How about partial armor? Like wearing only a chest-plate or hip guards? Also his axe can hang from the back of his belt.

Honestly, I hate that axe. I hate a LOT of the weapons that came about because of the "Every character HAS to have a weapon style" days. I mean what's a ninja doing with a battle axe? That doesn't fit. Some characters just should not carry weapons at all and I think Ermac's one of them.
I'm starting to think that this has held me back so long I should just save all the brainstorming for his MK3 alt and do the stone statue version like I originally considered, just to get these guys done and over with so I can move on to MK2.
Speaking of which, I've been reconsidering my position on not doing Blaze, Hornbuckle, and Skarlett. It does seem weird that I'd do Nimbus and not them.
I also might, once I'm done with the games, do a series of my own takes on characters from throughout history before MK1 like Great Kung Lao, King Jerrod, Lucifer, the casts of Mythologies and Special Forces, that sort of thing. I'm just making more and more work for my lazy ass, of course.

Now, I've read that some say that Ermac looks like an arabian sorcerer of some kind... Why not go further into that idea, making him look like a mix of a Hashashin and a sorcerer in a more traditional way.

I'm thinking the Prince of Persia movie (or rather, what I have seen from the trailers). The Hashashins there are these mystical, arabian ninjas with mystical powers, kinda like Ermac is. Just an idea.

I guess they gave Ermac an axe cuz in UMK3, their combos occasionally involve pulling out an axe. At least you're moving on. But who's Lucifer in MK?

Lucifer was the ruler of Hell before Quan Chi and Shinnok killed him and took it over.

Mythologies' backstory said he was just one in a long line of demons, but it was retconned in Deception, one of the roaming people you talk to in Konquest tells you he was "the same race as Raiden", so a god, probably God of the Dead and protector of the Netherealm.

Funny that you'd draw Nimbus who was never in the game but not Blaze who technically was in the game. I understand Hornbuckle, just a green Liu Kang. I just wonder what Smoke's alt would look like.

Also, how are you going to handle MK3? Cuz Johnny, Raiden, and Baraka only appeared in Trilogy along with K/Chameleon. Plus Johnny was the only one with a new look (we both know why), which they're using for MK9

My MK3 roster will be the one from Trilogy. The only characters I'm planning on leaving out of it are Goro, Kintaro, Human Smoke, and Classic Sub. Y'know, for storyline reasons. None of those four were canon. I will do Khameleon and maybe the male one too if I can work out a reason for him.
I don't have a problem with reusing a costume twice if it makes sense that the character wouldn't change his clothes: i.e. Raiden will probably look the same in MK2, 3, and 4. There may be slight variations like gauntlets and shinguards or a cape here and there, I dunno yet for sure.

That said, I do have an extra Johnny outfit planned, and my MK3 Baraka might wear his MK vs DCU outfit or something.

And like I said, I changed my mind, I'm totally doing Blaze, Hornbuckle, and Skarlett now. Nimbus set the precedent and now every game I'm gonna have at least one rumor character. 3's will be Tremor and 4's will be Belokk. I probably won't draw Deadly Alliance, Deception, or Armageddon, because they already have two high-detail costumes per character, no redesign needed.

At least you got ideas for Goro.

Good luck on that

Actually, I finished Ermac and Goro yesterday. Working on Shang now. So hopefully you guys will get to see the finished product in a couple days.

Alright so...Shang's done, I'm on Reptile right now and I thought I knew what I wanted to do with him, but I'm having second thoughts.

I was just gonna give him his UMK3 uniform over green scales and it occured to me that since he'll be wearing the same thing when I do the MK3 Primaries, it might be a little boring to use it twice if I don't have to.
I'm also considering a sort of scavenger in rags look, like since Shang treats him like crap and makes him live at the bottom of the pit, he put together an outfit from the clothes the corpses on the spikes were wearing. But I'm not entirely sure how that should look.

Plus, Reptile is the hardest guy to design in a way that pleases the fanbase, they always want something done different.

So...any requests/recommendations?

I think it would be cool if you kept the rags-idea and mixed it with the bones of those who died by being thrown into the pit-spikes, if you know what I mean. Like a bone-armour combined with the rags.

The ragged clothing sounds good. Yeah, go for that idea.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...the finished product! (Which I have updated in the first post, of course.)

Notes:

Ermac - decided to go with the Arabian look as suggested, combined a bit with my "Warrior Shrine statue" idea.

Goro - A combination of Shokan Prince and General of Outworld. Note the MK champ belt in his hand. Also, the red ribbon in his hair is intended to be the former bandana of the Great Kung Lao and the future bandana of Liu Kang.

Shang - Self-explanatory, I suppose. It's the same as his MKDA alt, because it's what Young Shang wore in the MK1 comic.

Reptile - Went with the "scavenged clothes from the corpses at the bottom of the pit" look. Having some fun with that idea, the belt and pants originally belonged to a certain Street Fighter character. The skull shoulder pad was the head of one of the Goro's Lair Oni, and the red and white war paint is a reference to the stripes the movie version had.

Nimbus - Almost everyone in MK1's based on an actor or character from a movie, right? So for Nimbus, I thought of Apollo Creed from Rocky.

*insert gaping mouth of shock and awe here*

Sir, once again, you have proven yourself, I love them.

I love them all. Great work!! Especialy Goro (I think is the hardest for an alt costume).

Hope soon you start working on the MK2 cast

Mein Gott...

Bloody awesome work.

Excellent work!
I really like this project of yours.
So keep up the good work!

Glad we could help. But are you gonna put MK2 here or in a new thread?

Y'know, I'm not sure. Do you think this thread has gotten too long, that'd be a good idea to make a fresh one for MK2?

I say give it its own thread.

Wow those drawngs and colourings are excellent.

Cant wait for the MK2 cast, and hopefully u might get to a storyline that involves Sareena (or just throw her in somewhere for good measure hehe)

Well I did say I'd eventually go back and do Mythologies.

The reason for that is almost entirely just because I want an excuse to draw Sareena, lol.

Nice. Ive done a few costumes for Sareena here on MKO before and have a ton of ideas Not sure if you will ahve seen them (Im not the best drawer in the world tho lol). Also have one I may post at some point that I made for the MKvsDC contest that didnt happen.

Dude this is awesome! 10/10!!!! Can't wait to see your other work

I made a couple small edits.

Johnny's Shadow Balls now end in an actual ball instead of looking like a ring toss.

Kano now has a tattoo of a black dragon on his arm. I was looking over Proce's versions again and thought "Y'know, that makes sense. People in gangs have gang tattoos."
And Sub-Zero's costume's been modified quite a bit to combine the "Mythologies" look more with details from the MK vs DCU look, particularly the shinguards, as they already are very similar so I figured "why not add more detail?" and the symbols on the uniform, which I always wanted to do differently colored and couldn't get to look right 'till now.
Also, I've got a few MK2 characters done and I think I can keep up the pace for a while, so...I'm not promising anything, but you can expect to see the whole cast's primary costumes in...maybe a month or so?