You know the drill by now! It's the 11th, and that means more Antitrix transformations!
This time I'm tackling Crystalfist, whom I've renamed to Mineroul(Mineral+Ghoul) for reasons you'll soon find out!
Crystalfist was an alien that was tough to figure out an interesting rework concept for, but it is when I decided to focus in on a specific detail did I figure out something I really liked! I noticed that Crystalfist has those strange ribcage-like crystals on his torso, after that everything clicked for me: I had to go in the undead direction!
With that said, Mineroul is a fusion of Petrosapien and Necrofriggian DNA. He may still be made of crystals, though not diamonds, but ice instead! This makes him more fragile than Diamondhead, though, his ice body is still pretty tough, but it does give him the ability to manipulate his ice body in a way Diamondhead can't! Mineroul is able to briefly turn his body into vapor, allowing him to pass through objects or dodge attacks thrown at him. Unlike Big Chill, though, he does not get fully intangible, meaning that he can't just straight up go through walls. He is also extremely vulnerable to heat in his vapor form. His solid form is weakened under heat, too, making him and his constructs a bit more vulnerable to physical impacts, but as vapor he can straight up get condensed into water, making Kevin instantly detransform. Naturally, Mineroul keeps Diamondhead's crystal generation ability, but he also gets ice breath to add to it!
Crystalfist is probably the Antitrix alien I've been the most torn on in terms of what I wanted my version of him to be! I've come up with several ideas that could act as fun and unique reinterpretations of him, but ultimately Mineroul was both a creative take on Crystalfist and followed the design conventions I set for the aliens in this Antitrix au best, too!
We're halfway through the main 11, but there's still many fun reinterpretations you have yet to see from me! Stay tuned for what's coming next!
I'm a little late, but here's the next Antitrix alien I redesigned! This week, my choice fell on Bootleg, who I decided to rename to Hijack, as the original name didn't quite fit the alien anyway. This won't be the only Antitrix transformation I rename, as there will be a few, where their names don't suit my concepts at all!
I chose to fuse Upgrade with Frankenstrike. I mainly did this because his coils and metallic parts could help recreate Bootleg's armor really well, but also, his electrical abilities complement Upgrade's natural ones already!
Unlike Upgrade, due to Hijack's more rigid body plan and metallic parts, he can't just become a blob and merge with technology. That isn't much of a drawback, however, as he can instead separate chunks of his body to merge with different pieces of tech at once! Since the chunks ars smaller than Upgrade's whole body, they can only merge with smaller tech unless several of them fuse together. Hijack can also, fittingly for the other alien he's made up of, frankenstein the technology he took over with his body, creating some real monsters of engineering! He's also capable of emitting a special type of electromagnetic wave from the coils on his back, allowing him to take control of any technology that it was hit by, hence his new name - Hijack. Electricity courses through Hijack's body, meaning that, if you touch him, you can get a shock. He can also shoot blasts of electricity from his coils, but only through them, replacing Upgrade's eye beam. While his body is still elastic, it is nowhere near the flexibility that Upgrade has, meaning that he can't shape-shift or even create weapons from his body, for that matter! Hijack's inability to merge with technology fully also restricts him from many things Upgrade can do, such as entering the digital realm.
It's time once again for more mixes! This week's theme is mixes with long arms!
Nothing much to say about this one. But I must note that the Frosticons and the Mixies colors go really well together! The blues, yellow, and purple make for a really nice color combo!
Last mix for today is a remake of one that's more recent than the previous two, a Gox and Glomp Mix from 2021!
This one's a big improvement, too! Having been built from lego first really grounded the design, making the eventual cartoon version look that much more believable as something that could've appeared in a mixels special! And there's also a murp to accompany it now, which is pretty cool!
The second very old mix I remade was this Skrubz and Slusho mix! I spoke a bit more about this old mix in the previous post, so check it out, if you'd like a bot more context! You can see the mix I remade here on the last slide!
Now this, I feel, is the bigger glow-up of the two! I'm quite proud of how both the lego and cartoon versions came out here!
This is also one of those mixes I've built that have a feature that doesn't translate too well into the 2D mixels art. It makes the lego builds stand out that much more, in my opinion, though!
