For Mortal Kombat 11, I oversaw character concepts and character model creation. There are a lot of great character skins in MK11, and here are a few that are not only visually awesome, but also stood out as memorable moments during the development of MK11.
Erron Black
One of the primary objectives for the MK11 visual design of characters was to ensure that the characters are easier to read during gameplay. To achieve this, we used bold confident shapes and rich color. In Erron Black’s case, we added clean, flat colored armor plates to his arms and legs. Adding these made his punches and kicks easier to read during kombat.
One of Erron Black’s concepts had a mask, which reminded me of an iconic Australian outlaw name Ned Kelly. This is how I got the idea of making a fully armored Ned Kelly skin for Erron Black. The quality of the final model and the fact that the Ned Kelly theme ties back to the stories from my childhood in Australia, make this skin one of my favorites.
Shao Kahn
Our goal was to have past and present versions of all characters. However, this did not work for Shao Kahn as he was meant to be dead in the present time. To solve this, we made a far past version of him. The idea was to make a version of Shao Kahn that would capture the way he looked when he was leading armies into battle. The concept turned out great, however, the execution of the model was not so easy and it took several artists to get it to this final quality. Not only does Shao Kahn have some of my favorite skins in the game, he has great gear as well. The helmets are especially awesome; one of my favorites can be seen here. (note: Shao Kahn available with pre-order)
Raiden
It’s hard to choose my favorite look for Raiden as I think they all look great. However, this skin is a combination of a number of creative ideas, seized opportunities and amazing technology. While building characters for MK11, we always look for the opportunity to create retro looks from earlier MK games. This Raiden’s skin is his MK2 look which, however, is presented here with one of the many different color schemes available in MK11.
In addition to that, the skin showcases the silk material which is one of several new material shading models we added in MK11. Fans of NetherRealm games may notice that we have used the same facial talent for Raiden in MK11 as we did for injustice 2. However, to achieve higher fidelity we wanted for MK11, the person was rescanned and Raiden’s face was completely rebuilt.
Cetrion
This is the dark side of the Mother Earth theme for Cetrion. This dark Cetrion skin contrasts with her lighter ones, showing the dual role mother nature must play to ensure balance. It was hard to design a skin that would embody the destructive side of mother nature but would not come across as evil. Achieving this made this one of my favorite character skins in the game. We are excited for the player to see all the skins for each character as they are designed to work together to tell the player more about the character.
Discover the rest of the fighters’ unique battle garb when Mortal Kombat 11 hits PS4 on April 23.
