Retro Tekken 2 Nina Williams character CG render

Nina Williams CG render for Tekken 2 (1996)

This is a rare one, never released or posted on the net. AFAIK it was used only once officially, in the Japanese TEKKEN 2 EXPERT guide book (PlayStation Books, MEDIA FACTORY), where I scanned this from.

Street Fighter x Tekken Mobile marks Nina's iOS debut

Nina will have her debut on mobile devices when Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile is being released for iOS platforms later this summer.

Read more about the crossover-fighter's iOS port and the new twist added to its tag mechanic at Capcom-Unity.

Tekken Blood Vengeance CG movie production art

Production Art and Storyboards from Tekken Blood Vengeance.

Tekken Blood Vengeance, a full-length 3D compatible feature film, created in full CG and set in the rich Tekken universe, was released in 2011. Taking place in the world and true to the characters and history of the Tekken franchise, Tekken Blood Vengeance was produced by Digital Frontier, who also produced the FMV sequences for Tekken 5, Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

Digital Frontier is a motion picture production company with a distinguished large scale CG production department. It's the only company in Japan that creates full CG film animation and is equipped with one of Asia’s largest motion capture studios in Tokyo.
While Digital Frontier handles a number of motion capture data recordings for games, it has also been placing emphasis on stereoscopic 3D CG movies and CG TV series' using real-time engines.

In it's 16 years of experience doing CG production and animation the studio has worked on video games such as Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots (2008 KONAMI), Resident Evil Zero (2002 CAPCOM), the Yakuza game series, Vanquish and Binary Domain (2006 - 2011 SEGA) Tekken 5, Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (2006 - 2012 NAMCO) and movies such as Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008 CAPCOM), Appleseed Ex Machina (2007 Masamune Shirow／Seishinsha, EX MACHINA Film Partners), Gantz (2011 「GANTZ」FILM PARTNERS) and Death Note (2006 「DEATH　NOTE」 FILM PARTNERS / Tsugumi Ohba, Ken Obata / Shueisha)
http://www.dfx.co.jp 

Storyboard and Production Art images were scanned from the Japanese Tekken Blood Vengeance Artbook The King of Iron Fist Archives (V Jump Books).
Movie stills are screenshots from the Tekken Blood Vengeance Movie on Blu-ray.

Nina Williams getting Kotobukiya's Bishoujo treatment by Shunya Yamashita?

Katsuhiro Harada revealed a Tekken T-Shirt design for the 2012 Japan Expo in Paris (July 5 - 8) via his Twitter (Harada_TEKKEN). What has me excited is the fact that the print was done by famed Japanese illustrator Shunya Yamashita, the artist behind Kotobukiya's Bishoujo Statues.

What's so exciting about this you might ask?

Minimates & Nanomen - Nina Williams, Street Fighter x Tekken

 

  

Nina's got a Mini-Me, too.

Tekken's First Lady will be joining the ranks of other famous comic-, movie- and video game characters who've gotten the Minimate treatment.

Minimates are a block-styled miniature action figure primarily released to specialty retailers and aimed at adult collectors.

Designed and sculpted by Art Asylum Series 1 will include a Nina VS Cammy pairing exclusively available at specialty stores (/online). The other Series 1 box sets are Ken VS Steve, Sagat VS King and Poison VS Lili (the latter exclusive to specialty stores, the former two also available at Toys'R'Us). Each Minimate stands 2 inches tall with 14 (!) points of articulation and a variety of removable and interchangeable parts and accessories.

I usually prefer my (action-) figures to be rich in detail, accurately bearing the likeness of the original character. But the extremely simplified form is a central design theme with these figures and I do really like what I see. Also, with 14 (!!!) points of articulation these mates are pretty much double jointed all over.

(Warning: super nerdy collector's talk in 3..2..1..)

As usual I'll be buying several copies of the Nina box set to have one that I can unpack, one to put in a CGA graded UF-5 acrylic custom case (♥) and some more to lock away somewhere dark and safe and dust-free. lol

Now here's something that's killing my collectors heart a little.

I've actually been waiting for a block figure rendition of Nina for quite some time now. Back around the time Tekken 5 was released for PS2 there was a line of Tekken Nanomen in the works at visual entertainment and licensing studio Kinetic Underground Inc.

Unfortunately this line didn't make it past the prototype stage and was never officially released, which is such a bummer, because I really liked the look of this type of block figure. Also, (AFAIK) Nanomen Nina would have been slightly taller than Minimates Nina ... and a bit prettier.

See for yourself:

Originally scheduled for a June 2012 release Diamond Select's Street Fighter x Tekken Minimates are now expected to ship October 2012 but can already be pre-ordered online. No official statement on why it was pushed back, but the new release date might actually coincide with the release of Streeft Fighter x Tekken for the PlayStation Vita, which is currently scheduled for Fall 2012. Convenient, no?

Photographs (pictures 3-6) were taken at the Diamond Select booth / Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo 2012 by youbastards @ minimatemultiverse.com
You can find his C2E2 gallery here http://photobucket.com/youbastards-at-C2E2

Roberto Ferrari for Tekken's Nina Williams in Death by Degrees

Hiring Italian-born artist Roberto Ferrari to do the character design for Death by Degrees was without a doubt an extremely wise decision on Namco’s part. Ferrari, who had previously worked at famous Japanese animation studio Tatsunoko Production, was to provide character designs with that sort of authentic western look Namco was looking for. As Death by Degrees Producer Yozo Sakagami explained, the team at Namco thought a Japanese artist might struggle emulating said look, and worried about Japanese features sneaking their way into the design of the game's female Irish lead.

What Ferrari ultimately brought to the table wasn’t only beautifully hand-drawn drafts of an interesting cast of characters, but also extremely sophisticated and borderline-ingenious costume designs for the famous female assassin in the title role.

Roberto Ferrari moved from Rome to Tokyo in the Mid-90s to fulfil his dream of working as a character design artist in Japan. He was part of the design team at Tatsunoko Production of Gatchaman fame and worked on titles for some of the video game industry's leading companies, including Namco Bandai Games Inc. and Square Enix, such as The Last Remnant, Moon Diver, Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes - Encore and Death by Degrees.

Images were scanned from the Japanese Death by Degrees Perfect Guide (Softbank Publishing) and the Japanese Death by Degrees Official Guide (Enterbrain).