Sorry that there haven't been weekly mixes for the last two weeks! It's a bit hard for me to stick to long-term commitments like that consistently... But, I should be back on track now!
This week's mixes theme is that they're all remakes of mixes I've made before!
This mix and the next one are overhauls of mixes I've made wayyyyy long ago, even prior to creating this account.(Take a look at the mix for yourself by scrolling a few slides!) They're about 6 or 7 years old now and were some of the first original mixes I've built that I can remember, at least! Obviously, they're quite bad by my current standards, which is why I remade them! They were both too much and not enough at the same time! Now, the reason why I'm not showing you the actual builds is because the pictures I took back then were atrocious and I don't want to waste my time rebuilding subpar builds, so you're just getting the cartoon versions I sketched up!
The first of the two I'll be showing is the Meltus and Kuffs mix. Both the new and the old one, honestly, don't have much to it. The new one is quite simple, but I think this restraint is what makes it better in my book!
Wooo, Splatoon news just dropping out of the blue again! I'm not even surprised anymore! But they're very exciting news! We finally know the release date of Splatoon Raiders, which is July 23rd, which is sooner than I expected and just slightly over a year since we even found out about the game!
Obviously, the release date wasn't the only thing they showed in the trailer, and they've shown A LOT! And they barely told us anything about the game on social media, though they probably will in the coming months! But I wanna get a bit ahead of the curb here and infer a bit of what the game will be like based on what we were shown! So press 'Keep Reading' to see my full analysis! Though brace yourselves! It's quite lengthy!
First major thing we see immediately reminds me of why I love Splatoon so much! These new hairstyles are incredible! The buns that are stuck inside bottles, the dreads that have cables tied around them, the trash decora style, the big bun topped with a coat hanger and rubber ducky - they're all so AMAZING! And that's only half of them! It never ceases to amaze me how Splatoon can keep showing something fun and fresh in terms of style and design in each of it's new outings! The eyebrow options are pretty banger, too! The double slit brows, the spiky ones, and the unibrow - all very fun options!
It does seem like hair will be our main way of expressing style in this game, as the character customization seems pretty limited, based on what I could see so far. It's clear to me that we can customize what top, bottom, and footwear we can wear, however I could only spot three clothing options for each.
The more naturalistic environments of Raiders look great! I especially love the cave one with giant anemones and coral growing on land as if they were plants!
In fact, it is the environment that can tip you off to who the main enemies of the game are going to be before you even see them! The giant utensils, salt shaker-shaped sculptures, and skewers with food on it are all distinctive signs of a salmonid civilization!
Most of the salmonids we see in the trailer are ones we know already, but all of them have new designs, and they look great! They look more like what you think of when you hear salmon now! This clearly shows that they're a different subspecies of salmonids that have evolved in slightly different conditions than the ones we're familiar with!
I love the new salmonid designs, too, especially the vulture-looking one! In a world, where a solid chunk of animal species had gone extinct, it would only make sense that some of the marine species that made it onto land would take up the niches left by the extinct animals! I do hope that these two we saw in this trailer and the bosses aren't the only new salmonids we see in Raiders, though!
The fact that they decided to make Salmonids the main enemies of the game does make me raise an eyebrow, though. Like, this kinda makes this whole game turn into Deep Cut partaking in colonialism, which is a bit yikes. In case you didn't know, Salmonids are sentient, they are people, too! Their culture may be different from that of inklings and octolings, but it doesn't mean that they aren't equally as sentient. Sometimes, it feels like the fans understand this better than the devs, honestly! Raiders could be the last straw that breaks any semblance of grace with which they ever attempted depicting these indigenous people!...
However... they could be pulling the same excuse they've been justifying murder but of octarian troops in the past two single-player campaigns that involved them. That being the fact that they're controlled by some kind of strange substance, and are no longer themselves, thus, perhaps, meaning that they're too far gone to save. Every salmonid we see in this trailer have salt crusted onto their fins, and in later parts we see some salmonids that also have it on their hair, implying a sort of negative progression of an "infection" of sorts. Salt crystals are prevalent throughout all the environments we see on Spirhalite islands so far, after all, so it having some significance to the salmonid's aggression, and the overall story is very likely. This theory was actually proposed by @/rassicas in their reaction video on the trailer. It seemed very plausible to me, so I wanted to mention it! But, regardless, if this theory is true, they really gotta stop using the same excuse for it being okay to kill your enemies.
