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Choppasmith

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,410
Beaumont, CA
Pardon me if this messy. I'm on my phone. I couldn't find a thread.

SNK apparently held a character design contest and they picked the design from a woman in Saudi Arabia.



Short video of KOF Producer talking about the character



It didn't mention where this design will be used. I assume it's for KOF XV.

Edit: More info

I will translate this page

DNvAnAaWkAAfpOy.jpg


Najd ( Character Name )

Although we live in the 21 century with all advancements in our world , but the Stories of the Genies are still haunting us

We see our 21 Years Old University girl got a Special Training since her Childhood along with another girls Same as her age in order to get the "Halek" Abaya , Halek is a Stubborn Genie that isn't easy to control and Najd was the Most deserving one to wear "Halek" Abaya

Najd is Calm most of times as controling Halek requires a lot of concentration and If she lost control of it then it will harm her and her surrounding

She is a Student at Morning and a Justice Guardian at night due to her Night Stealth abilities

There were other awards by the way. The only one with a previously announced monetary prize is best stage:

UfXUy6k.jpg


The wall in the foreground is supposedly Almasmak, Riyadh's old fort. The background is Riyadh's skyline.

Best weapon:

umKiCo2.jpg


Sofooq. The body text is too small for me to read. The weapon is a shimagh (headdress), it is used as in impromptu weapon IRL but without the dagger. Side note: the number one comment Tekken's Harada got from Saudi fans on Shaheen was to give him an iqal (black circular crown thingy) based rage art (a more effective impromptu weapon IRL).

Best creative design:

EIWjpwZ.jpg


Gaara. Bankam. Controls sand and makes his weapons out of it, wears goggles to avoid sand. Can also stop time for his super attack.

lUwabfQ.jpg


Albaz. Beloved professional wrestler who is popular with kids. Used to make falcon hoods for a living but was blinded in an accident.

1q8aeaa.jpg


Best fighting move:

Khaleel, the black oil magician. Injects petroleum through his nails and lights it up with sparks from his ring. Was a petroleum engineer but became an apathetic pyromaniac after watching his dad and his friends burn in an great fire accident.

Comedic character award:

M7RnC43.jpg


...he has a palm tree on his head.

Audience choice awards:

1QIW8fZ.jpg


Sultan. Something something modern take on traditional clothes. Something something street fighting and martial arts plus a dagger for super attacks. Something something lawyer in his dad's firm people are murdered.
 
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Deleted member 1378

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that design kicks ass
certainly better than other fighting game companies have been producing this gen
 

Deleted member 11093

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This is coming from an Arab, but I don't think that an abayah wearing female Arab characters is a good thing. On one hand I'm glad that they went with a female Arab instead of going with a male one, since Tekken 7 and SFV already did that, yet the fact that she's completely covered is super disappointing, even if she's getting alt costumes, this will always be her default and the look that'll stick with people's heads, so I guess SF EX's Pullum and SFV's Menat remain the best designed Arab female rep right now.


Now it's NRS turn with Mortal Kombat.
 
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FiXalaS

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,569
Kuwait.
This is coming from an Arab, but I don't think that abayah wearing female Arab characters is a good thing. On one hand I'm glad that they went with a female Arab instead of going with a male one, since Tekken 7 and SFV already did that, yet the fact that she's completely covered is super disappointing, even if she's getting alt costumes, this will always be her default and the look that'll stick with people's heads, so I guess SF EX's Pullum and SFV's Menat remains the best designed Arab female rep right now.


Now it's NRS turn with Mortal Kombat.

Its a reason why I love the design, feels very unique and not many designs are similar to this.

plus isn't this the first female arab in a fighting game?
 
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Kolx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,505
The design looks very cool. More developers should take input from fans.
 

Golnei

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,823
More developers should take input from fans.

That's not something that should be adopted as a general rule or anything (professionals are in these positions for a reason) but it can be good to open things up occasionally - DOA's annual fan costume creation competitions are a reasonable example.

On-topic, the design looks interesting; I'm looking forward to seeing how they translate some of it into 3D - the flying fabric, tattered cloth and sentient scarf apparition seem like they'd be much more suited for Skullgirls-style traditional 2D.
Also, have they released this artist's name?
 

FiXalaS

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,569
Kuwait.
That's not something that should be adopted as a general rule or anything (professionals are in these positions for a reason) but it can be good to open things up occasionally - DOA's annual fan costume creation competitions are a reasonable example.

On-topic, the design looks interesting; I'm looking forward to seeing how they translate some of it into 3D - the flying fabric, tattered cloth and sentient scarf apparition seem like they'd be much more suited for Skullgirls-style traditional 2D.
Also, have they released this artist's name?

