jazzpostsstuff

[jazzpostsstuff]

Development Document, The meaning behind Axl's design and his role in the story

Hello, everyone! Like promised, here's another development document, this time on the meaning behind Axl's MMZ design and (less so) his own role in this larger story he wasn't meant to be a part of.

Unfortunately I don't have any new artworks to share this time so I apologise for the lack of any images in this post.

As you saw in the previous post, Axl's appearance went through a lot of changes over the years. The main goal with the design, however, always was to have Axl appear a bit old-fashioned and youthful.

In Chapter: AXL, the story of what happened to Axl between the ending of X8 and the start of Chapter 1 is purposefully left ambiguous as even the old data archives struggle to bring out much regarding the existence of Lord X's other loyal companion. Yet, despite the many decades that he had spent in stasis, Axl hasn't aged a day, he still is the same kid he was in 22nd century. That's why the new reality he woke up to was so weird to him, that's why he got lost in it so easily (and also why some characters continue finding new ways to call him old).

The old-fashioned part of the design got reduced as the time went on but I believe it still does a good job at conveying that. Axl's body has changed less than X's or Zero's, because it wasn't getting upgraded during the stasis. His chestplate in particular still has the same design as in MMX, it was only reduced in size and had its edges smoothened, and the same can be said about the shoulderpads, side-boot jets and backpack wings. The helmet also looks very similar to the one Axl used to have.

The youthful part of the design can primarily be seen in the clothes Axl wears. Unlike the reserved and serious Zero who has a closed repliroid jacket, Axl has an open jacket with a high collar (which he can't close anyway because the chest gem gets in the way), and unlike Zero, Axl also wears something over the codpiece, that being shorts on suspenders. The suspenders also have a another practical use aside from keeping the shorts on, as he keeps the folded Red Scythe behind his back with them. It's all a bit of a mess, but it still conveys that Axl is a kid with an attitude. He does mature over the course of the story, but he would still have the same heart of gold that he had as a kid back in his age, which perhaps is another way to explain why he keeps wearing these shorts even in Z4 chapter, hehe.

Hmmm, what else... Ah! I can tell you the reason why I removed the burn from the right side of Axl's face, as well as the scar on his left cheek. It was because no one ever mentioned a thing about those scars in the original chapter 1 and chapter 2, not even Axl himself who wouldn't remember how he got them in the first place. While cute references to other two characters linked to Axl (Red and Grey), they didn't do anything but hint at the guy apparently going through absolute hell prior to him being put into stasis, which also aged up his appearance even more and ultimately became unnessesary noise on his face when I got back to working on ChAZ. And so, I removed them, Axl has a clean face again (almost)!

I think that's all for today! It's not much but I think I did OK at conveying my thoughts here. Not sure what will I talk about next, but feel free to send me asks about the project, I have re-opened those! I would be happy to answer your questions :D

See ya in the next post! o/

[jazzpostsstuff]

Development Document: Axl's everchanging design

While the development of the project progresses slowly, I decided that it would be a good idea to continue posting development documents here. I'll probably make more once I have enough art, but for now let's discuss Axl a bit.

I already had a similar post here two years ago, but some stuff had changed since then. So let me have a quick re-cap:

I had made two designs before the project was born. The first one was made in early March 2020, long before I actually got into MMZ properly. He was written as a hermit who lived in Area Zero in a shack he made from scraps of metal. He also had a dog that a Caravan member left in the forest to die... yeah, I really didn't know what I was working with, reading the first few paragraphs from a fan wiki is not enough.

This is probably the most different iteration of MMZ Axl that I have, even from the design perspective. He is even supposed to have one of the strands of his hair dyed red (to look more... modern?). The only design element to carry from on from this design were shorts on suspenders, attached to the bolts because that's how I read Axl's MMX design.

The dog does look cute, maybe we can repurpose it somehow?