There's no excuse for Deep Cut and the mechanic to steal valuable cultural artifacts from the salmonids, though... yet. It's still not a good look, though!
Now, let's talk gameplay. Let's start with the 'bot', as that seems to be the only name for the mech thing the mechanic tags along with that I could find. Within the game's story, it seems that we find the bot on one of the islands and refurbish it a bit, and then put to use for our goals. It looks like it's going to be our main tool in Raiders, besides our weapon, and it has a lot of things it can do from what we can see already.
The bot's obvious basic ability is to target foes and shoot at them. It seems to not target the same foes you're shooting at, unless you're shooting at a foe it already targeted, or there are no more foes to target. It also has hp, with 100 seemingly being it's baseline lvl 1 hp, that increases as it levels up. What happens when the bot's hp is depleted is right now unknown, however it seems that large enough damage will knock it back fairly significantly. What the level up feature does to the bot besides increasing it's hp is also unclear.
The bot's first notable feature is that it can act as a spring board, launching you in the air, as a form of a double jump.
It also can scan for treasures in a level, though it seems that it needs to be stationary to do so. Additionally, it is capable of drilling into spirhalite(the mineral) to harvest it, as well. Spirhalite shards seem to be our main collectible resource in Raiders, and can be used to craft gadgets.
The feature that everyone probably noticed first is that a member of Deep Cut can tag along with us inside the bot. We can change who to bring with us via the 'Bot Buddy' option in the equip menu. Each member of Deep Cut has a unique special weapon-like ability they can perform after collecting a certain amount of power eggs. Big Man's ability allows you to ride on him and perform spin attacks to tear through salmonids. Shiver's ability is to mow down foes ahead of her in a straight line with Master Mega. We don't see Frye inside the bot at all in this trailer, for some reason, but she, presumably, has an ability that utilizes her eels in some way.
So the map has me a bit confused on what Raiders' gameplay structure is going to be like. With how many resources you seem to need to create new gadgets, it seems like you'll need to go on multiple scavenger hunts just to get enough. However, the map only shows a small handful of locations, marked with treasure chests. Considering that Raiders can also be played in co-op with up to three players, my best guess is that you'll mostly play through randomized missions, similar to Side Order's floors, which you'll be able to access through the 'Dungeon Menu' on the map screen. The missions marked with treasure chests are curated experiences with a set difficulty, which you'll have to clear to get relics and unlock relic abilities.
Now let's talk about our equipment, starting with gadgets. To craft them you'll need spirhalite shards, as well as certain items that you can get by defeating specific salmonids. They act almost like sub weapons, providing additional assistance in combat. Only two can be equipped at a time, and they can be upgraded and customized to possess certain attributes. We see three gadgets in action in this trailer. The only named one, the Splatchet seems to either give you a dash slash ability, or can be thrown, based on how you modify it, but there could be more ways to modify it than that, of course. The gadget that looks like a flip phone can create a ring of spinning ink orbs around you that damage foes. And finally, the last one we see is a deployable turret that homes in on enemies.
Besides gadgets, you can also equip different relic powers. We directly see that the 'Two-Fisted Salmonid' relic gives the 'Midair Jump' ability, for example. We seem to be able to get these relics from the treasure chest marked missions on the world map.
Continuing with the topic of equippables, I simply can't skip the main weapons! It seems that over the course of the game we'll be able to find each of the weapons classes we're familiar with, all sporting a 'put together from scrap look'! In this trailer we get to see a Splattershot Jr., a Splattershot, a Brush, a Splatling, a Slosher, a Roller, and a Stringer. They can be leveled up, too, and, considering we see a slightly different Splattershot in this trailer, than the one we've seen before, it's likely we'll be able to modify them in some way, just like gadgets.
It's also important to mention that we can equip different kinds of ink tanks. The trailer didn't show what that does, but you can see several of the tanks you can equip throughout it!
