Banzai! This is the end of The Lost Children series for now.
I was a Human Smoke hyper fan in Midway Boards in 2006-2010 and in Mortal Kombat Online in Q1 2011 hoping to bring this specific character back one way or another. Midway Boards had forum members from the MK team and it was a good place to get your message noticed.
This is one of my concepts for Human Smoke I drew in 2007. The grey hair is similar to Sub-Zero’s MKD alt hair and it also emits smoke here just as Frost’s hair emits vapor. A funny coincidence is that out of all the characters that Mortal Kombat has had through all these years, Smoke turned out to be the European one, rocking with kind of a heavy metal look especially in his ending. His first Fatality resembles me of the piranhasoldier’s iteration shown in YouTube before the release. Knowing that Smoke was one of the last - if not the last - characters made to the core cast, piranhasoldier probably inspired NeRdS with that. There is a strong connection between this design and the MK9 design for Smoke.

I know that at least Cage_7015 (Cage’s tattoo, brown hair, etc.) and Sindella (Sindel’s scream ball motion) from Midway Boards came up with ideas for their own favorites that became real in MK9. Some ideas suggested in MKO became real in MK9 as well. They really did take us fans into account this time, in the design department surely. That’s wonderful. Feel free to make your own conclusions nonetheless.
P.S. The belt buckle was actually inspired by the logo of Mazda.

^ Dude that's awesome! You should actually feel accomplished.

By the way, I am for one loving the hair.

Actually, I believe MK2011 Smoke is based on one of my old sprite edits. I had a bunch of MK3 Unmasked Sub-Zero edits, with different armors & belt patterns.

I called one of the blue ones, Fubuki, and made pallette swaps by manually mapping Sub-Zero's color because I only use Paint. I never liked the design, along with some comments, because I thought the MKII quilted crotchflap looked wierd with the MK3 armor torso. The hair they gave him can be seen on me in my avatar. Also, Cyber Sub-Zero's sword looks similar to one of my weapon sprites. Old weapons topic I've lost the original sheets, but here's some Scorpion versions: Old topic mentioning them



Ka-Tra

Wait, so ur saying the new Smoke was based on a sprite you made and the hair is from your avatar?

Shang's crotch flap is similar to the border of my K flag.
Also, during story mode, someone makes a statement similar to Kung Lao in Feudal Realms 24
"You can defeat them, but we wont allow you to kill them."
Cyber Sub-Zero/Reptile are fan made from Mugen/ MKP

It's cool how much, we as fans, have influence over our beloved series.

I give away million dollar ideas for free. I sent a bunch of ideas to Gamefreak that made it into B/W, promising I didn't want moneys.

I'm fairly certain someone on the iCarly writing team is either a fan of mine, knows me or someone who knows me, or they have cameras hidden on me.
Sam Puckett seems heavily based on me.



Ka-Tra

You do know, that you can't state these things for a fact. More importantly, do you have the actual picture of Smoke to which you were referring?

No I don't have the original set, I lost them years ago. There were more variants than the yellow ones shown, in several pallettes.

I'm not saying they stole it or anything. It's just a fun coincidence. I don't care about money, and everyone is pretty much free to use my works, which they do.

The MK team has used other people's ideas aswell. Ask around, other members see their influence on the series.


Remember, Ermac started as a fan rumor...



Ka-Tra

Frankly, I have suggested many other things too - now that we're at it - for instance I have campaigned on Shang Tsung's ability to morph into his opponent in normal gameplay which finally happened just recently.
So you don't actually have the set where your statement is based on but you claim that The Smoke is solely based on your edit? You're free to make your own judgments for sure, but could it not be that actually both of our edits - without knowledge of each other back then - would have inspired the MK developers?? Why should another one be ruled out?

I must put emphasis on the fact that I even sent multiple messages to a developer in Midway Boards to put the real Human Smoke into Armageddon, then into Mortal Kombat 8 and finally created multiple pro Human Smoke topics in Midway Boards and Mortal Kombat Online - so these my ideas of Smoke had a fair possibility of being seen by them.
Verdict: As I don't know the amount of attention your Smoke art received, which I do believe you still drew, there is a fair possibility that actually both of our artworks got into some limelight and under the eyes and eyebrows of Ed Boner and the company. Grandfather Smoke shall be victorious!

I can only respect that. Too few people respect crazy innovators and creative people, but I'm glad that you're still one. Seeing that you come up with that many ideas, as do I I think, one of your thousand ideas might be a life changer to yourself, one day. It's all about your choices ultimately. ツ