Then I made Halloween Axl art a few months later, where he was wearing a grim reaper costume reminiscent of Red. I had a reference art made for the design as well but I had since lost it unfortunately, but largely it was me trying to manifest X DiVE Halloween alt design for Axl (didn't work but I got some praise from my mom for the artwork o3o)

Then in August of 2021, I decided to make a sequel drawing for this one, with Axl with the MMZ design in Grim Reaper costume instead. By that point, I started to get interested in MMZ and chose to scrap the original idea I had for MMZ Axl in 2020. The design below was done by August 24th.

I did notice by that time that MMZ Zero had the same helmet silhouette as MMX Zero despite how different they actually were. However, I had no idea how to do the same with Axl's helmet so it became a bit of a mess and the addition of two new scars also didn't help it in the slightest as I look back at it. Another major difference there are the backpack wings; they're very different but they look more like they were made with the purpose of proper flight rather than hovering above ground. I ended up reverting this change later on.

Then I started working on the Halloween art. I have been drawing it for the entirety of October actually but it really became my magnum opus at the time. I made the outline for it in 10 minutes between classes which you can also see below.

In the middle of the drawing process, I thought to myself: "Damn, the idea actually sounds quite good, what if I develop it further?". And thus ROCKMAN ZERO, Chapter: AXL was born. The design shifted around a bit between 2021 to 2023, but mostly remained the same (you can see all of those iterations below, in the order of their completion).

Most of these changest were done for simplification reasons, either in the coloring department, or in the amount of details Axl's body had rendered. At some point we (me and my team) decided to ditch the reaper cloak altogether, too... it's not like he wore it more than once in the entire story anyway.

Then I left the project hanging for two years and now that I am back working on it, I have redisigned Axl again. Changed the shape of the helmet once more and removed other elements that I thought were too much. Then I redesigned him again to change the appearance of the forehead/chest crystals and the eye (and by extension the scythe light) from green to blue to reduce the color pallete again.

I am yet to actually make a character sheet for the final design but it should be the same as pictured above.

I wanted to also write about every design decision I have made for the final design (I have put too much thought into it), but I guess I will do that tomorrow. Writing this thing for the whole 3 hours made my head hurt ^^;

See ya in the next post! o/

[jazzpostsstuff]

Status Update (August 10, 2025)

Hello!

The last proper release of anything related to the project was almost two years ago, ouch! The reasons for those are simple:

I started university in September 2023, I am studying languages, cultures and international relationships and it's been taking a lot of time off my schedules;

Some mental health problems I had to continue dealing with since December 2021. Still working on my anxiety, but my depression had been null and void for three months now;

On September 2nd 2023 I started playing Final Fantasy XIV for the first time. I had spent an embarrassing amount of time in the game since then and moved away from Rockman in general for most of those two years. You may know of that from my side blog!

Why am I coming back only now? It's simple, really, I just felt like doing Chapter: AXL again. Especially after experiencing FFXIV and some other games prior to replaying MMZ again, and seeing what can be done to make the story and the world-building of Megaman Zero even greater. However, it all resulted in the scope of the what-if project getting... bigger than ever before, oops.

So now, instead of being a "What if Inti Creates made an Axl trilogy set in alternative timeline of MMZ series back in the DS days", it now is something much simpler: "What if modern Inti Creates remade MMZ series and added the Axl campaign to every game except Z1?". It's still something that wouldn't really happen in the way I imagine it (especially with the art style I decided to go with), and I'm trying to not insert far too much into the project, but I hope it would still be fun to read about and imagine how it would look like in your head :D

And so, in accordance with everything I have listed above, I have to announce that we have started rewriting Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 because my friends and I think we can make our writing even better after... experiencing 3000 hours of peak writing of FFXIV in two years, yeah yeah. Still not the only thing we have been playing or watching all this time, mind, but XIV just thwarts everything else at this point lol

I have to add that we didn't remove anything from the core of the story and all stages and major story bits will still be the same. We're just rewriting the dialogue and interactions in the scene that already existed as well as adding more context to make some moments hit harder later on.

