Castlevania/Steampunk

I have always been a big fan of the Castlevania series and even dabbled extensively with the imported versions of the series, Dracula X being my all-time fave!

A few years back Konami made efforts to capitalize in the hand-held market with the Castlevania series and released some really good renditions of the game on the DS.

There was one very major thing that bothered me and that was who the games were being geared towards, young teens!

The series had taken a major Down-fall in terms of the output it once had art direction wise. Ayame Kojima’s beautifully mesmerizing Gothic paintings was no more the icing on the cake. Instead it was brightly colored characters and displayed very minute and average detail. I understand why they did that but can’t say I fully agree with it and then again I know that at that time Nintendo’s user base for its DS

was mainly teens and kids. So I thought a lot about making my own vampire hunters and how I would give them a much more serious edge. Aside from that I thought about a strong setting which Castlevania never really exploited, which was Steam-Punk. So I began with my first character. Tight black leather, white fur on the collar and buckles and chains were the call of the day on this one. I love insignias a lot and so I gave him one on the right shoulder and made him feel as if he was part of an order and there also would be a good opportunity to play in some extension there.

The other character on the right was being designed for a game I had in mind that takes place in a steampunk setting and also deals heavily with dealing with ghouls and the undead. I really wanted to play in a Victorian/Aristocratic look, throw in a nicely decorated chain sword inspired from Final Fantasy 6’s Edger. Now my decorated character is ready to shread through the ghouls and attend lavishly Gothic meetings at night. I still plan on making analog and digital versions of that game.

The last one has more of a Belmont feel. I did this sketch right before Order Of Ecclesia came out. I wanted to really push a front leather piece that covered Belmont from color bone to the mid-section. I wanted a few pockets on it and eventually worked a relic cross bound to a small chain on his chest armor and that has to be my favorite touch to the whole piece. I will eventually redesign these guys now that I have a lot more knowledge on design and definitely have some more appealing faces. I still would like to push that 80s industrial glam rock the hunter on the far left has.

Ren, almost done.

I have finely come to a satisfactory state with Rens look. I canned the Aladdin vest and gave him a more closed jump-suit look a lot like what he originally had in the cartoon. He feels more important and more like the main character of the series then before when he had a more rouge like look. I also played in thick trims with curves to them in his shirt and his pants. I played in more of the thick animal armor over his knees and made a spiny bracer over his arm. As far as the face goes I am still indecisive. I played with the idea of having more feminine features as I mentioned in my previous Dark water post. In the original series Ren had these almond shaped eyes with eyeliner and from the nose up could easily read as a female. So I thought about, what if he had those female features but just a little bit stronger and used it to his advantage, mostly in cases with subterfuge mattered. I like the idea of him really fooling a lot land starved scoundrels and then lashing out and taking a lot of them by surprise. I also wanted to push his silhouette a little bit more, so I played with his hair style and gave him a “swoosh” type of look that can convey some swiftness. From here on out I will focus on the main bad guy which I have started and the female Lead who I have also started. I will finish Ren, I just couldn’t help myself not to start those two since I had all these ideas I wanted to get down.