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Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling Backstory
On 1730 AD, February 17th, fraternal twin sisters were born to Shào Míngxiá (邵明霞) in the village of Xiān Mén Cūn (仙门村). Before the sisters were born, their father was killed in an incident where he and several individuals were guiding and protecting a caravan of merchants to their village. He and several were killed by monsters of the night known as Darkstalkers. His name was Shào Xiāngzǐ (邵湘子). Happy with the birth of her daughters, Mingxia named them 邵美玲 (Shào Měilíng) and 邵仙姑 (Shào Xiāngū). Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling grew up among the Shao family, whom have for centuries have had a long tradition and association with the mystical ways of 仙術 (Xiānshù). As they grew up, Mingxia saw via their Qi that they had great potential in them which was of great relief as she was wanting to not only assure their safety, but also keep to the Shao family traditions and name. Since they were able children, Mingxia trained them to become 仙树师 (Xiān shù shī), practitioners of Xianshu. Mingxia herself was a Shifu of Xianshushi and had great aspirations and hopes for her daughters. However, she was never overbearing, allowing them to still be young girls and blossom in their own ways. Even with the freedoms allotted to them by their mother, both sisters sought to make their mother proud. Mei-Ling would show great promise with her natural ways in the mystical aspects of Xianshu while Hsien-Ko was fond of the martial arts and hand to hand combat involved with Xianshu. Balancing their studies, training, and leisure time, the sisters showed relatively swift progress in their abilities in the way of the school of Xianshu and many of the shifu believed they were ready to move on to the next big step in their training: they would be recognized officially as Shifus of Xianshu. However, days before the ceremony, on 1748, July 3rd, Xianmencun was besieged by a hoard of the undead. All the xianshushi were dispatched to fight off the hoard and protect the innocent villagers. At the time, Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling were enjoying some leisure time elsewhere, away from many. As the hoard came in, they did what they could to protect the people. Despite all their years of training, the hoard was proving too much as the sheer numbers were just vast. Before they were consumed by the hoard, they were saved by several xianshushi and shifus, with their mother among the group. Happy to see their mother, they greeted her gleefully and with relief. However, this joy was not to last as with final words of praise and a motherly hug, Mingxia had her daughters restrained by the other shifu as she then made the ultimate sacrifice. Using the Art of Unusual Transformation, she transformed her form into that of a golden dragon of power. She tore through the hoard like a blade to flesh, burning their dark rotten corpses into ashes. While at first confused and wondering what their mother meant by her words and actions, the sisters were in awe of the incredible power their mother displayed. Unfortunately, that awe turned to sheer horror as they witnessed their mother's body burn away right before their eyes. The only thing that fell to the ground were her bagua mirror and bead necklace donning the family name. Both twins were inconsolable and feel into a deep depression, refusing to eat nor talk with anyone. They only knew that their mother's use of the art not only killed her but banished her soul to be lost to the darkness for all eternity. Not able to cope with this, they went against their mother's final wish. After a heated debate between both Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling, they agreed to use the Art of Unusual Transformation. On the night of the July 7th, four days after the death of their mother, they shed their humanity to become warriors of the night: they became jiangshi. After a scuffle with some xianshushi and talking with one of the shifu closest to their mother, they were banished from Xianmencun for their own safety. Having had time to gather supplies and a coffin, they set out in the dead of the night, on their journey to save their mother.
Hsien-Ko Design Notes and Inspiration
One thing about Cryas Darkstalkers is my desire to not only write and think of the characters differently based on official information and headcanon, but also try to redesign them to fit the world I imagine and their personalities in the mythos. Today, I want to talk about my process and notes regarding the official design of one of the main protagonists of Cryas Darkstalkers: Shao Hsien-Ko!
Compared to her original version, she actually isn't too drastic of a change. Honestly, her original design is already really well done and awesome. However, I had some ideas and thoughts to make her stand out from the original. For the foundation I stuck with the design of her from Vampire Hunter/ Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge.
If you were not aware, Hsien-Ko basically has two official designs. This version of her and the one from the official art for Darkstalkers Resurrection. I chose the Hunters design as I generally really love the overall idea of the qipao for this version of her. The DSR version goes for a qipao with two flaps, front and back. I am not a fan of that on top of the change to her hat where she has a bell on the top rather than a ball.
Now what about that necklace she wears? Probably the most notable feature of her, I actually do have an inspiration. The idea of the necklace stems from the story 'Monsters and the Secret of Immortality'.
Hsien-Ko's overall design is interesting in that story as she is portrayed as much wilder and psychotic in her demeanor. But I also think aspects of the design are… well too busy. But among the design elements, the necklace caught my eye the most. In Cryas DS, to mirror the… well mirror that Mei-Ling has, Hsien-Ko wears the necklace that her mother wore as a physical memento of her on her journey to save her. The character on her necklace was changed to 邵 (shào), her family name in Cryas Darkstalkers. Now while in the main timeline it is 少 (shǎo), I already was too used to 邵 that I decided to stick with that pronunciation and way the character is written.
The two yellow strings that follow along the side of her breasts and torso were inspired by a piece of art I saw that showed an idea of strings on her qipao, granted they were much smaller elements. I would share the art, but honestly unless it is official art, my art, or art I commissioned, I would rather not share. Even with giving credit, it just wouldn't feel right. However, one piece I will share is this:
The way Casa drew Hsien-Ko here, specifically the way the strings were attached to her qipao were different compared to how I originally did it. I loved the idea and made that official to her.