Thus far, we have rewritten 75% of story content for Chapter 1. We also did 10% of work on Boss Patterns (that really needed to be reworked in chapter 1 especially) and 30% on the new Bonus Document which would list the changes done to Zero's campaign in Z1 and Z2 remakes (Z1 doesn't have a lot at all since Axl wasn't even awake during this game's events). Writing progress is currently slow because I am desperately trying to figure out how to do art again, I had a very rough art block since mid-July and decided to change artstyles for the project twice. First was in an attempt to get closer to Toru Nakayama's style during Z2 and Z3 (I have made Axl, Peatan (Ch1) and Euclid in that style), and then two nights ago I had an eurika moment and made something new, combining the early Z1 art style with Z2 and Z3 style, plus rough-er marker-like shading. It's very hard to explain without showing it, but it has to be the best thing I made this year hehe.

So yeah, most likely that all of the art for the project from now on will be done in a similar style. I just hope I would be able to replicate the shading again in different angles and poses. I even decided to play around with the eyes for certain groups of characters after I decided to try going for a style change.

Other than that, my team is still looking for more people who can help with proof-reading, lore-corrections and some art advice (while I feel quite confident with my lineart, coloring and shading now, I am still pretty bad at angles and complex shot compositions which really affects my self-esteem lol). We all work off pure enthusiasm when we have time and interest, so if you feel interested in the project and can contribute in some way (reblogging this post would also be great!) -- feel free to contact me through comments there (or PMs? I don't remember if I have them set to open).

I think that will be it for now. I might provide more info tomorrow if I remember something I forgot. Have a nice day, everyone!

[jazzpostsstuff]

Went back to mushroom and polished up quite a bit of things. He no longer has stupidly short arms like before amongst other things.

The cap now has a new design to it thanks to my friends suggestions. Really wanted to add more animation frames so the liquid in the belly would be a bit more animated and dynamic

[jazzpostsstuff]

Aww! It looks so cute, Puyon!

Late Happy Pi Day everybody!

•i hav another one, you think i will make one and disappear? (I mean that's true)•

Im a bit late for pi day- this character name is pi, holding a pie, with a pi simbol

Also, this character is not mine it's by @/jazzpostsstuff (although i think i draw this character alot, but who cares, beeg hat is life)

[jazzpostsstuff]

'Reminiscence' Audio Drama Script OUT!

So, the last entry just released on the Discord server (link in the pinned post). It's time to post the links to the entire series here for everyone to enjoy it in full!

A content warning though: Mentions of suicide, death and depression. Although members of the server didn't have much issues with the writing featuring those subject matters, I still think it's right to give you guys a warning so it doesn't come out of nowhere.

The link to the folder (Check the four numbered entries, everything else is for Chapter 2 in general)

This is the last piece of material dedicated to Chapter 2. Thank you all for the continued support and Stay Tuned for more.

[jazzpostsstuff]

Just a sketch for Axl's new character art. Took me a few tries to get the pose right, but I still see a few problems I can't really fix :'(

Hope I won't get so sad to the point of leaving it as a wip forever hahah

Btw, something interesting is coming out tomorrow. Read the previous post in order to learn what exactly.

[jazzpostsstuff]

I remember talking about my own mental problems and trauma a few times here and on this Tumblr blog. They were one of the reasons why the project is the way it is. Right about the time I finished Chapter 2, I felt a certain type of exaltation that honestly made me feel much better after a year and a half of trying to get over it finally. And I wouldn't have gone as far as I did without your support, guys.

All that experience inspired the creation of the second CD-Drama Script series - Reminiscence, telling the story of Sotiris after Chapter 2 as he has to find out the source of his mental struggles in order to eventually overcome it.

First entry, "Composure", is out right now. You can see it early through the Discord server. There will be one entry each two days and if you can't wait to see them, feel free to join (a lot of fun stuff happens here, be it ChAZ related, Megaman related, or not any of that). The last entry will be uploaded on this Sunday, and with it I will also add them to the Chapter: AXL folder. Don't worry, I will make a post announcing that.

