| KUROS
PROJECT #491 "After a long and furious battle, the valiant Kuros believed that he had destroyed the evil Malkil, but the enchanter's inhman spirit had survived..." Preamble: Wizards & Warriors is a supremely awesome video game. It was one of my first two games for the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, and it, along with Super Mario Bros., remains one of the formative gaming experiences of my youth. Its infinite continue option and fairly leisurely game play was a welcome respite from the horribly unforgiving deaths of Mario—which is not to say the game didn't have its challenges. I instinctively seized up my abdominal muscles every time Kuros made a mighty leap through the innards of a gigantic tree to the point where my abdominal muscles were actually sore after a particularly rigorous gameplay session. I mashed the jump button on my controller to the point where I had actual blisters on my thumbs. What an amazing game. I don't even care that the game sprite for Kuros was one solid color or that his helmet was shaped like an acorn or that they inexplicably picked Fabio to pose for the cover of the sequel game, IronSword. It's still a stupendous medieval adventure, and it will be forever intrinsically tied to my memories of Christmas 1989, enjoying new toys like Micromaster Skyhopper and Baxter Stockman and eating way too many Reese's Cups. Construction: So, I bought this Prince Charming toy from Shrek on clearance at Wal-Mart for three bucks several years ago, knowing that a knight action figure would make a good base figure for a project some day. After I got it in my head to build a toy of Kuros, no other project ideas even warranted consideration. Even the staggered stance in which this toy was sculpted really works well for the character, given the way he crab-walks when he crouches. I did make some structural changes to the toy's design—I wanted him to be able to hold his shield close to his body, so I cut off his left arm and adjusted its orientation, also augmenting the elbow joint so that it would bend more. The shield is an item that you find early in the game (Kuros starts the game unequipped with it, but in a novelty for the time period, his game sprite actually changes to reflect its acquisition), and I wanted to include it as part of this project, so I used the shield off an Ice Lord action figure from the Mystic Knights of Tir na Nog "Jousting Knights" playset, modifying the shield to accommodate the distinctive cross insignia. I also added some new shoulder armor to make him look a bit more heroic. The biggest change I made, though, was to sculpt a new helmet for him. The helmet itself is made from Sculpey, while the mask was a piece of plastic that I cut to the right size, carefully scoring the slots in the mask. The design for the suit of armor Kuros wears is understandably vague (due in part to the primitive graphics of the day, combined with the packaging artwork that really doesn't agree with his appearance in the game itself), but what really makes Kuros distinct and memorable, in my mind, is that crazy, cone-shaped helmet with the little slotted Sir Bedevere mask. It's such an iconic look that I was actually disappointed by his initial appearance in IronSword when he shows up wearing no helmet at all (but his mussed-up hair and googly eyes were, strangely enough, metal-colored like the rest of his armor). Kuros laters goes on to acquire more effective swords and shields and much cooler-looking helmets, including a favorite of mine with Viking horns that made him look a little like Pretender Starscream. However, I wanted to do a project that was true to his appearance from the original game. In painting Kuros, I thought perhaps that a nice enamel silver would do him justice (lookiing like the proverbial knight in shining armor), but what I quickly found was that it didn't really capture his look from the video game, so instead I went with a basic grey, which seemed more true to the game somehow. I had the idea to paint the segments between his armor black, which nicely mirrors the game sprite's use of black to show the separations between his armor panels. Comments: Just for fun, I also put together digitally painted versions of Kuros as he appears when using alternate color templates—specifically, after imbibing a blue potion (which temporaily increases his running speed), a purple potion (which actually looks pink to me, but in any event, it enables him to jump higher for a short time), and a red potion (which grants Kuros invincibility for a limited duration). |
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This Page Created 2/28/2012
Last Update: 3/29/2012
©2012 Inspiration Studios
Wizards & Warriors and all related characters and elements
are the property of Rare, Ltd.
Thou Hast Rescued Thy Princess.
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