I believe this is her
https://twitter.com/BMashael
 

Consensual

Member
Oct 25, 2017
863
This is coming from an Arab, but I don't think that an abayah wearing female Arab characters is a good thing. On one hand I'm glad that they went with a female Arab instead of going with a male one, since Tekken 7 and SFV already did that, yet the fact that she's completely covered is super disappointing, even if she's getting alt costumes, this will always be her default and the look that'll stick with people's heads, so I guess SF EX's Pullum and SFV's Menat remains the best designed Arab female rep right now.


Now it's NRS turn with Mortal Kombat.

Yeah, what the world of fighting games really needs is another scantily clad character...

This is a fantastic look, and I'm always happy to see more Arab or South Asian characters in videogames, especially as it's such a rarity compared to the representation other minorities get. The fact that she's in an abayah and a hijab just makes it even better.
 

Deleted member 8117

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This is coming from an Arab, but I don't think that an abayah wearing female Arab characters is a good thing. On one hand I'm glad that they went with a female Arab instead of going with a male one, since Tekken 7 and SFV already did that, yet the fact that she's completely covered is super disappointing, even if she's getting alt costumes, this will always be her default and the look that'll stick with people's heads, so I guess SF EX's Pullum and SFV's Menat remain the best designed Arab female rep right now.


Now it's NRS turn with Mortal Kombat.

Menat and Pullum's clothes has nothing in common with modern Arabs, though. I know why would you have reservations against abayah but it's what most Arab women wearing rn. It's also implemented in a very cool way in the design with the abayah being a man-eating monster. XD
 

FiXalaS

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Oct 27, 2017
6,569
Kuwait.
Apparently Najd's Abaya (or her) is possessed, and she controls whatever that is possessing to do various attacks with the Abaya.
 

Deleted member 11093

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Menat and Pullum's clothes has nothing in common with modern Arabs, though. I know why would you have reservations against abayah but it's what most Arab women wearing rn. It's also implemented in a very cool way in the design with the abayah being a man-eating monster. XD
On a second thought, yeah, it does look cool, kinda like Bayonetta and her hair.
 

Ikaruga

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,055
Austria
Looks quite nice but this will be a hell of work to make an animated model out of it I guess.

By the way, what? SNK is doing a new Fighting game? A new KOF?!
 

adel

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
303
So the Abaya belongs to a strong jinn called halek.
Cool backstory from the character bio.
 

Majukun

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,542
the mouth ghostly thingy is a bit cheesy,seems more something you'll see in a blazblue game, but otherwise it's a cool design
 

gcwy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,685
Houston, TX
What do you mean? What's wrong with Rashid and Shaheen?
I like Rashid's design. Don't understand the flak he gets.

This is coming from an Arab, but I don't think that an abayah wearing female Arab characters is a good thing. On one hand I'm glad that they went with a female Arab instead of going with a male one, since Tekken 7 and SFV already did that, yet the fact that she's completely covered is super disappointing.
Why would it be? It's from a woman in Saudi Arabia, I don't see anything wrong with it.
 

LossAversion

The Merchant of ERA
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Oct 28, 2017
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Looks really cool! Reminds me of Morrigan from Dragon Age mixed with some Bayonetta craziness.
 

Alo0oy

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Oct 25, 2017
1,091
Bahrain
This is coming from an Arab, but I don't think that an abayah wearing female Arab characters is a good thing. On one hand I'm glad that they went with a female Arab instead of going with a male one, since Tekken 7 and SFV already did that, yet the fact that she's completely covered is super disappointing, even if she's getting alt costumes, this will always be her default and the look that'll stick with people's heads, so I guess SF EX's Pullum and SFV's Menat remain the best designed Arab female rep right now.


Now it's NRS turn with Mortal Kombat.

As an Arab, I understand where you're coming from, Arab characters are never represented where they wear "normal" or "non-traditional" clothes, people outside the Arab world probably aren't aware that most people don't wear "traditional" clothes.

But at the same time, I don't want to knock her design either, it was great and designed by an actual Arab instead of a non-Arab grabbing inspirations from google image search.
 

dbcyber

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Oct 25, 2017
2,399
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Really nice design. Wonder how it will animate, may be tricky and could end up looking bad.
 
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Choppasmith

Choppasmith

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,410
Beaumont, CA
Could be NGBC or a new SamSho.

It just occurred to me. I can't check at the moment. Didn't that recent leak/rumor for NGBC2 mention a "Mysterious Woman" as a newcomer? This would fit the bill.

That's even crazier(especially the latter), we haven't seen much from SNK of both franchises in ages.

Nothing confirmed but heavily rumored SNK said they had games (plural) in development. They also have Capcom's star fighting game designer, Neo G, on board now.