Misc - Evolution of the Mux

It seemed right to make my last submission of the decade something which documents how far my biggest original project has travelled over the course of four years.

Here lies a little piece of Niftihalo history. Enjoy!

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2005 – Outcast Hero began life as a Kirbyverse concoction I spewed after a mixture of too much sugar and trawling DA. Kirby’s humanoid variant went through an interesting design process with equally interesting reactions from the fanbase. The first version, cute but not entirely practical. The second version retained some of what gave the first the ‘unconventional hero’ appearance (no matter what people say about Kirby’s species, after all that eating I really couldn’t visualise him being a skinny guy) and added a rather fashionable outfit. The marking on the back of HK’s jacket was later to become the design for Muxlowe’s birthmark.

2006 – Following the dissolution of the Kirbyverse movie project, Muxlowe started to take form as his own character. Keeping the majority of the HK design, the outfit was downgraded to provide a more ‘hand-me-down’ feel which better suited the direction the revised storyline took. The Chimerites -a species which played a relatively small role in the first project- were given far greater importance in Outcast Hero. They were also given ears. At this stage, Chimerites were somewhat dumpy – a remnant of the rounded appearance most Kirbyverse character designs took on.

2007 – As my style for the movie became better established, so did the facial features and hair of Muxlowe’s design. Thanks to a piece of art I received from *zet following catching a milestone pageview count, I was inspired to give Muxlowe’s hair a more ruffled look. I also gave him more of a button nose. His Chimerite form (and the forms of Chimerites in general) had become more streamlined – this also helped to emphasise the physique differences between that and his human form. These designs were the ones I stuck with for the next two years while I completed the animatic.

2009 – Having paid more attention to the animatic and plot in general, I hadn’t really had an opportunity to study the designs of certain members of the main cast and gauge how fitting they were. In retrospect, Muxlowe’s design had stayed pretty much the same since it was ripped from HK. Keeping hold of some of the more familiar aspects, I gave his bangs a more natural feel which succumbed to gravity a little better. His hair was lengthened at the back to give him –at least for the early part of the movie- a deceptively youthful appearance. The colour of the hair was also dulled to mark a stronger contrast between his successful, high-living, gaudily-dressed Chimerite self and the shunned, identity-mistaken and assumedly not-hero-material human self.