (v2)
<<Costume File>>
So they added the scepter but not the sword? Dammit!
Mantis Shrimp
<<Costume File>>
Too bad we never met in COX, she could have run with Gjoger, my female troll.