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No wonder some Deluxe skins feel like they belong to a different frame. Protea's was a Mag concept.


Jarriaga

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On 2021-07-28 at 6:53 AM, Jarriaga said:

Harrow getting an ethereal skin instead of Limbo.

And thank gawd for that.  My favorite skin in the game going to Limboo is some nightmarish, parallel hell-universe stuff to imagine.  Not quite "half the universe snapped out of existence" but at least "tequila never getting invented" level.

/shudder

 

 

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As an artist, it doesn’t really matter what inspires a concept. The creative process tends to be quite tumultuous. Things get thrown out, scrapped, salvaged, reused. That’s all quite normal.

Art can have a story, sure. But what matters to most people is how it looks at the end, when it is finished and presented.

What we got was an excellent skin for a frame that had none. Personally, I don’t really mind what the artist was inspired by.

and tbh, speaking as an artist, if this was my work I would be VERY uncomfortable with people discussing my motivations and intentions.

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I always said DE does not give two S#&$s for thematic consistency , 

But I am not sure I care enough to complain for skins of one frame being jury rigged to a different frame.

Yes , I would like it if you could look at a skin and go " oh yeah , that is totally what the frame represents "

But as long as it looks good (subjective) and isn't completely off the theme (limbo was dumb , the nova asuri was an abomination, I don't even know what they were doing with Octavia) i wouldn't mind.

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On 2021-07-28 at 5:46 PM, Jarriaga said:

That is very well a possibility, but it is a hard pill to swallow if you like a WF explicitly because of its theme. It makes the deluxe feel alien and disconnected.

At that point might as well make a transmog system for all skins if the theme doesn't matter.

DE are running a business, which means they need to sell things. Granted, when they do sell things, they naturally aim to sell these things to as many people as possible. Here's the thing: every now and then, you, me or any other specific player are not in the target crowd. Sometimes they try to please the people who may enjoy how a frame plays but not their visual concept. personally I don't neccessary split hairs on the skins matching the concept, but I do recognize that there are people who really want their frame to visually represent their concept, and those that would like to have an option to separate their frame's fashion from it. I actually respect DE for doing that, rather than always laser-focus on what they perceive will get them all of the sales, like many other game development or publishing companies would do.

I'm not dismissing your points, btw. I just want to acknowledge that it's always good for the players to have an option, as opposed to not having it. And thanks to TennoGen, we have it pretty much guaranteed that every frame will eventually have a nice selection of skin choices. So you can always rest assured that if the new upcoming deluxe skin is not to your tastes, there likely will be a TennoGen around the corner that might be.

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19 hours ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

As an artist, it doesn’t really matter what inspires a concept. The creative process tends to be quite tumultuous. Things get thrown out, scrapped, salvaged, reused. That’s all quite normal.

Case in point: Frost was originally planned as a boss fight in a completely different game

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 2021-07-28 at 7:30 AM, Jarriaga said:

I'd honestly appreciate your insight there, particularly the ones that puzzled me the most. Namely, the Limbo and Harrow ones.

My Input on the limbo in harrow ones is this: Thematically Harrows entire story line ties him into the void and the man in the wall his mind gets shattered and split across the void. So a skin that plays into that concept makes sense. You also have the whole vessel aspect of Harrow and Rell being splintered and separated so tying in a harrow Skin that represents harrow as a splintered Vessel also ties into that as well. 

 

On the limbo sentient skin, while skins should be thematically consistent with the character they are a great place to explore "what if X warframe was part of X Faction" We see these all the time with the Graxx skins, that show off different warframes with Grineer inspired looks. Just because Revenant is a Sentient/Eidolon themed warframe doesn't mean he should be the only Warframe *allowed* to get a Sentient/Eidolon themed skin. In kind of a similar way to the ash comment, with Inaros and Nekros if every skin follows the exact same Theming and style as the warframes base skin... its not really serving the purpose of a skin. and in a similar way to the Graxx skins and the limbo sentient skin, It'd be cool to see more skins inspired from specific factions/locations. you know in a "What if Ash was from Mars like Inaros" sort of way.  

 

A huge part of this game is dressing up your warframes so giving playing a diverse set of styles that tries to still fit the warframe is hard but ultimately what I think they are shooting for. Now I don't like the new Revenant Skin in that I don't think I'd use it but I don't think its bad design. I think it bears as much resemblance to Revenant as Embers does to her. But I don't necessarily think that's bad, Revenants base skin sticks out a lot and is pretty radically different than a lot of warframes so giving him a skin *fits* the overall warframe aesthetic makes sense.

