Madam Work-In-Progress

[MmM]

This is a Madam, an enemy character from the video game Final Fantasy VI. I started working on it Friday (2/9/07) evening and it stands about 6 1/2 inches tall right now. I still need to make the lower half of the dress, the fan, and the opium pipe.

Game sprite (for comparison). The smaller, inset photo shows the uncensored game sprite (the smoke coming out of the pipe was censored in the U.S. version of the game, gotta love the Nintendo morality police).



Mid-construction photos taken over the weekend:

[deathbringer]

Heh, cool. I remember doing an FF6 pisstake "script" once, and it featured a "Dahling" (basically the Madam with a yellow dress) character acting posh.

Hmm, i ought to make models for my Insanity Please wad, rather than ripping tanks from Wolfendoom and helicopters from Covert Ops. Gotta re-sprite the Shinra soldiers and Magitek armour too as they look very MS Paint. Then again my interpretation of what Shinra Soldiers looks like seems to be nothing like anybody else's...

[MmM]

Dahlings and Level 80 Magics have red dresses, if I remember correctly, Barb-E was the one with the yellow dress.

What do your Shinra soldier interpretations look like? If memory serves, they wore blue uniforms and gray helmets with three, glowing red eyes, yes?

[deathbringer]

Well it can he hard to tell what they look like in the game, due to them being bizarrely shaped polygons, but generally in pictures (well ok, 2 pictures i saw years ago) i've seen they have blue "nazi" helmets with the three triangles being a picture on the helmet. In my old interpretation of them they had a "Virtual reality" helmet, but built up at the back, and a yellow 'cloth' covering thier face underneath the visor, to make them seem anonymous and impersonal (FF7 didnt concentrate at all enough on how evil Shinra where, sure they where sucking the energy from the planet and did the odd experiement on people and where keeping the poor citizens of Midgar in slums underneath the main city, but you never really got a sense of them being this all-encompasing dictatorship ruling by fear. They where more like Microsoft crossed with Virgin). see various pics of them in my Insanity Please comic, like this one: http://www.fagshategod.co.uk/comics/insanity/comic/0257.html

In my new interpretation of them (which has drifted away from the actual game FF7 quite a bit. Insanity Please is a crossover of 6 and 7 with several elements removed, and it's gradually become my own story and the only resemblances to the games is the names of the characters, Materia, the world map, Shinra and the place names) their helmets are like motorbike helmets (especially the 'scrambler' kind as worn by the Stig on Top Gear), except the visor is replaced by the "VR" bit, and the three triangles are mini cameras which allow them to either see normally, or zoom, or switch to night vision, and have other HUD-like stuff such as an ammo count and 'see what your gun sees' vision. They also have light bulletproof armour plating built into thier uniform and a small arial on thier helmets to let them communicate. They're still morons who make stupid plans that never work and couldnt hit a barn door at 10 paces though... (they must have shot like 100 bullets at Barret who was not even 15 metres away and they only hit his hand??)

[Vader]

I've never played FF6, but the "monster" appears somewhat odd to me!
Why would you fight an opium smoking women?

Anyway, the model looks quite nice thus far, the only thing that botheres me, is that the face looks more like the one of an old woman rather than a sexy girls one!
Maybe you could try to smooth her cheeks if you can bother to do so ;)

[VileSlay]

sweet. nice ass she got there. the hair is great. can't wait to see her all finished up.

[MmM]

I finished her up yesterday morning.

Rotating animation:



Completed figure:




Accessory detail. I hand reproduced elements from two different Ukyo-e style illustrations for the fan's art (I took the woman from one piece and the tree/post from another)--it's not my design, although I did alter things a bit from the originals.



Webpage with more information:

http://kramwartap.fortunecity.com/madam.html

Deathbringer: There are some soldiers in FF8 that look a lot like the Shinra troops (can't remember if they work for Edea or what, but Biggs & Wedge are part of the group). There's some good, detailed shots of their heads/uniforms attacking in a cut scene, you might want to check that out (I can get some screen captures if you'd like). As to FF7 polygon models, someone on a FF MB I belong to was kind enough to give me a program that lets you view the game models on the PSX discs. Unfortunately, the models are in pieces on the disc, not assembled, so it's kind of like looking at Lego blocks. But you can get a very good look at the head models of all the characters/monsters. I can give you a copy of said program if you're interested, and have the Playstation discs to use it with, or get you some head screen captures.

The design in your comic isn't that strange--it's still recognizable as a Shinra trooper. Just so long as you have a helmet of some sort with the three eyes in a triangle formation, I think you're good. Your write-up on the visor's capabilites was interesting and made a lot of sense--I'd bet that's the kind of stuff they'd have built into it.

Vader: FF monsters are usually just that, monsters, but there's always an assortment of human enemies as well (ninja, samurai, and what have you). While a pipe smoking woman in a dress doesn't look very dangerous, I assure you the high-level spells she can whip out are nothing to sneeze at.

Yeah, she does look kind of old, someone on another MB I belong to said she looks like an "old whore". Part of the appearance is the texture of the paper/paint and part of it was that I was going for a more mature looking woman (an opium smoker ought to look haggard).

[VileSlay]

that came out nice. I like the fact that made the fan and the pipe interchangeable. the removeable smoke is cool to. she looks a little "used", if you know what I mean, which is cool considering what she's supposed to be. keep it up.

[Inferno]

Another project well done. I've never been a fan of the FF series but this is good work.

[Joe]

I'm surprised nobody has offered you hosting space, how are you still stuck on fortunecity?

[Lüt]

Generic response, but afaik he never asked :P

[deathbringer]

Hey, actually i wouldnt mind that model viewer program, my Insanity Please wad needs to have things like Shinra tanks and turrets and helicopters... rather than rip placeholders and never get round get to spriting them, i could swipe the models from FF7 and then sprite 'around' them to add detail and 'texture'. Will still have to do the Magitek armour on my own though... joy! Then again my interpretation of magitek armour is changed so much from FF6 its hardly recognisable (it has a diesel engine, twin rocket launchers on top, huge guns either side of the cockpit, machine guns on the front, and a chainsaw on one arm), especially compared to the one seen in the FMV's on the playstation version.

As to the woman's age, from the names of the various characters that use that sprite (well except Level 80 magic) i got the impression she was some glamourous (or trying to be) and up herself older woman, like an old film star from the 30's perhaps. Or Mrs Bucket from "Keeping Up Appearances"

[Vader]

Very good work... i wish I had the motivation and patience to pull out one sculpture after another like you do, great job!
Propably you're right that she has to look somewhat old, at least it really seems to fit with the overall look of the figure ;)

It also seems that the head is moveable, but I guess that just because of the different camera perspecives right?

Oh, very nice detail work on the fan too btw.

[MmM]

Deathbringer: I emailed you a Final Fantasy zip file with the goodies I described, enjoy. Have fun trying to re-assemble the models--like I said, they're in pieces like a LEGO set. You can recognize heads and bodies fairly easily on human(oids), but things get sticky when you're looking at pieces of more outlandish creature designs.

Joe: Actually, I only recently acquired a Fortunecity account (I've had it for several months, but my website's been around for years). My other webspace accounts are starting to run low of free space, which I why I acquired the Fortunecity one. A few people have offered to host me before, but I prefer to have as much control over my files as possible, as it's safer than depending on others in the long term.

Vader: Yes, the head is articulated (at the base of the skull where the neck enters the head). It can move in a complete circle and upwards and downwards.