This is a commission I did for my friend's Hori Rap N fightstick featuring his main at the moment in Guilty Gear Strive; Johnny. Included is all of the process pictures before the final iteration show above. Unfortunately I didn't save individual pictures of each updated version so I only have screenshots that I live took when updating my friend so the last picture was formatted with the buttons whitened out. Still I think that the art is showcased well enough.
The only thing my friend had wanted specifically on it was for the colors to be green, white, and black which is the colors he uses ingame as well as the Joker card that Johnny slices through during his super move.
Johnny being a Pirate, Samurai, and a Cowboy, there were a lot of ways I could have approached the art. But given that the color scheme required was very bright and that a playing card was to be integrated, I thought it would be interesting to focus in on his "gambler" personality that we see a lot in his gameplay and voice lines. With the bright neon green lending itself to the bright neon lights of casinos.
The general idea going in with the casino aesthetic in mind was to be as flashy an stylish as Johnny himself. The image of Johnny himself is from a gallery from one of the older Guilty Gear games. I tried several different ideas of how to incorporate this casino aesthetic in mind; from playing cards being laid out or spread in hand, there was also the idea of incorporating slots in which came out with the lucky number 777.
By the end I had settled on focusing just on the playing cards since those are actually present in his gameplay. With the card spread directing attention to Johnny's upper body and face area which I really like. The joker cards was incorporated into the laid out pile of playing cards, which I ended up coloring the same as the background since the white from the card spread and the black on Johnny was enough contrast. I smoothed it out by making it transition into the background as well so it wasn't a jarring visual. Finally I ripped the Mist Finer move asset from Guilty Gear Revelator and incorporated it slashing the Joker card to imitate his super in game. I thought of this when trying to find ways to spread out the joker card over the left side of the stick better because I couldn't seem to find the right place to put it where it didn't look awkwardly covered by the actual stick of the controller. Ultimately though I think it really elevated the look of it and made it feel a lot more like Johnny than it did before it so I'm very happy with how it turned out.
