KS Showcase 2K17

[ksdixon]

28th December 2016 - Update #2

CAW Mode has it's strange little quirks. A lot of the time you can't zoom-in properly unless you go into that 'free camera' mode. But the free camera mode isn't always available (see VS screen pose). And the menu grid pictures that you choose attire pieces, or menu poses from is so zoomed-out, you can't tell any details from them at all. It makes it a little frustrating. By the way, far too many otherwise cool menu poses are completely unuseable because of ''Booker T. Crazy Eyes'' or ''Derp Face''. What's going-on with that?

 

Well... the in-match pause menu 15 second replay camera isn't quite what it used to be, is it? Where's the free camera angle that was so usefull for capturing interesting CAW shots or showing off a particular attire detail in just the right way? What a bitter disapointment for me!

 

Then, when I do get a couple of screenshots together, I found out that both ImageShack (my perferred image host) 'and' PhotoBucket have become greedy assholes and want me to pay for a premium account now; at a time when I have no money. Where's the 'it' place to store CAW pictures nowadays? If I can find a place to host pictures, I have Jason Youngblood and Sara Williams ready to show.

 

 

28th December 2016 - Update #1

Is anyone else finding the game really, really, hard, creatively? Maybe it's just me - because everyone else seems to be showcasing their CAWs easily enough. I'm struggling to just-about get four CAWs done so far, and some of those are with help from psn id: lmfarlin25 on face/body figures and us working together to make a moveset that works in CPU vs CPU matches which includes moves I feel fit the character's personality. I'm feeling like maybe I don't 'have it' anymore, and it's becoming a little frustrating. Whilst I can clearly see the amount of work and quality that's gone into nearly every creation aspect of the game, I'm finding it hard to make CAWs this year - and CABelt/CAArena are positively terrifying me. I keep going-in, taking a look around, thinking "*Censored* that", and nope-ing right out of there!

 

The hair/clothing pieces, or the body builds, or something just look off to me. I'm not sure if they look more 'realistic' or if they move/animate differently than previous years, but my characters aren't looking quite right. They look 'good', generally, but they aren't really squaring with my mind's eye for what my characters look like. For Example: My first attempt at Jason Youngblood this year looked more like Stevie Richards. This overall feeling that something is 'off' with my characters probably isn't helped at all by me making the concious choice to make changes to them, either.

 

I'm tired of Jason Youngblood always wearing black and green with white/silver detailing (tribute to WCW Raven's Flock era Kanyon). I feel as though I was remaking variations of the same attires every year, tweaking here and there depending on what appearance pieces were in CAW Mode. It had gotten to the point where the characters weren't aging or modernizing in any physical way, and worse, they 'felt wrong' if I even changed their established colors. Whereas in real life, most wrestlers change the color of their attire like it's nothing, and it all still fits the overall design motif of their character. Those of you whom know my characters from efeds or from previous year's showcases, any feedback you want to give will be very much appreciated.

 

P.S. What were 2K thinking making all ''generic'' parts white and very light grey? My crap eyesight can't distinguish between the two. I have to go into each part, change the color manually just to see what it is. Then tomorrow it will be all the same thing over again as I will have forgotten. Why couldn't they have at least made them white and BLACK?

[White Leather Jacket]

You need a bit of help?

[Jeevesosiris]

I hope you do manage to find your mojo. I ended up making my own version of Kazu today as I had not seen your stuff showing up. Hope we get to see the real deal down the line.

[ksdixon]

Added Update #2 to opening post, sigh.

 

Hi WLJ, yeah it's looking like I could use a bit of help, somehow. If anyone wants to take a crack at any of my characters, I'd love to see their interpretations of my characters to see what kind of directions people take them in.

Hi Jeevesosiris, thanks for the kind words. I like Kazu a lot too. Although he's currently pulled in too many directions. Over the past few games he's been loosely based on Ultimo Dragon, Drago of Lucha Underground and even WCW Masked Juventud Guerrera. I'd like to do something to pull all of his looks together into one completely original look he can call his own. I have ideas on how to do that for WWE 2K17, it's just a matter of caw pieces playing nicely with one another, or not running out of creation points. At this moment in time, I think he will be my next male creation after I finish Chris Lionheart's attires (at the moment LH is looking like a sorry mother*censored*er, something is not clicking with him at all). I would be interested in seeing your interpretation of Kazu for sure

[White Leather Jacket]

Send me some pics of what you have ATM. Also use tinypic for photos.

[XWF1000]

Hey KSDIXON, This game has had issues dude for the last 2 months! It keeps updating & has had flaws! It's up to Version 1.05 now! The CAW mode changed & not for the better. Most creators that have posted their Creations on this website has had issues creating their characters.