Stay Tuned.

[jazzpostsstuff]

If the opportunity was created, would you plan making a fan game

Absolutely! That's one of the reasons why I even wrote it this way. I just can't imagine this project being anything than a game you could play (and some additional material that could've been added as sidestory content perhaps? Basically a very long optional cutscene).

Unfortunately, I cannot make it into a real game, at least in the near future. I am the only artist here (and my art isn't quite there yet in terms of being 1-to-1 with the original) and I can't hire people that could assist me with that, as well as making the sprite art, maybe music, and of course the programming for the game itself. Mostly due to how I am a poor student stuck in Russia with no proper way for paying for anything outside the country :/

But in case you just happen to really enjoy the project and know a thing or two about spriting and programming "free of charge", we would be incredibly happy to have you there! Just DM me here or go to my Discord server!

[jazzpostsstuff]

Hey! Here’s some really nice art of Pi converted into a MMX design! Please support the original artist, they are incredible at their job!

Once again, thank you @reploid-q​ for making this!!

the first of the art raffle winners, @jazzpostsrandomthings 's Mega Man Zero oc, the adorable and cheerful Pi

definitely a challenge first up as this is a full body conversion to a technically inferior time period compared to his original look lol

i want thank Jazz especially for assisting with adapting the design with corrections and suggestion, allowing for me to deliver something truly special

please check out @jazzpostsstuff to read the Rockman Zero; Chapter: AXL fanfic which is where Pi is from

[jazzpostsstuff]

Chapter: AXL Development Documents, Peatan

Like I've promised, today we're gonna talk about Peatan!

If you wish to see the full, neatly condenced profile right away, you can go to their page on my toyhou.se!

So,

Peatan is a blue nurse cyber-elf who used to be in Resistance's possesion. This happy playful fellow grew tired of living in the special cyber-elf containers, eventually conduring a plan of their own to escape the clutches of this organisation once and for all. Despite of low chances, their scheme was a success as they got brought to Neo Arcadia by Axl along with the Keeper Amulet they were hiding in. However, upon learning of the sacrificial nature of cyber-elves and Peatan's personal wish of exchanging their life to heal the wounds of someone else, their newly found repliroid friend chose to keep the blue nurse inside of the amulet so they won't self-sacrifice at the first opportunity. Luckily, Axl wasn't so harsh on Peatan, letting them out to view the places he was taking the cyber-elf to. The more time Peatan spent with Axl, the more they learnt about the material realm and complex feelings their inhabitors could experience. This allowed the blue nurse to mature as a person and acquire earthly attachments that were so alien to the digital beings who are the cyber-elves...

How do you distinguish Peatan from hundreds of other blue nurses? Well, you would only need to take a look at the cross on their hat! They also gain puffy white shorts underneath the dress upon evolving but that trait is a little more common than the black (deep blue) cross.

You may also say that Peatan has a skirt in the base form which nurses usually don't get until their first evolution, but after seeing this little drawing from a soundrack booklet (I think it was Mythos), I couldn't resist giving them to base forms too which does mean that all nurses in my continuity are not naked when they are babies *chuckle*.

Also did you know that Peatan is an elf you can obtain in the original Rockman Zero 2? They're in Kuwagust Ancatus' stage, after the optional Thunder Golem midboss, stuck in a container. However, when found in Chapter: AXL (since it's meant to have Zero's campaign as well, it just hasn't changed much so we didn't describe it), Peatan would fly away and Zero would receive a different blue nurse after the level if he speaks to one of the soldiers. If Zero has already beaten Crystal Cave stage and didn't get the elf prior, the cyber-elf container would be missing and he would still need to talk to a soldier.

