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Future Rider Project: Kamen Rider Marionette, 2070 — Description
So I'm really enjoying Zi-O, and one of my favourite incidental things about the series is the future Riders. Not only do I like the concept of using cool ideas for Rider themes that wouldn't necessarily carry a whole series (and thus, a whole toyline) as one-offs to flesh out the mythos, I also really enjoy that they reuse parts from old suits in creative and unique ways! So I thought, "that seems like a fun creative exercise", and that's what this project is about! I'll be designing Riders from the far flung alternate futures of Zi-O, as well as coming up with their civilian forms, which I haven't done before now! Hope you enjoy what I come up with!

This time, the idea for the theme came from my IRL friend who also is big into KR. We'd been brainstorming good suits from Rider's past to reuse as new characters, and he came up with a puppet/puppeteer/doll theme! I fell in love with it, and injected the idea with some of my signature gothic charm to give her something of a skeletal motif. Thus, Kamen Rider Marionette was born!
Her story goes like this: in the year 2070, life is tough on anyone who isnt the 1%. People struggle to get by, but that's life, right? Not to 19 year old Mari Shirogane. Born with a rigid sense of right and wrong, Mari has never been able to ignore the suffering around her. Working as an activist, she discovered the government's sinister plot to use cybernetics and dark magic to convert the "undesirables" of the lower classes into super-powered enforcers for the elite called Puppets. Before she could blow the whistle on this conspiracy, however, she was abducted and subjected to the same horrible experiments she was trying to prevent. But, her indomitable will won out, and she escaped her would-be slavers with a piece of prototype support equipment, dubbed the Ningyo Driver. Now, she uses her dark gifts in the fight against evil. She is Kamen Rider Marionette!

Get set, Marionette!
No strings on me...!

...So yeah pretty standard showa Rider stuff.
Now, unlike GoGo, Marionette was designed as a suit reuse from the get-go, and I'm quite proud of the bits and pieces i scrapped together! The majority of the suit is a reuse of the Mage suit from Kamen Rider Wizard, with some standard Wizard boots to slim down the design. There's some extra ribcage-like bands added onto the chest piece, of course, but the main deviation is in the helmet, which actually reuses the helmet from the Ninja Players from Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: True Ending! Taking a leaf out of Quiz's book, the flat "eye" part of the helmet has been painted over with a 2D face design, based on a porcelain doll mixed with a skull - complete with painted pink blush!
The colour scheme, as I imagine it, is based on a nutcracker. Her "coat" is a deep red with the ribcage bands in white and the cuffs detailed in gold. Her legs are black, with similar gold details on the boot cuffs. Her helmet is a pearl white all over, maybe some details in black and gold for a bit of extra punch? I'm not sure, but I know it'd look dope.

As far as the thought put into her plainclothes, I wanted something in a gothic/punk style that still allowed for freedom of movement. The high-waist black leggings with the white high-neck crop top is a good combo, and the flannel tied around the waist gives her some real sapphic energy. The high-heeled boots aren't the most practical thing in the world, but sometimes you gotta sacrifice for the aesthetic! We've all been there.

Only other thing I feel is worth mentioning is that the year she becomes a rider, 2070, is exactly a 100 years after the debut of the Skull Man manga in 1970. I figured it would be appropriate given her skeletal gothic look and the showa sensibilities in her backstory.

But yeah, I'm really proud of this one! Let me know what you think, and maybe try out designing a future Rider of your own!