Rufus (Street Fighter) - Character Design

Character Design

While previous Street Fighter titles relied almost solely on Capcom's Research and Development branch, the development team instead allowed other branches of the company to give input on the design of new characters, due to the influx of fan requests from outside of Japan. Rufus was designed based upon marketing research on what sorts of characters an American audience would enjoy playing, and was one of several characters considered for inclusion during the game's development.

Designed by Daigo Ikeno, Rufus was initially intended to be a bald slender African American male wearing martial artist robes named "King Cobra", meant to be a more acrobatic counterpart to series characters Ryu and Ken and voiced by Wataru Hatano. His fighting style was intended to be "breakung-fu", mixing elements of kung fu with breakdancing, which they perceived as a fad in the United States at the time, and Ikeno developed the character's concept around it. Midway through the process of recording the character's lines, however, art director Takashi Kamei proposed that they have the character be overweight, an idea Ikeno agreed with. As a result, the design was gradually changed completely, becoming more obese and turned into a blonde, long haired white male, a design which Ikeno later admitted was in fact rushed. The changed appearance surprised many of Capcom's staff members, including Hatano, who remarked "Wait, is that my character?" Rufus final appearance was chosen over his initial design because the developers felt he would "freak people out". Street Fighter IV's executive producer Yoshinori Ono likened his inclusion to that of Blanka in Street Fighter II, noting that Rufus' "over-the-top" design was intended to help set the game apart from the "really cool-looking but ultimately bland" characters of Tekken and Virtua Fighter.

In an interview, Ono noted they made Rufus intentionally silly, adding that he could be called an "American Dan" in terms of being a joke character in the game's roster. He later referred to Rufus as "quite grotesque to look at" when describing the new characters for the game. When asked about comparisons between Rufus and Bob, a character introduced by Namco for their Tekken series around the same time, Ono emphasized that the characters were different in many regards, and while Bob represented a "cool fat guy", Rufus represented a "weird fat guy". Other Capcom staff members including community manager Seth Killian have received the character warmly, noting Rufus as their favorite new character in the series.

Street Fighter IV sound director Masayuki Endou developed the character's musical theme for the title with a "freewheeling spirit" in mind due to Rufus's motorcycle and personality, utilizing an American drummer and drum set for parts of the theme. Feeling it would be an interesting approach, Hatano's recorded voice samples to be incorporated into the character's background music. The development team agreed, feeling that his voice gave the character presence and fit Rufus' overall image.