And now it's time for development notes:

I thought our protagonist would need a companion on this journey who could lighten the mood and contrast with a more serious and grimmer version of Axl. The idea of an incredibly cheerful nurse cyber-elf that he would keep around to show what the material realm has to offer came pretty quickly and naturally after that. But why was it an elf that could originally be found in Z2? Well, it was kinda a placeholder but I was able to make the character work in the context of this story pretty easily so I saw no need to change them. In addition, Peatan had a slightly different backstory in the very first draft of Chapter 1, being a cyber-elf that saw one of their own kind sacrifice themselves. This inspired the elf to take their name, and dreaming of accomplishing the same goal one day, hoping to become just as cool and brave at the original Peatan before. Not only it was "a bit" messed up, but it also ended up not working with the timeline. The latter problem could have actually been patched, but I decided not to go through with it. Peatan is an embodinment of child-like innocence (at least in Ch1) and giving them a backstory like that could've been too much. Also I should mention that the idea for a talking ball of light companion was inspired by Sein - the guiding light from Ori and the Blind Forest which I happened to finish prior to conceptualizing Chapter: AXL. Sadly, Peatan wasn't much of a combantant by the end *chuckle*.

And (this isn't in the profile on toyhou.se because it would've made it too long), maybe some of you are also wondering why does Peatan have a lisp in Chapter 1 and not in Chapter 2? Well, if that wasn't obvious yet, they were a little child in Ch1 and they grew during the 2 month timeskip between it and Ch2 which is why they managed to get rid of the lisp. But why was it there in the first place? Well, I just thought it would convey their childness more and that it would be cute *grin*.

Although I've told you about most things that were already written down in the toyhou.se profile, you can still check it out!

Stay Tuned! ~

[jazzpostsstuff]

I held a small poll on my Discord server (link in the pinned post if you're interested), where people ended up voting for a character bio to be the next update post on this blog, and the character they chose was Peatan! Right now I am working on a bio on my toyhou.se account (which I recently remembered existed, *chuckle*), I will post the link, as well as the About and Development Notes sections in full here on 31st of August!

Here's a snippet from the toyhou.se bio by the way (used this template and ended up modifying it a bit too)!

[jazzpostsstuff]

Ask is now open!

I didn't quite realize that I forgot to turn the Ask function for this blog so now I fixed that, *chuckle*

If you have anything you want to know about Chapter: AXL, feel free to ask here! But in case you want to ask anything about me personally, just go to my sideblog @jazzpostsrandomthings !

[jazzpostsstuff]

Chapter: AXL Development Documents, Axl's MMZ Redesign

Make sure to look at the picture descriptions for each of these! They contain more information about the designs and I put them in like this to make the blog post less bloated than it already is.

Fun fact, I did redesign Axl into a MMZ character one and a half years prior to that "life-changing" Halloween art. I didn't know anything about the series yet aside from some basic concepts and I didn't understand its style much yet, but I still wanted to go an do that.

Well, you can certainly say I tried. His character was also altered, with him becoming a pacifistic hermit that lives with a real dog in a forest (it doesn't make much sense but 14 year-old me thought differently at the time). However, you can probably see some design quirks already that ultimately got used again in his look for Chapter: AXL, a scar over the right eye and shorts with suspenders in particular. There's actually a reason for this choice of clothing though since I did see something like this in his original MMX design, and I thought it could make the design more "fresh" while staying true to what was before (even if it does look a little goofy).

Then, a year and almost a half later, I came up with the idea of making a MMZ Halloween Axl drawing as a follow-up to the MMX Halloween Axl one I did a year prior (I will probably post it on Halloween this year on my random blog). This resulted in me coming up with a redesign for Axl, starting from a clean slate.

Something curious that I've noticed while looking into the design of Zero here was that... his silhouette was mostly the same. Despite the entire body overcoming changes, you could still recognize that it was Zero thanks to the hair and the shape of the helmet, mimicking what came before through the silhouette itself. That also was the design philosophy that Keiji Inafune persued and the only advice he gave to the designing team when they were trying to design Axl for X7, and that's... a really great tip to character design/redesign as a whole.

