#donovan baine

[mr-president]

“i wanna kill people for money and destroy cultures and history, jack!” - bb hood probably

well at least she’s honest

[ghostymegastuffs]

[mirroroftheworld]

[edwinhuang]

Donovan commission done a while back. Piece drawn with Copic Markers and Copic Multiliners

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

Copyright smuggling: Darkstalkers

Darkstalkers is an old fighting game by Capcom -- it's basically like if Street Fighter 2 was a monster mash, except also there's stuff like a demonic alien, and a blue-skinned devil who wants to merge everybody's souls together. They haven't done anything with the series in decades, though, apart from the odd remake, and/or letting Morrigan and possibly a few other characters appear in crossovers. This post will try to come up with ways you can use non-copyrighted versions of the same characters and concepts! Fortunately, this is relatively easy, because a lot of them were Capcom figuring out how to copyright public-domain characters to begin with.

Specific public domain characters:

Sasquatch: Bigfoot. They didn't even give him a copyrighted name. Doesn't look remotely look like it, though. Actually he's kind of more like a Canadian yeti?

B.B. Hood ("Bulleta" in Japan): straight-up just "Little Red Riding Hood ... With A Gun." Like I'm not kidding, her character design is a completely generic rendition of Little Red Riding Hood, aside from the name and the weapons. If anything, her appearance is less distinctive than some depictions you can find on the first page of a DuckDuckGo image search.

Victor von Gerdenheim: An expy of Frankenstein's Monster. They basically just took the Hollywood version, gave him bigger hair and changed his skin from green to blue, and gave him a little sister to care about.

Demitri Maximoff: An expy of Count Dracula, in some ways; Demitri just has some Darkstalkers-specific rivalries and spikier hair. Just don't make it too obvious by directly giving him an equivalent of Midnight Bliss (gender-bender magic being its own non-specific concept).

Non-specific public domain concepts:

Hsien-Ko ("Lei-Lei" in Japan): a Jiang-Shi, a hopping vampire of Chinese myth controlled by a paper charm on her forehead.

Anakaris: The undead mummy of an Egyption pharaoh. Mummies are of course a generic stock monster.

Lilith: The concept of a part of someone's soul, or their entire soul, becoming separated and attaining a life/mind of its own. Can be applied to any other character-concept. Capcom later used this in the Devil May Cry series. Sonic the Hedgehog did it twice.

Felicia: Somewhere on the scale between "catgirl" and "cat furry." Felicia's main distinction is the strategically-placed patterns of fur on her body.

Donovan Baine: a monster-hunting half-vampire. That's not even a particularly distinctive concept.

Q-Bee: Bees.

Non-public-domain inspirations which have public domain counterparts

Jon Talbain ("Gallon" in Japan): His English name is clearly derived from Sir John Talbot, the title character of The Wolf Man (1941), which is not in the public domain; however, the concept of a werewolf is.

Rikuo ("Aulbath" in Japan): An off-brand Creature from the Black Lagoon, which isn't in the public domain, but "humanoid fish-people" is doable. For example, there's the Deep Ones from HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, which is understood to be in the public domain, or the kappa of Japanese mythology.

Bishamon: A cursed samurai/animated samurai armor. Not too hard to make something generic out of that.

Multiple concepts/potentially too distinctive to reference directly:

Morrigan Aensland: A succubus, or more generally a she-devil. She could also be some manner of vampire maybe? She can also transform her wings into jetpacks and whatnot (which is the only reason she's listed here instead of under "non-specific public domain").

Pyron: A demonic alien with fire-powers. That's it, that's the concept.

Huitzil ("Phobos" in Japan): an army of alien robots, with a design inspired by doguu figurines from ancient Japan.

Lord Raptor ("Zabel Zarock" in Japan): the more personable kind of zombie + rock and roll.

Jedah Dohma: hm. There's nothing particularly public-domain-shaped until you go as far back as "demon" or "the devil". Oh well.

[pollo-finster]

MONSTER!!

[surinnit]

darkstalkers fans where u at

[therosiestofrubys]

Donovan can now confirm into any of his supers from Blizzard Sword (Also fixed bug involving opponents, while, still frozen from Hyper Blizzard Sword, floating into the air while still being considered grounded after being hit by Hyper Lightning Fall).

[dasturdlydangerousduck]

DuckStalkers Day 17: Drake Mallard & Gosalyn (Donnovan & Anita)

Race: Dhampir (Half Human/Half Vampire)

Nationality: Unknown

Notable Moves: Ifrit Sword, Blizzard Sword, Lighting Sword, Press of Death, Change Immortal

Ahh, the hunter! This duck, despite being half vampire himself, seeks to destroy his own kind for the good of humanity, perhaps he simply seeks redemption for the murder of his village and his own mother, perhaps he's mad with guilt, but regardless, with his unearthly sword and his mysterious companion, he's dangerous.

[spaceshiporion]

DARKSTALKERS TRADING CARDS!

I finished the Hsien-Ko card today!!

My Ko-fi, for one time donations

[heehoo-snek]

[mr-president]

i don’t usually like to post WIPS, but i love darkstalkers and i love sf6 so here are my costume ideas, as well as some potential others under the cut

i mostly drew costume ideas for characters parallels i hadn’t seen with the new color variants or for ones i disagreed with (like manon). i’ll still touch on the ones i do like here

originally, i had luke as jon talbain because he needed a counterpart and white men love wolves but jon talbain just fits terry waaaay better (kung fu werewolf vs vaguely chinese martial art wolf associated guy)

luke could be fucking sasquatch idk, maybe he’d just be demitri, but ed was already demitri in sfv. consequently, ed’s build is different now, so maybe he’s okay handing the costume to luke now. otherwise, luke is sasquatch idfk

chun li as morrigan and juri as lilith is fine there’s nothing wrong w that so yeah

aki as hsein-ko is perfect no notes 10/10

marisa for victor is also great

i like JP as jedah good job

lord raptor as dee jay may be cool

i much prefer cammy as q-bee (cammy’s old codename was literally “killer bee”) but i understand why manon gets the alternate color, since she already has a q-bee-like outfit

[ghostymegastuffs]

my part for the darkstalkers zine ! pls check it out c:

[harueri]

I love him. I always have and I always will.

[nomorepixels]

Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors

© Capcom 1994

Image sourced from vgmuseum.com

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

Also I suddenly imagined if the Darkstalkers series had continued into the modern era, and followed the trend of fighting games with ridiculously intricate storylines. By now there'd be like 50 or more characters across the whole series -- at least fifty goddamn classic horror monsters which Capcom managed to create their own copyrighted versions of. This whole overwrought political struggle between Morrigan, Demitri, Jedah, and probably Ozom. Oboro Bishamon eventually completely takes the place of the original. Donovan has a subplot of with Anita growing up and she becomes her own playable character, but also Dee exists as an AU thing maybe? Lilith doesn't exist in the plot of Vampire Savior Xrd, but due to fan outcry, she gets added as a DLC character and the story then contrives a reason for her to exist separately from Morrigan in the next game. The latest DLC for Darkstalkers Strive has "Queen Morrigan", who has Lilith as a Stand sort of thing, and Lilith takes the place of Morrigan's copy in Queen Morrigan's version of Darkness Illusion