It has been brought up by many that Splatoon Raiders costs 50$, which is definitely cheaper than a modern Nintendo game, especially a Switch 2 game. This could mean that Raiders might be on the smaller side. This makes some sense to me, as, based on this trailer, I speculate that Raiders might have been originally planned as a Splatoon 3 DLC, but was decided to be fleshed out, polished, and released as a standalone product. The fact that the game focuses on Deep Cut, involves Salmonids, takes place in a very natural environment, and has many gameplay parallels to Side Order, almost makes it seem like it was intended to be a chaos-focused counterpart DLC to Side Order.
Whew! Alright, that was a lot, but I think I said everything I wanted to say! Big thanks to everyone who read till the end!
The next mix is one that strives to fill in another slot among the missing series 7 mixes: it's a Tiketz and Paladum mix!
This mix is meant to be like a chariot, and the horse it combined! I imagine this mix has a bit of a clown car quality to him: being able to hold more mixels inside him than it might look at first glance based on his size.
I had to take some creative liberties with the cartoon version of this mix to simplify it and make it look like an actual chariot, and I like what I did! This mix reminds me of that Jinky and Kamzo mix from the cartoons, except it looks a lot more like it actually has both of its components in it!
This week, I'm showing off all the mixes that involve the Medivals. We're starting off with Cammilot and Boogly.
This is probably one of the most official-looking mixes I've made, both lego and cartoon! It reminds me of the official lego Nurp-Naut and Boogly murp, which I love! I really like how this one turned out!
It's the 11th! You know what that means? It's time for another Antitrix transformation! This month, it's Dark Matter's turn.
Dark Matter is red, lanky, and produces an odd substance from his body. There's an alien that fits this description perfectly in the classic series: Astrodactyl! As such, this is who I decided to fuse Grey Matter with!
Dark Matter was already among my favourite Antitrix transformations, so I didn't change him much ability-wise!
Dark Matter is able to secrete cerebrospinal fluid from bone-like protrusions on his forearms and back. Upon contact with air, it begins to crystallize, and by shaping it, while it hardens, Kevin can create all kinds of crystal weapons and tools. It can also he ejected as fireballs, which Kevin mostly does by launching them cannon-style from his back, or launch them from his forearms to give himself a vertical boost.
Naturally, Dark Matter still has Grey Matter's heightened intelligence and wall scaling abilities. However, since he's a lot larger than Grey Matter, he can't utilize these abilities in the same way. He can't do precision work on technology as naturally as Grey Matter, instead Kevin mostly utilizes his knowledge to create elaborate traps, especially since Datk Matter can create some components himself. He's definitely faster, stronger, and more agile than Grey Matter, but due to his size, it is not as good at hiding.
This time, I also want to note the Antitrix badge placement. Since Kevin has a limited selection of aliens, I'm trying to give every single one of them a unique badge placement. Dark Matter's is on his right shoulder, just like Astrodactyl's.
Enjoy! This one is probably the most faithful redesign you'll see from me within this series. The rest should bring at least something new to the table!
It's time to properly start the second batch of my mixes!
Partway through building all of my batch 1 mixes, I managed to rebuild Berp and Forx and decided to commemorate that by mixing them together! I tend to avoid combos that have been officially showcased in mixels media, but I kinda had no choice here. Besides, the official combo is a murp and also a lot simpler than this one!
The idea behind this mix was to make it a living blender, something similar to a cement mixer, that being Forx, but more food-related to reference Berp.
I didn't have the time to finish my typical daily mixes this week, but I did still draw some mixes nonetheless!
Cross-series mixes were a fun thing the Mixels show did several times, so I thought I'd make some with my own original mixels!
The Flain and Panch Mix swaps its two components' notable traits, giving it flaming fists and a head of fuzzy hair.
The Jawg and Palmo mix combines a tree eater with the tree itself to make quite a tall chomper!
Lastly, the Magnifo and Skrei mix combines both mixels' traits to become a magician that conceals himself in clouds of colorful paint!
I tried out a different simpler style for these to try and get them done faster, and it was successful! Let me know what you think!
There's only one thing to do with my fan-made mixels, and that is to combine them with my other fan-made mixels! Stay tuned for when I eventually do that!
