Xerxes redo finished.

Weapon of Choice has over 20 playable characters designed. The artwork is finished for 7 characters and 4 are currently playable. (Yes, there's a lot left to do!) While a lot of games let you see the concept art used, it's not often that you get to see the actual progression of the art. I thought for a change it would be fun for players to see some of the art changes as they happen behind the scenes before the game is finished.

Here is the original image for Xerxes Remington shown during the selection screen:

I like it, and it serves its purpose. But after a lot of discussions, I decided it would be worth trying to make it more interesting. I approached it from two ways: 1. the pose, and 2. the actual design (clothing, hair, etc).

I'm not a great character artist, but I am improving. My ol' buddy Steve Wik *is* a great character artist. He's been drawing characters for years and knows what he's doing. He was so good as to guide me in redoing Xerxes. I picked out the pose but Steve helped make the pose more natural. He also added some neat new design elements, like the tattoos and the goggles. Steve acted as my Cyrano de Bergerac (without the big nose), whispering how to make things cooler looking.

Here's the new portrait for Xerxes:
The new portrait is more energetic, and it also suggests an alternate use for Xerxes' own Weapon of Choice, the Jet Engine gun. Not only does it shoot flames and kill things but he can fly around with it like a jet-pack! I'm still going to do another polish pass on the picture in a few months to improve things like the tattoos and the highlighting.

It was difficult to decide to spend time redoing the art. The old portraits were functional, and get across the general idea of the characters. I decided though it would be worth the extra polish for something so prominent.