I was trying to follow the 'memorable silhouette' tip while remaking Axl for MMZ universe, but unfortunately I wasn't able to change his helmet much without losing the silhouette so I left it mostly as-is. Some parts of his armor do look strange (like boots for example) or too similar to what came before (the shoulderpads), the wings pack (or whatever it's called) looks really different and blocky, and the jets on his feet are a bit weird too, but I still think I did a good job reimagining this design, to the point of not changing it much in the next revisions.

I was trying to make Axl look sharper and more mature than before. I gave him a serious look, a few new scars (one on the left cheek as a reference to Grey and another over the right side of the face as a reference to Red), a blind right eye and a jacket with high collar (that doesn't close all the way because of the chest crystal). Shorts on suspenders still remained, though... which still kinda makes sense because he was supposed to still be young here, plus they help greatly with retaining the same "silhouette" as before. In addition, they actually have a functionality - Axl keeps his scythe folded behind the back and suspenders keep them safely in one place.

Oh, and yeah, this time Axl was supposed to become a grim reaper much like Red. I saw this as fitting, like he was following his old friend's footsteps, and eventually I realized it would be a great melee/middle-range weapon for him.

However, once I decided to make a full-blown game concept out of "What if Axl was in MMZ?", I chose to redesign him, to make him more in-line with the official designs (You can judge how close I came to that as I am still not sure if I am good at imitating them).

For the longest time, I thought that I perfected his design, but eventually as I started to fool around with the sprite arting, I realized that it was difficult for me to translate all of his details into a sprite while dealing with color and size limitations (which resulted in me never finishing that sprite too *chuckle*). I ended up going around all of the characters I had and giving them redesigns if needed, removing the unnessesary details (or adding on new stuff for some that needed them to fit in better). Axl was one of them... a-a-a-and I never remade his character art. Fortunately, I still have the promo art I did a few months ago and he had that design here.

And actually, there was one more redesign in July I did for the visual novel adaptation of Chapter: AXL (which I decided to put on hiatus for now because doing all that alone would stagnate the main project badly). It just removed the scar on his left cheek. I just thought that it wasn't necessary for now (maybe he will get it back during the story, who knows).

[jazzpostsstuff]

Chapter: AXL Development Documents, Initial Story Concept PART 3

If you happen to wonder why this project has some psychological or just some heavy themes that haven't been explored by the series prior, it's because the creation of this fanfiction happened to coincide with some bad and traumatic stuff I've experienced a mere month after I decided to make Chapter: AXL into a real thing. Usually when you feel like something is getting really good, there would be a moment you will just spiral down to the depths. Both your existence and mental state fall so deep you would look back at who you were before and not recognise that person anymore.

Going through a sudden loss of a loved one while you're still a child (or rather a teenager in my case but I can say I had a mind of a child at that time) is always devastating, and going through that together with your family can be even more soul-crushing because you see their pain and suffer even more from inability to influence your other family members, feeling weak and even going insane from that sometimes. Knowing that the last time I was optimistic was when I wasn't accepting the death of a family member and was trying everything to make them open their eyes and speak again has been making myself sad everytime I looked back at who I was just one and a half years ago. I am even tearing up while writing this right now, so I am clearly not helping myself here.

You can never truly recover from something like this. You can only overcome, let go and enter a new chapter fo your life as a new person. You would look back at the past, at the good moments you had so long ago, maybe you'll smile, maybe you'll get sad again, but just try looking at the bright side. Those happy memories were something that happened to you. The people you see in them might be gone, but it would've made them sad if you just gave up after the loss. You was strong enough to get back up and learn how to live again, despite everything you went through. And if you're still there, at the bottom, it can motivate you to get better for them and maybe regain the optimism or happiness that was lost.

If you fear death after an experience like this... I know how hard it isfor some because I've been there, but just try to accept your mortality. Knowing that you can't stay alive for all eternity would make you cherish the time you have on this Earth more and live a life to the fullest (within reason). Eternal life would just make you less human eventually (which was also something that happened to X prior to Zero series as well so here's an example of how living forever can suck).

