So, I thought I'd give some insight into the thought process that goes into making these, for those curious and those who want to make their own. This should satisfy any of you who are curious about it. Long post, so brace yourself.
Step 1: Character analysis
First thing I do, is study the characters design. For this, I'll typically pull up various official renditions of said character, be they art, models, figurines, or whatever. Once I've gotten a hold of these, I then study the Brawl model & their respective alternate colors to get a feel for what sort of restrictions the designers had to adhere to. It's mostly in studying the Brawl recolors that I get the most insight as far as what makes the characters design really work. Once you've got an idea of how the colors are used to highlight certain aspects, then it becomes easy to design your own costumes. This is a quote from myself I made a long while ago about Captain Falcon design for Project Maritime when we were having problems:
As for Falcon, first, Devicer, Xeno, let me give you guys a hug. This guy, is probably harder than the Spacies. Even studying his vBrawl costumes, all the extra details and such jump all over the place and it's madness I tell you, madness! Anyway, some consistencies I've noticed:
- Helmet is never the primary costume color (IE, green costume helmet is never green)
- Helmet and lower shoulder-pad are always the same color
- Sometimes fore-arms and gloves are different, sometimes not
- forearms and collar are always the same
- upper-shoulder pad and gloves usually the same color
Hopefully this paints a good picture of how to break-down and analyze what aspects of a characters design are meant to stand out as primary. Secondly, it's important to know these things so when you want to break them, you know what you're doing and trying to draw attention to.
Most of us aren't happy with Sonic's alts, myself included, but while making my own I found myself saying "I wish I could make his homing trail red/green/yellow" and at that point I realized that was part of the reason why his recolors are all shades of blue. I referenced this with Sonic colors, and found that different colored Sonic's use different trails in that game, but Brawl doesn't have that luxury. This is just a small way that the developers tried to compensate for some of the engines limitations, and perhaps a bit of Sega's insistence on how to handle Sonic.
Step 2: Original Costume
After finishing my "homework", so to speak, now it's time to develop the most important costume of the character: The Default. By now, I've grasped which aspects of which designs Brawl has borrowed from and can better judge which colors I want to change. For example, Link is clearly his Twilight Princess iteration, but Marth is still utilizing his Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem design. Knowing this is important, because it gives us an idea of how vibrant the colors should be in relation to the other characters in the game. Some characters that have a more animated style will use heavier saturation, while the more realistic ones use careful balances of saturation and brightness/contrast to achieve the effect.
It's a tough call to make as far as what design elements to blend, especially when a character has various appearances that are al
slightly different. That said, I'd like to highlight three characters in regards to default modification that should help you with what I think about.
Link is Twilight Princess Link, no doubt about that. However, Twilight Princess uses muted colors, much like Brawl, for most of the game. This wouldn't do for a Vibrant Project, so I instead I gained some insight by using the Zelda Wii U Tech Demo, and Smash 4's Link designs. Smash 4's Link is a broader representation of Link, in that he isn't clearly one Link or the other (even though most of his design screams Twilight Princess). Using that as a guide, I was able to get a good feel for what to do in regards to his skin, hair, and tunic.
Luigi was the first character I decided to do when I started this project. That said, there are plenty of different images of Luigi freely floating around, but each one does has it's nuances in shade of green and blue used. I may actually revisit him soon, for one reason: my Luigi is based off of Super Mario World Luigi. I did this as a reference to the original Smash where-in Luigi's jeans were more purple as opposed to blue. Cookies to those of you who noticed this.
Marth is a very interesting character to work with for two reasons: First, his design in Smash Bros is loosely based on his Mystery of the Emblem appearance, but it's largely original. Second, he does not have much in the way of concept art that show-cases the appearance he's based off of in Smash. While studying Marth, you can see that Smash teams design uses much more muted blues instead of his purely blue tunic that can be seen across all of the games. For that reason, we have a dilemma as far as his default is concerned. Do we aim for a look closer to his original appearance or stick with what the Smash team envisioned and use other characters as a reference for how much color we add?