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On 2021-07-28 at 9:53 PM, Jarriaga said:

This concept art (Posted in January) belongs to the artist who designed "Protea's" upcoming deluxe skin:

warframe_skin_brainstorming__ardent_six_

The red one is Equinox, and the blue one is Mag according to the artist. It seems it was eventually re-tooled (Mostly in the helmet) into what is now Protea deluxe.

While most deluxe skins feel like the base frame itself is unrecognizable, the theme of the skin can often be used to link them.... Except for:

- Limbo getting a Sentient skin instead of Revenant, the former Sentient-themed frame (Now just Eidolon-themed). Curiously, Volt is getting a Sentient skin instead of saving it for Caliban in the future.

- Excalibur getting a nomadic traveler "Zen" skin instead of Baruuk (Weird missed opportunity there by not exploring a "futuristic medieval European knight" concept for the frame named Excalibur).

- Harrow getting an ethereal skin instead of Limbo. You know, the frame that can travel across planes of existence and died in the process of doing so?

- Ash getting a necromancer/mummy skin instead of Nekros/Inaros. He looks like an undead Mortal Kombat character. I don't see a hint of ninja/assassin there unless all hooded figures represent assassins.

- Revenant getting a Lunala skin instead of Sevagoth (Ember's and Revenant's are clearly gender-swapped Solgaleo and Lunala; Ember neatly embodies the Sun, but Revenant does not represent the Moon over Sevagoth. Else, Equinox with these 2 skins being each aspect).

It's a rather curious development that indicates there's something in the pipeline that ultimately decides how a skin is going to be used. Otherwise, we would be getting a Mag skin (Even if it doesn't fully fit either) considering the skin was created with Mag in mind.

Welcome to the creative process. This is normal. Pick up a pencil and see for yourself.

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On 2021-07-28 at 6:53 AM, Jarriaga said:

This concept art (Posted in January) belongs to the artist who designed "Protea's" upcoming deluxe skin:

warframe_skin_brainstorming__ardent_six_

The red one is Equinox, and the blue one is Mag according to the artist. It seems it was eventually re-tooled (Mostly in the helmet) into what is now Protea deluxe.

While most deluxe skins feel like the base frame itself is unrecognizable, the theme of the skin can often be used to link them.... Except for:

- Limbo getting a Sentient skin instead of Revenant, the former Sentient-themed frame (Now just Eidolon-themed). Curiously, Volt is getting a Sentient skin instead of saving it for Caliban in the future.

- Excalibur getting a nomadic traveler "Zen" skin instead of Baruuk (Weird missed opportunity there by not exploring a "futuristic medieval European knight" concept for the frame named Excalibur).

- Harrow getting an ethereal skin instead of Limbo. You know, the frame that can travel across planes of existence and died in the process of doing so?

- Ash getting a necromancer/mummy skin instead of Nekros/Inaros. He looks like an undead Mortal Kombat character. I don't see a hint of ninja/assassin there unless all hooded figures represent assassins.

- Revenant getting a Lunala skin instead of Sevagoth (Ember's and Revenant's are clearly gender-swapped Solgaleo and Lunala; Ember neatly embodies the Sun, but Revenant does not represent the Moon over Sevagoth. Else, Equinox with these 2 skins being each aspect).

It's a rather curious development that indicates there's something in the pipeline that ultimately decides how a skin is going to be used. Otherwise, we would be getting a Mag skin (Even if it doesn't fully fit either) considering the skin was created with Mag in mind.

I would have loved to see that on Mag...

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I think it looks gorgeous and the Protea version could fit a number of female frames. From a first glance it looks like it could be a Saryn skin but the orb gives it away and it still can work for Protea.

I do agree, however, about frames getting skins that would have made much more sense on other frames. Reliquary on Limbo would have been amazing since it fits his theme perfectly (almost looks like an ethereal from WoW minus the helmet) and I play him a lot. I also agree that not giving Excal a knight-themed skin was a huge missed opportunity. I don't understand why they would create a frame called Excalibur and make him be more like a space samurai than a knight. The only thing even linking him to that theme is the fact he has a powerful sword. 

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To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what Protea's theme is (no need to link the wiki or a video, I know of those). Hence, in her case at the very least, DE can model a deluxe skin after a sandwich with ham and cheese for all I care. And I'd still use her like I do now.

Other cases do feel like missed or mismatched opportunities, but I do not get upset by such choices. I'm sure this deluxe-creating process has a lot to do with practical considerations: designs readily available and fully modeled in game assets will get a green light sooner than others that might fit more a particular frame but which would take more time to complete.

Tennogen fills a lot of gaps as well to those who want thematic consistency, whenever a theme exists.

Speaking of themes, it's evident that those are getting more and more convoluted with the release of new frames. Thematic overlap is getting more frequent and because of that alone, appearance overalp also happens.

And let's not forget the overlap that occurs with the help of Helminth.

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  • 11 months later...

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