Week Six is finished for this WCW ROM hack project.

The goal this week was to make it to Abdullah the Butcher in my roster list, and I edged it out with 19 new character attire slots in the ROM hack. To offer a quick preview of the progress, I uploaded a YouTube Short highlighting several of the new designs.

Graphic Updates

I wrapped up several tag teams this week along with a few more singles wrestlers.

The first challenge was managing a 16-color palette for all the bright, detailed gear worn by the Rock and Roll Express, then finding small touches to visually separate Ricky Morton from Robert Gibson. Their rivals, the Midnight Express, were easier to lock in once I committed to the classic pink-based look. Heads aren’t finished yet, but the screenshots already show how much these attires pop in-game.

In addition to the Midnight Express attire, I added another look for Bobby Eaton: his blue tights with the starry pattern, the ones he wore when he won the TV title from Arn Anderson. I always liked that design, so I made sure to recreate it for this project.

I’m still on the fence about keeping the Southern Boys / Young Pistols. Their slots could easily go to other wrestlers, but they do round out the “Tag Team B” group nicely. Their color combinations were some of the ugliest trunks of the era, and I’m debating whether to include the rebel flag design or skip it altogether.

I also finished two attires for Jake “The Snake” Roberts including an extra “muffin top” body shape for his later run. I’d like to add a third, his black gear with the golden cobra pattern, but I need better reference shots before I can tackle it.

Cactus Jack went better than I expected and I have four unique attire combinations for him. I tried the “Fatal Encounter” Sting t-shirt, but the pixel stretching made it difficult. Even though it came later, I might add the “Wanted Dead or Alive” shirt just for nostalgic purposes.

I created two primary attires for Abdullah the Butcher. Like Vader, he needed a custom body  (and boots) imported from VPW2. I tried added the vertical stripes down the leg and even his name/logo on the pants. Unfortunately, they both skewed with the models.

During the video previews, I use Dake Ken / Skin Color 2 (tan) for all the wrestlers. It’s the only wrestler I have accessible in the game so I can focus on attires. But if you sample it in Skin Color 3, you get a pretty cool looking Abdullah the Butcher.

Wrap Up

With this update, I’ve finally broke past 100+ attires for the game. There’s a “ceiling” of 147 before I have to start ROM hacking extra slots. And then I want to add Entrance Attire later… So who knows how that’s going to go. I really don’t want to cut any attires that I made so far.

The goal for Week 7 is to complete my core WCW roster with Group 6 and create a few attires for Rick Rude. Those are going to be a (hopefully, fun) challenge.