"Why is it in a Megaman fanfic?". Well, I always related to Axl and I managed to bond even more with him after what I went through (the loss of a family member at a relatively young age, to be exact). Besides, Axl's story was supposed to be grimmer and deeper according to one of the producers of X7. I felt like taking a psychological approach to the story of Chapter: AXL and exploring the trauma that you get after experiencing horrific events only made sense. However, I am still not going into that topic too deep because I am still writing a Megaman story, but maybe you can argue that I still can do that because it's based off MMZ, but we have to remember that it's a story about war and hope - a hope for a better peaceful future that comes after the worst, like the light in the darkest depths you could've fell into.

You have to retain this hopefulness, give a breathing room after a disaster and not bombard the player reader with depression all the way through.

[jazzpostsstuff]

Chapter: AXL Development Documents, Initial Story Concept PART 2

Once I got the basic outline of "where the story begins and ends", I decided to set up the rules in an attempt to make the concept itself closer to a reality. The initial idea was to make Chapter: AXL into a side-story mode that Inti Creates could've included into a rerelease of the MMZ saga and the rules went as follows:

Axl doesn't drastically change Zero's story (it stays mostly the same and the outcome/personal conflicts remain the same);

Axl's existence doesn't give Zero new stages to beat;

Axl's gameplay has to work well with Zero series' philosophy;

Axl's story has to be the same length or shorter than Zero's;

Chapter: AXL has to not contain too much of the new visual assets for the sake of 'cutting cost';

Chapter: AXL has to not contain too much of new characters for the reasons mentioned in Point 5;

Chapter: AXL has to feel and play like a game that could be released for DS (since it won't make any sence for Inti Creates to rerelease a GBA game for GBA).

If you've read through Chapter 1 and especially Chapter 2 already, then you would know that I didn't really follow these rules much. Point 2 might seem like it hasn't been followed in Chapter 1 (because of that scene after Axl defeats the Ride Armor Boreas and confronts its pilot), but that one was supposed to be a cutscene in Zero's story. However, Point 2 won't be followed in Chapter 3 because of the opening stage being changed (I can't tell you what would change exactly yet though). Point 4 gets followed well unless you count that short ambush with Flauclaws at the end as a full mission (and it isn't really). Point 5 and 6 ended up getting ignored more and more as the project progressed which is kinda my fault (I love coming up with new character designs, unfortunately *chuckle*), but also those points were preventing me from coming up with memorable bosses which is one of the reasons why I love playing these games in the first place. Point 3 and Point 7 both aren't followed because the idea for Chapter: AXL eventually shifted to a full-blown remake of the entire saga with a new additional story mode to beat for each game starting from Z2, with Axl's gameplay being an attempt to intergrate modern (post Gunvolt, if you will) Inti Creates platformer gameplay into the classic Inti Creates' gameplay they've made for MMZ so long ago. It also kinda made sense for the character of Axl as he was supposed to be a breath of fresh air for the X series with cool modern looks, deeper story and more modern (at the time) gameplay (and the "deeper story" part is also kinda the reason why his campaign is more heavy on the plot and some psychological aspects that arise from trauma and war, but that's a story for a different blog post). Zero's campaign also would've received some QoL changes to gameplay, aside from a few small story changes (nothing drastic since his plot stays the same), but I only thought of including them in Chapter 3 because the changes were big enough to mention (and maybe I will explain this later too).

Yeeeeah, I am pretty bad at following the guidlines, I guess. Maybe I will be an awful corporate worker in the future because of that *chuckle*. Hope you are enjoying what I've made at least, despite those short comings.

[jazzpostsstuff]

I liked the sketch I did of Euclid in a fancy suit so much that I decided to line, color and shade it!

I still think I am far from actually being able to mimic the style of MMZ art (sometimes I think I figured it out and the next time i do it, I forget what was I doing completely lol)

But still, I like what I did here (even if it's not canon, unless I actually do a short bonus story with him in this suit for some reason), didn't even need to change his color pallete.

Have a speedpaint too (I forgot to record the sketching lol)