[WIP] Tales of the Jedi Edit

PirateofRohan · July 4, 2021

The references in KotOR are all well and good, but the actual armors tend to miss the mark when it comes to a lore-friendly appearance. To that point I attempt to do the following that I haven't seen attempted:

Ulic Qel-Droma's mesh suit gets a new color scheme. Cover art aside, Ulic sticks with blue/red and grey/brown for primary and secondary colors.

Exar Kun's Light Battle Suit also needs recolored. I'm leaning towards black and purple on this one, but I'll have to see how it looks in practice.

Cassus Fett's Battle Armor just takes what was the Mandalorian Heavy Armor texture. Honestly it's so close to his comics appearance I wonder if that was the original intention.

**Zhaboka** · July 4, 2021

I support this venture! These armors have lovely stats, but they're too ugly to wear as is.

PirateofRohan · July 4, 2021

Rough concept for Ulic Qel-Droma's and Exar Kun's armors.

I feel relatively good about Ulic's, though I might leave the red off from the sleeves and play with the brown on the male variant a bit. I'm also personally not a fan of the variation between the two variants, so rectifying that discrepancy might be on the table (having the "crest" on both sides of the chestplate seems like it might be too much--on the other hand the red color is a reference to Ulic's comics outfit that I don't want to ignore).

As for Exar Kun's armor, I might have to play around with it a bit more. While nice in theory, in practice the purple is a bit much. However, leaving those areas transparent as in the original texture might make the armor a bit one-note.

A note about Cassus Fett: his original armor texture isn't bad-looking if one gets rid of the purple color. It might be worth reincorporating it as the class 8 Mandalorian armor (What I assume is the actual class 8 texture pops up in TSL as "Echani" battle armor. Personally I'd at least tweak the colors to black/gold instead of clearly being Mando blue, but I'll respect their decision).

Input is welcome!

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**Malkior** · July 5, 2021

Which one is Ulic, and which is Exar Kun's?

I think this one

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would be a good look for Ulic's almost solely because those large grey shoulders look a lot like those oversized pauldrons that Ulic wore when he went darkside in the comics.

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This along with the red sleeves would look quite reminiscent of his look I think.

For Exar Kun, I think this

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would be decent with a lot less red and more greys with the same dark pauldrons. In every adaptation, he seems to have black, gold, and dark magenta.

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You'd just need to change the yellow to either black or perhaps add some green in (If the green doesn't look atrocious, of course).

As for Cassus Fett, I have no idea why they chose to color him blue when in every single other visual, he wears bright yellow/gold..

PirateofRohan · July 5, 2021

@Malkior Got it in one!

Here's the newest test after your suggestions.

Ulic (I'm on the fence about leaving the red "crest" on the chestpiece, as it does set the male and female variants apart more than I would like. The design is only there because it is present on the original texture file)

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Exar (the green doesn't look terrible actually, although getting the pouldrons right is giving me a bit of trouble. I'm considering touching up the "belt" portion to have it be a uniform yellow/gold)

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**Zhaboka** · July 8, 2021

Ooooh love that newer Exar. Beautiful.

PirateofRohan · July 11, 2021

Here's my latest effort:

Ulic Qel-Droma without the "crest" (As a compromise for this version I brightened up the red on the sleeves and back)

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Exar Kun with golden belt (Note: the female variant's belt buckle swoops downwards slightly, which is just the way the texture is designed. I have however managed to give the belt the same transparent/metallic shine as the male variant. No screengrabs of that just yet though.)

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**Malkior** · July 12, 2021

On 7/11/2021 at 6:36 PM, PirateofRohan said:

Here's my latest effort:

Ulic Qel-Droma without the "crest" (As a compromise for this version I brightened up the red on the sleeves and back)

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Hmm.. I think that the crest added some much needed color contrast to the suit. (The bright red looked good with the rest of the colors) However, I agree that the way it was added in Vanilla was completely wrong. Perhaps adding some bright reds into the arms, or adding some of the browns into the chest just to give some color variety so it looks less dark?

On 7/11/2021 at 6:36 PM, PirateofRohan said:

Exar Kun with golden belt (Note: the female variant's belt buckle swoops downwards slightly, which is just the way the texture is designed. I have however managed to give the belt the same transparent/metallic shine as the male variant. No screengrabs of that just yet though.)

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I know this might sound odd, but the bright yellow seemed to look better. especially when put alongside that green.

One way I think to solve issues you're having with the pauldrons would simply be to darken the arms (or at least the whitish stripe down the arms) so that the viewer's eye immediately goes to the pauldrons first.

That's just my opinion, of course. They are starting to look a lot better than Vanilla, which in my mind is always a plus.

PirateofRohan · July 12, 2021

@Malkior By all means, suggest away. Collaboration is the cornerstone of invention and whatnot.

That makes sense to me. Definitely going to go for a more intense/lighter red on the sleeves on Ulic's. I'm also going to play around with a larger/more symmetrical version of the crest atop the chest piece if I can do it without it looking terrible. The idea such as it is is to imitate his cloak from the comics while acknowledging that the Kotor armor texture is legitimately armor. Moving the sleeves fully from brown to red is feeling like a must as I think about it more.

For Exar's I do agree there needs to be a bit more contrast with the colors since the armor as a whole is a lot darker than the vanilla version. Light grey sleeve stripes and a lighter yellow-gold color on the belt seems like a good direction to go in. I'm trying to keep the original texture's sheen where I can, as it has quite a good look in motion; however you're probably correct that this can be achieved while still incorporating something a bit more eye-catching in the current color scheme.

Edit: And here's the first attempt:

Ulic

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