[ksdixon]

JASON YOUNGBLOOD

 

 

Old Look: WWE 2K15

With Jason Youngblood, I noted earlier I wanted to take him away from the green and black of WCW Raven's Flock era Kanyon, I've done that. I think black and red works well for him, and I can take him in a few different directions based on these colors. Horror movie poster merchandise tshirt for him, blood & guts etc.

Another thing I wanted to do for Jason was to show a passage of time. If I have my years correct, in 2011 Jason won the Innovation:Wrestling (formerly TheNewBlood Wrestling) World Title whilst being roleplayed by another efedder, and then the character was sort-of retired on a high note. JYB has not been a properly active efed character since then, only popping up for the odd match, or as a background character to someone else's storyline. If I recall correctly I think I wrote him as having *censored*ed-up knees and being semi retired now. Luckily for me, being that Jason has always supposed to have been a merger of Raven and Kanyon (who just happened to fall more and more towards Kanyon over the years), I knew I already had a template in mind for how to show his aging, by looking towards TNA era Raven.

 

I've kept other elements of JYB's past visuals, such as heavily-loaded-up arms, as he's usually worn full length arm bands or elbow pads and wrist band combos. I'm not 100% sure he 'works' visually just yet, but I like what I've got started with. His next second attire is planned to be a more Kanyon-like full wrestling tights, which is what you'll be used to seeing JYB wearing. But again, it will be in black and red instead of the black and green (I still need black, green and white for Toxic, my tribute to Kanyon's masked character 'Mortis', remember. For so long due to the same color scheme I flirted with making Toxic into JYB wearing a mask, but I never fully commited to the idea, I liked making both of them seperately).

SARA WILLIAMS

 

 

 

 

Old Look: WWE 2K16

 

For last year's game, I already took Sara out of her comfort zone of being a <SERIOUS FEMALE WRESTLER!>, by giving her an attire that showed-off her midriff, had sequened belt and sequened ass pockets on her booty shorts. This is because she needed to be slightly glammed-up for the company she wrestles in. Overall I think I managed to keep her looking serious and tough, instead of glitzy and glamorous, like most of the Divas in Hollywood Ladies Wrestling where she competes. And after a while I really began to like how Sara straddled the line between changing her outfit but still retaining her identity as a serious wrestler through her moveset etc. She is the main reason more of my CAWs are getting complete make-overs this year (see Jason Youngblood above).

 

This year, I wanted to keep that momentum going, and change her attire again into something that was slightly even more glamor-based than last year. That way Sara doesn't start getting trapped in the same problem as my other CAWs, the same attires and same colors every year. So now we have leather studs on the undies and wrist bands. Sequened red sash belt, and the bra piece I used pokes-out from underneath the tshirt layer to look like a funky tied-top instead. I've managed to keep her British-ness by using blue, red, white, but I haven't had to place a flag on her. I've managed to incorporate more colors than just blue, white and black, which was last year's design.

 

I'm hopeful that this attire will work when transported into other colors which are not blue, red and white, as I quite like it.

[White Leather Jacket]

So you wanna go more to the raven side for Jason?

[ksdixon]

Yeah, that's what I've tried to do for Jason above, Raven (TNA era), face-wise, to show his aging. The attire, with the jean shorts is also Raven (WCW era), but I've tried to give it more of an original spin rather than outright ripoff for the attire. Not too sure if he works visually or not how Jason is at the moment, but I think I like it so far.

[XWF1000]

What is your Hashtag for your CAWS?

[ksdixon]

Sara is up under HLW.

Jason YB is not up yet, as he doesn't have moves.

[The 1 Man Horror Movie]

Oh snap!!!

I haven't heard/seen you in a long time. Then again, the last 2 months have been a huge blur as I started a new job, and that takes up almost all my time since my hours are all over the place, mostly 6am opening shifts until 4pm, so when I get home, it's spending time with the wife and kids, and getting maybe an hour to game before going to bed, to do it all over the next morning.

I'm gonna try taking a crack at Jason myself, and putting my own touches on it. If you have a specific face photo you want him to have, share it here or elsewhere, and I'll use it.

Myself, I've given most of all my caws a fountain of youth treatment. Anti-aging them back to their glory days looks, with updated attires, and "best of" movesets to fully get the character across. For instance Sylas & PoV/AJ Pain. Completely redid their tattoos, gave them both a decent head of hair (dreads for AJ) and highlighted the parts of their e-fed past on the new visions. Hell, even good ol DarkMan X/DMX/Kronin has been turned into "Boss Fight" version. Higher stats, powerful moveset, epic entrance and could easily pass as a late 20's/early 30's version of himself, rather then the 45yr old he is.