What about the flower on the flap of her qipao, you may ask? Honestly, I never came across a design that inspired me, it was more so something involving the origins of Hsien-Ko's name in Chinese, 仙姑 (xiāngū). Her name derives from the Xian that is among the pantheon of the Eight Immortals of Chinese mythos, 何仙姑 (hé xiāngū). In tellings of the story, the Xian is said to hold a lotus flower and in general seems to have a strong association with the flower. Because I wanted to still add something more to Hsien-Ko without getting too extremely away from the core of her generally simple design, I thought it would be lovely to add a lotus flower design to her qipao. Not only pretty but tapping more into her Chinese roots. While her old hanfu and dudou have a more traditionally designed lotus flower, the one on her current garb is a more stylized take on the flower, courtesy of Mei-Ling.
Another minor detail, but one I wanted to still bring up. The story 'Lei-Lei (Hsien-Ko) Returns' by Takashi Mibu is another excellent anthology story centering around the Shao sisters. I love the general expressions they draw Hsien-Ko in, really showing off her fangs. But what I wanted to bring up is the trim on her qipao. You can see here that rather than be flat, it is made to have volume. Like a stuffed trim. I liked that and rolled with it.
While initially I somewhat stuck to the general shape of Hsien-Ko's hairstyle in the main timeline, it evolved into something more wild and less rigid. As time went on, while the general idea of her hair fanning out reaching towards the length of her shoulders was still the same, the shape it took on was more claw and fang like. Wild you could say. While not exactly the same, these characters Daisy and Sabrina were ones to sort of plant the seed.
The idea of describing it as wilder, I say I can still somewhat also point to 'Monsters and the Secrets of Immortality's design of Hsien-Ko for that.
Because I genuinely get sick of Hsien-Ko being draw in such small/thin/…. well anime proportioned manner, I wanted to go back to what Vampire Hunter established in official art and her sprites in game: her muscles. Granted, I took it a step further as I altered the general shape of her body to be more muscular and wider build. One could say thicc, I prefer warrior build. I can point to three sources that I think of when I think of her body shape. Kratos from the modern God of War era, a sketch my friend @yourweebmystic made some time ago, and the way an artist who goes by the name Rayluaza draws the character Chi Chi. To show an idea of Rayluaza's way of drawing strong women, I'll share a commission I got from them of my Hsien-Ko. Honestly, Rayluaza did a perfect representation of what I believe for Hsien-Ko in Cryas Darkstalkers in terms of her body shape and build.
That sums it up for Hsien-Ko, but there is more to her than her base state. Let's take a moment to talk about the design elements of another notable power of Hsien-Ko in Cryas Darkstalkers: Xié è De Yōngbào/Dark Embrace.
The Dark Embrace Burst was based on something for one of my OCs in terms of a Burst they have of a similar name: Ebony Embrace. Now that individual is a single person, but Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling are two people who are closely connected. In essence, like as jiangshis, they are two halves of the idea of this whole Burst. Hsien-Ko is the wild, raw power of it. Her upper clothes tear away only because that is where the shadow attaches to her body when Mei-Ling attaches. The hat vanishes to help accentuate the wild look to her. Seeing her hair full on. The markings? An underlying thing about the Burst is its connection to the substance, Corriyami. Norocier, a Corrian, is a being that was born from the substance. In a way, it is a physical manifestation of those with this kind of Burst would look like if they were Corrian. Now the markings took on different ideas over time. Two sources I can fully acknowledge that helped to steer the course of the markings were these two pieces.
The first is done by the artist tana_taka_3rder and the second is done by my friend @capyguava
A small detail, but still important to me. Initially, Hsien-Ko's eyes in the Burst were more so based on the idea of glowing eyes I saw with the likes of Anti Form and Rage Form Sora.
However, when I saw this art that was made by Alejo, I then went with the idea that their general eye shapes stayed the same. When in most states of mind/ levels of emotion, they had lines to represent their iris. But when sufficiently enraged or in a high state of negative emotion, they disappear to give off a more intimidating appearance.
While art tends to vary between artists about the eye color of Hsien-Ko officially, I stuck with Yellow. I feel the color contrasts well, even compliment her blue skin. Plus if you think about Chinese color theory and beliefs, one of the ideas is that yellow is symbolic with heroism. This is something very prominently used in the Kung Fu Panda series as the main protagonist Po is seen quite a lot with the color yellow. The villain of the first film, Tai Lung, had Yellow eyes. This went well where he felt like a wronged individual. A hero in his own mind. And many scenes with heroic moments or those of triumph feature the color a lot. So honestly, I think it stands Hsien-Ko sticks with that general idea as well due to her Chinese roots.
Oh, I should probably explain the ideas behind Hsien-Ko's human design. So of course I wanted her to look like a Qing woman of the 1730s-1740s since that is the time period she was alive. Skin tone and eye color were for the more typical tones that a Chinese individual could easily have. However compared to Mei-Ling and her mother, she has a bit more melanin to her.
So fun fact, in reality there really wasn't any kind of uniform for a martial artist during those time periods… or even later on in history. They would generally fight in their day clothes. So, while pertaining to the general dress idea of the Qing period, I still wanted Hsien-Ko's clothes to still look comfortable and easy to move around in. The colors scheme just works for her since she has some association with those colors. And even in some sprite art for Hsien-Ko in VHunter, her qipao was red, so a nice nod. As for her hairstyle, that was inspired by the design I saw in the Tetsujin Drama doujin. I think it is a nice contrast to what would become a much wilder hairstyle that grew from her original style.
Hopefully this gives you a good feel for the ideas I had behind redesigning Hsien-Ko. For any artist I credit, please check them out and show love to their art!