Step 3: Brawl Alts
Now that I've done the original, making the proper adjustments to the rest of a characters costumes is a simple matter for the most part. It's only when I run into inconsistencies that things get a bit complicated, and that's where all the homework from before comes in. A good example of this, is Captain Falcon, who's alternate costumes in Brawl sort of jumped details around and there was no real consistency that I could discern. Because of that, I made various small edits to his other costumes that brought the designs together in terms of coherence with the original costume. Some characters to highlight here:
Meta Knight's costumes are primarily from Kirby's Air Ride, for one. Because of this, I didn't want to change them too much, so I instead settled for small tweaks like the color of his mask, shoes, and gloves. These edits are probably hard to notice at a quick glance, but when you look closer, they have a big impact on what colors stand out and which don't.
Toon Link' is an interesting character to work with because he's from a cel-shaded game. This means that, no matter what I do, his design won't reflect the one from his games unless I completely change the way he's been done. I didn't want to do this, because at it's core, this is a Brawl mod and I want to stick to the idea that "this is what Brawl would be if it used more vibrant colors". It's a boon and a curse at times, but it's one of the reasons Toon Link only got one custom costume.
Step 4: Original Designs
When I decide to do an original design, there are primarily two reasons: Either the original doesn't serve it's purpose (team colors primarily) or I have a specific idea in mind for a recolor. Either way, when I decide to make one I then consider my options and potential themes I could use that would make an interesting texture. Another self-imposed rule of mine, is to try and make "interesting and varied designs that have yet to be explored". Because of this, it can become a real pain trying to think of combinations that have yet to be tried both in the vault and within this pack itself. This also complicates some characters ten fold, of which I'll get to in a moment. It's important to note that, while I do have themes I aim for on occasion, I don't stick to a set theme for a set character at all times. Sometimes, it's best to switch up what I'm referencing in order to keep my mind thinking of unexplored ideas so I don't get burned out.
Wolf is one of the hardest characters to design for because his original design is very busy. Wolf's got lots of small details that affect the over-all look of his design in big ways, and if you're not careful, they can ruin what you set out to do. This is made even harder when I want to preserve the original design as much as possible and still vary the team color designs. I almost released some simpler alts that featured only primary colors and one secondary, but I thought this was too simple a solution and ventured into quad-color territory. Each of Wolf's original designs used a 4-Color rule, in that I'd choose 4 colors to work with before I got to work. Even still, it was tough deciding which part should be which color and I'm not 100% satisfied with my results.
Zelda was a character that I had specific ideas in mind when I started. Because of this, her recolors look a touch more "focused" because I was aiming for some very specific things. This is an important thing to keep in mind when designing alternate costumes:
know what you want it to do. You need to know what color you want to stand out, which you don't want to stand out, and how you want them to work together if you want to keep your designs interesting. You have to remember that, for the most part, players won't be seeing all of the tiny details you added, so you'll have to use colors to bring your ideas to their attention while they play. But while you want them to notice, you don't want them to
keep noticing.
A good phrase I used when designing HUDs was "If they don't notice it's different, I did my job well." This applies somewhat to textures as well, mainly in reference to the Red, Green, and Blue alts. These are team colors, so players should be able to identify which team they're on with a quick glace. If they can't do that because the design is too busy, then perhaps bump it to another slot and design a different costume for the team color. Paying attention to the Brawl alts helps with this, because each one highlights specific elements of a character for team battles. Examples include, Ness' Hat, Ike's Cape, Captain Falcon's Suit .etc. Identify traits like these when you want to design for teams. It will help you out.
TL:DR. Here's the rules I follow when designing for this project:
1. Adhere to Brawls style as much as possible
2. Make Interesting and Varied Designs within a character
3. Stick to a characters established design themes unless specifically aiming to counter them
4. Team colors must properly represent their team as referenced by Brawl's default costumes
I'm sure there are a few rules that I haven't thought about, but I can always come back to this later. Maybe I should go back and add pictures to it? That all sums up my thought process when I design a custom texture for any particular project. If you look back at my work, you can see that I didn't always think this way but gained the knowledge gradually. I can say that, each texture of mine, especially when I revisit a character, is meant to top the last batch that I made. Sometimes I get it, usually I don't, but I enjoy trying because it's fun.
To those of you who read the whole thing, well, gosh I'm embarrassed now. I hope all of this can inspire some of you to jump on in and make your own textures, or at least give you a better appreciation to those who try to make their own. This is just my way of doing things, but don't be afraid to find your own.
especially wolf actually, maybe i'll start posting more here although i don't want to seem like a hater
