Street Fighter IV's Abel before he bulked up

The official Super Street Fighter IV development blog has revealed some unused character art for the first game, revealing a different take on Abel than the giant amnesiac in bike shorts we know now. Before he was beefy and uncomfortably pant-less, he was wispy ... and pretty much only in pants.

"With Abel," battle planner Taisaku Okada explained (as translated by Andriasang) we wanted to make someone representative of 'the weak can beat the strong,' and so he was originally a small judo character who could be mistaken for a girl." Eventually, it would appear, they opted for someone representative of 'the strong can beat the ... also strong."

The post also reveals E. Honda's skeleton, which, like all the characters', is rendered in full 3D. The other characters' hairstyles probably don't have bone structure, however.

[Via Andriasang]

Street Fighter IV's Abel before he bulked up originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.