 

But yeah, maybe the caws of old just need a different persons touch to fully reach their potential. I know when I tried crossing over from e-feds, to competitive sim style and seeing all these youtube show characters now, I wanted to overhaul everything I had been doing. Maybe that's just the way things needed to be, to open my mind to bettering my overall content.

[ksdixon]

NEON
Shared credit with to LMcFarlin21. Remade moveset as close to last year's as possible, face/body morphing and the bulk of the attire choices. Mostly I refined what he had done, taking a ''less is more'' approach to the attire by not making it all reflective rainbow, giving NEON her old brown hair color, and adding the Fit Finlay jacket. Overall, with how she looks in these photos (her alt attire) I feel like NEON has a new 'edge' to her, and she looks more like a seasoned veteran now (been around since 2011 if I recall correctly). I'm very excited to see her in CPU simmed matches. She is fast, fluid, hits high flying and suicide dive moves all the time. Exactly how she should be wrestling. Watching NEON wrestle makes me think about doing a mini-Cruiserweight division for both males and females...



Meghan Curtis
No.... she's not based on Charlotte Flair. The only relation she has to Charlotte was a mistake (explained below).

I've been trying to get this blasted character formed correctly since 2007. There was one moment when TNA were just starting their Knockouts division, when Angel Williams (not yet named Angelina Love), tricked another woman into charging her, as Angel herself stood on the apron in an over the top rope battle royal. That charging woman then ate a jawbreaker which caught their throat on the ropes. Angel Williams sat on the apron and just tapped her head like ''I'm smarter than you, bitch!''. Since that moment I've always thought there can be a great efed character there. A female Mr. Perfect/Curt Hennig. Someone who's moveset flows and moves follow-on from another fluidly. A lady with just the right amount of flash to her moves, to be seen as showing-up her opponents by out-wrestling them. The "Curtis" surname comes from Hennig, obviously. The Meghan name comes from me mistakenly thinking that Charlotte Flair (with her "I'm better than you" attitude) is portrayed by Megan Flier (it's not, it's Ashley Flier). But once I hit upon the Meghan Curtis name, it just sounded right. The cyan and black colors in her main attire are Curt Hennig (WCW era) tribute. The pink skirt with black top is my attempt at keeping the same visual style (color x black), but trying to make her more girly/Hollywood-esque for Hollywood Ladies Wrestling, and not get trapped into the shorts look for her bottom half. Really trying to pull away this year, in everything from colors to clothing pieces. Moveset credit is again joint between LMcFarlin21 and I. I pick the moves I like, and he builds the moveset placement slots so that they work, as well as helps me not get too caught-up with particular moves, suggests alternatives etc. In the ring Meghan isn't the most offensive character, but she always hits moves and reversals when they are needed the most, and holds her own against other people's well-put together CAWs.

[MikeM]

The characters are looking good. Hope you're over your writers' block. Sometimes more freedom can lead to that, I find that often limitations in the creation mode can actually steer things in the right direction occasionally.

 

Reading about Jason's history with the knee, and you wanting to "age" him, have you thought about adding a support or brace to the kneepad?

[ksdixon]

11 Jan 2017
I am so pissed off right now. Spent hours in caw mode working around glitches, and no matter what, it keeps re-coloring a wwe design to it's default colors. Then I finally take the caw into a match, not only are the colors defaulted againm but the layering system comes into play, and one clothing item completely blocks-out another one, which is absolutely not the way that it looked at any point in caw mode! I really wanted to show off my newest creation.

 

... Rejigged her around, and I'm actually happier with her now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yasha Onihime

 

 

OK... so, Yasha Onihime. Yes I stole the name from the twin bosses from Streets Of Rage (SEGA kiddie here). She's been Kazu's female counterpart for years, but I haven't made her for years either. Seeing how this game lets women use 99% of the caw parts usually reserved for males, I thought I would make her into a female Dragon. I just hope the mask looks Dragon-y, it's based on Drago from Lucha Underground. Stiff kicks, knees and chops married to high flying risk taking.

 

As for Kazu himself? He's coming soon, making Yasha has given me several ideas for him.

 

 

 

Entrance:

[ksdixon]

Kazu Tagahashi

 

 

How did he come out, Kazu fans? I wanted him to look somewhat different from previous years, as I'm turning him heel this year. I think the mask looks suitably evil. Took me ages of mixing and matching parts, the points system is a pain in the ass!

[Jeevesosiris]

Nice! I like the darker look.

[ksdixon]

Yasha Onihime has undergone a transformation. Picking up on the fact that ''Onihime'' means Japanese Demon, I decided to play around with that. I decided to go for a WCW Psicosis-styled attire, skewed towards a Devil theme. After playing around a little, here's the new-look Yasha.

 

I'm not to sure she looks Japanese still, but I'm sure I could make that more achieveable in due time by editing the skin color, and facial details.

 

[ksdixon]