It's not spamming, and is great to read. You can post what you want!
Enzo-senpai noticed me!
As for others: thanks for the kind words, I'll try to post you a little something from time to time! And sorry Azure but I don't know Smash that much. ^^
Sayad: I agree with you!
---> Can't stop about all this so a little something before new thread. I mentioned while talking about Millia and Potemkin that you sometimes have to make choices to let your character express oneself and that sometimes, this choices will complicate your life as a designer while giving you a great character. Wrap Millia's arms around her body was a great example, Zappa doing the bridge position is the same. But all this relies on story, on clothes, on hair. How do you do this when you have nothing like this?
Well that's Twelve in Third Strike. Not a lot of people likes this character because when you look at his art, it's like someone added in a game an unfinished base character animators are using. It's like someone put the cedar doll into a game! But personal opinion again: Twelve is THE character that proves Capcom artists were maniacs in the late nineties, and it also the character that represents the dead end of the series.
First he has no voice, no hair, no clothes, no external element outside his own body to express movement. He could have details on his body like scars but they refused to compromise so he is totally white. Imagine this for a moment: give a character a personality just by animation, without relying on details. That's simply nuts and making a statement: Capcom was able to create so memorable characters and were so talented they just did it because the were able to do it. Make a character without giving him any visual characterization in the first place. That's denying everything Capcom was knowed for with his incredible character designs.
So how did they do? Twelve's moves are often a mix of human and animal, or transformation of his body into neutral objects. All his animations are then relying on a perfect respect of skeleton and muscles that will create shadows you need to give depth. All transformations from animal to object will have him coming back to his idle stance. That means you have to anticipate everything while drawing him and that's very difficult. Everything relies on the charisma, the thing that will make you think this character is interesting just because he is moving, not because he has an inspired character design and art. I mean look at him, he seems a bit dull:
Then he starts walking and you go :mindblow:
In his jump, the animator must first regroup his legs. Notice that when jumping, he's crossing his arms. That means that EVERY MOVE done from this jump must start from a position with crossed arms! When jumping forward or backward, his arms are between his legs.
And he's doing the same when crouching, forcing the animator to go more steps than normal:
When you are doing a move in a fighting game, you will often have the character compressing the body and then stretch an arm or leg. Think about Ryu compressing himself while falling on the ground then stretching his leg while doing a down middle kick. Now look at this kick: it the fucking opposite.
He stretches the whole body, then compress by using the stretching.
Now about the dead end thing.
You probably didn't played Twelve a lot but I think that this character is stinking ego. It's like a statement: Capcom did the best character designs but see, they could even do the best characters even if character design ceased to exist. More than that: twelve is artificial in the story of SF3.3, he's the ultimate fighter and can be cloned. In Third Strike there is this idea of characters trying to find an utility of the fighting knowledge they were teach in a period where you don't have to fight any more to live. It's the dead end for the classical fighter, the end of this mythology of people training their whole life in dojos to master something. The period is now the one where everything can be reproduced, and Twelve is the end result where fighters can be cloned, schools and fighting styles can be copied. The myth of the original fighter is dead and even if they were still original, what they dedicated their lives to is an useless dead end.
In a podcast (in french sorry) where we analysed Street Fighter 3, friends and I thought that you can't make a sequel to Third Strike, because Third Strike announced the end of the street fighter mythology in his own scenario. It's like the series fall into post-modernity with the end of major stories. The "villain" (Gill) wants to create a new world where there is not need to fight and thus fights his chaotic brother (Urien) and succeeds. This whole game is like the statement from the Street Fighter staff at this time that everything has been done, that now is the time where fighting doesn't serve any purpose any more. You can't write a sequel to this and I think Capcom knows it and that's the reason SF5 will be between SF4 and SF3.
So here you have it, my take on Twelve. He is the icon that kills everything we love in fighters, the messenger of the end of the world of Street Fighter. ^^
Edit : OVER FOR NOW I HAVE TO WORK.
