Custom Blanka Fight Stick

     I want to start this post by briefly stating that I'm not sure exactly what my goal for this blog is yet. For the time being I want to keep my personal and freelance projects separate, but in the future I see it being a combination of all my work. So far I've only posted "final versions" of projects, but for the next few post's I'm going to show my process. I spent this past week working on freelance, but now that I have some free time it's back to my own projects.  

     My brother's favorite Street Fighter character is Blanka, and he wants to customize his arcade fight stick for his Xbox. This seemed like a good opportunity for a fun project so I'm creating some custom artwork for his controller. I'm not sure if he'll end up using my art, but it gives me a fun project to work on. Plus it will be good practice for when I customize MY controller in the future.

 

 

     This is a cleaned up sketch I drew of Blanka.  It's actually a combination of different sketches pieced together. I'm out of practice so getting the pose, proportions, and line-work was difficult. I referenced some other Street Fighter art (in particular Zangief for some reason) to help me get things looking correct.

     I added some color to my sketch to help me figure out my composition moving forward. This is NOT the final version of Blanka. It's simply my starting point. 

 

     This is the basic template for the fight stick. It's a Mad Catz Tournament Edition layout that was originally released with Street Fighter IV. I found a graphic of Blanka's original stage from Street Fighter II, and used it for the background of this custom art with a monochromatic green effect. I also downloaded a fan-made Street Fighter IV font to label the buttons. The main texture behind Blanka's stage looks like a marble at first glance, but it's actually leaves.

 

     This is currently where I'm at in the process. I added my Blanka to the layout to see how things were looking. I also added some controller elements that I photographed. I changed the color of the buttons in Photoshop to match what the final colors will be. My next step is to focus on Blanka, and color him "for real". Then I need to figure out what other elements I want to add to the composition. Right now it's still needs something else.