04
Shiro Rangers
This page is dedicated to a specific section of my character art, the Shiro Rangers (城レンジャー). If it isn't obvious enough yet, I am a massive nerd and a fan of a lot of fiction, TTRPG's, anime and media.
Growing up one of the most impactful series for me was Power Rangers, the five charismatic hero's in colourful suits, with a team theme and giant robots that combine to make the "Megazord".
Now the more recent series of Power Rangers has not been as entertaining as I remembers, thus colour me surprised when I learnt about the Japanese origin of Power Rangers, Super Sentai, which yes was still made for kids yet it had a higher quality to it.
I had the inspiration for the Shiro Rangers when the 50th Anniversary Series of Super Sentai, No.1 Sentai Gozyuger started airing.
The
Vision
Core of A Teqm
The Core to any Ranger/Sentai Team is their theme, and me being a huge Dungeons and Dragons nerd wanted to make a team themed as such.
Now with a Team, their suits and "morphers" must be consistent and identifiable between the core team members, especially because the morpher will be visible on change.
Within the game of D'n'D rolling dice is a core to how to play, and I wanted to incorporate that into the change, specifically a "dice tower" an additional peripheral you can buy.
The characters would have to hold their arm upright, take their "dice" from the front of the changer and place it in the now opened top, after which the door would open and incuring the change.
Now in both Power Rangers and Super Sentai the hero's would shout a catch phrase. The English could range from "Its Morphing Time!" to "Ninja Storm, Ranger Form, Ha!" and the Japanese could range from "Engage!" to "Ninpu, Shinobi Change!". To me, the need for a roll call catch phrase was dire, I decided for "Roll it!" in English which whilst both being an exclamation on what they are doing, but also a shortened version of the phrase of "Roll Initiative!" which is what you need to at the start of combat when playing Dnd. Translating this to the closest of it's meaning would be "フレ" pronounced like Foo - rey/ley, which would translate to "Shake it!" like the shaking of dice before you role it.
The Leader
Being one of only two colours to appear in every team line up, the Red Ranger is always the leader and often the protagonist of the story with that in mind I needed to start with the Red one.
Whilst we are on the topic we might as well go into the aspects of Dnd I decided on, I settled on making the core team (plus the sixth) traditional, common and iconic Dnd Monsters. Red in this instant is the Kobold, a humanoid reptile gremlin that whilst not related to the Goblin, is thematically adjacent. No matter how I much I thought on it, I could not justify making the goblin red.
Starting with red was also important because the overall design would dictate how the rest of the team would look, and I spent a long time on the helmet in particular. How could I make the design of the helmets consistent whilst still showing a semblance of what monster they represent, hence the 2D 20 sided dice design.
1. KoboRed
2. GorgoGreen
The Gentle Giant
The joy of a team series means that multiple character archetypes can be showcased, in this instant, the Gentle Giant, though the written aspect is not to be seen right now.
GorgoGreen is designed after the Dnd monster of the Gorgon.
The Gorgon, which gets it's name from Greek Myth and the monster of the same name; does not actually have any snake like features, instead it resembles that of a mechanical bull. The only feature shared between the Dnd and Greek Myth Gorgons is the ability to petrify victims, in Dnd this is done in the form of a breath attack.
Its at this point I would like to talk about another connected topic of Super Sentai teams, more precisely, to do with teams from the 1990's-2010's in which each team member has their own weapon unique to themselves, which like the suits, I have taken care to make sure one is not over detailed in comparison to the others.
