I love everything about it but the mismatched socks.Definitely prefer Isla's design
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2021 has been a great year for female character design
- Thread starter Automagical
- Start date
This is my absolute biggest pet peeve in character design, as someone who's into fashion it always stuck out to me.
X-men's Emma Frost was the first time I've seen that, where the character was meant to care about how they look and present themselves but their outfits are very aesthetically ugly.
There was a good Twitter thread I saw once - I wish I could find - about how a lot of nerd culture point of reference when it comes to fashion is other parts of nerd culture.
It's SO bad!!! Oh man. A fashion designer wearing stuff that literally looks like it works as striptease/clubwear instead.
Then that fanart comes along and makes you want to claw the screen for it.
Like, thanks I hate it. The current KoF outfit would look good on no one and they're trying to tell me she digs in fashion. lol
Hell, the fanart even manages to show cleavage in good taste! The need for some games to IMMEDIATELY jump to the most exposing outfit tells me far too many producers have their idea of "what's sexy" operating on caveman levels.
The fan design is so fucking superior on every level it hurts.
Huuuurts.
I don't think this was in the original show, but I'm always appreciative of a Police Squad reference.The design was even worse than I expected in motion... and then the voice kicked in. It's just embarrasing, LMAO.
Cortana never had any issues. Her design in Halo 4 was also modeled entirely off of her mocap actress.
I agree, which is why it was such a shame they had a few moments of weirdness, especially with Alva.A shoutout to Sam, Alva, and Isabel from the indie Action-Adventure game Eastward. In a game where the cast is oozing with character and personality (even silent protagonist John leaves a strong impression), you also have some of the coolest female characters that leave a strong impression long after you complete the game. I would list more, but I would do a great disservice for you to not check out this lovely little game.
Errr.
The face wasn't the problem (in fact, 343 animated her beautifully). I like some of the patterning of her outfit (the digital-like aesthetic is cool) but she's basically wearing a "digital body suit" –and she looks damn near nude. Master Chief is head-to-toe in armor, but Cortana's tits are arbitrarily exposed, and features moving lights running along her body (your eyes will more likely follow along) (her biggest glowing glyph is literally between her tits lol).
Newer designs have done great to get rid of that. Halo 2 even added 'armpit folds' to make it seem more like a proper body suit, and gets rid of the "digital glows" running along her body to something more stationary (and again, but unlike the above, your eyes are going to be drawn to her face than ogling her body).
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Alex Chen (Life Is Strange: True Colors) obviously needs to be mentioned here. And Steph (in the background) as well.
I am gonna go ahead and say this is my favorite character of the year. She's so relatable, real, kind, funny. She's such a well written character, and her visual design is amazing, she's cute yet not sexualized, and her voice actresses, both talkers and singers, fit her to a T.
I fucking love her.
So, absolutely going against some of the grain here but Bungie having like 90% of the main characters over the last year be fem is fantastic, as well as some absolutely breathtaking character designs.
Maybe I'm weird idfk
I thought it was really cool, especially the non-human characters.
Man Halo 4 Cortana was really just awful.Errr.
The face wasn't the problem (in fact, 343 animated her beautifully). I like some of the patterning of her outfit (the digital-like aesthetic is cool) but she's basically wearing a "digital body suit" – and she looks damn near nude. Master Chief is head-to-toe in armor, but Cortana's tits are arbitrarily exposed, and has moving lights the run along her body (your eyes will more likely follow along) (her biggest glowing glyph is literally between her tits lol).
Newer designs have done great to get rid of that. Halo 2 even added 'armpit folds' to make it seem more like a proper body suit, and gets rid of the "digital glows" running along her body to something more stationary (and again, but unlike the above, your eyes are going to be drawn to her face than ogling her body).
I know these aren't 2021, but Destiny doesn't get enough praise for it's female characters (many of whom are not only well designed, but also some of the most powerful characters in the game):
Nah. It totally stands out, as does Aiden from WD1 as much as some people are loathe to admit it. Video games absolutely need more grounded designs like this in AAA, especially from Japanese devs, and I'll take Aiden over the ludicrous mask obsession from WD2 and Legion any day. Too many video game character designs feel the need to peacock to the moon and back, and it just looks silly. I'll never forget this article from Kotaku that asked fashion experts to review some video game character designs - clearly supposed to be a joke but it really drove home the issue of how dumb a lot of video game designs are, and how Aiden was genuinely a good call.
Meanwhile Lightning, Adam Jensen, and Quiet got ripped apart.
I hope this is the final cover art, and not some headshot with a distant shot of a dragon photoshopped in the distance. It just describes her demeanour instead of the game world, which I really like. It's quite striking.This is next year but i love this design
User Banned (Permanent): Dismissing concerns on sexism and colorism over multiple posts; misrepresenting other users. Prior severe bans for dismissing concerns of sexism and racist representation.
MOD EDIT This ban was for misrepresenting other users' concerns of colorism, including implying that these concerns only come from "foreign" members; in addition, the vast majority of users in the linked thread disagreed with the thread premise, which is another misrepresentation.
Now I'm remembering that disgusting thread before FFVIIR came out where we had pages and pages of ppl arguing how Barret wasn't "black enough" because his hair wasn't curly enough, his nose wasn't wide enough, or his skin wasn't dark enough (to some Era members). Can we, like, not keep doing that please? And yes that thread was real. If you want I'll look it up and post a link but I'd rather not have to it it's not necessary. It happened in 2019 sometime after that E3 re-reveal.
EDIT: I don't know why I do this to myself but I looked for said disgusting Barret thread from 2019. It all stemmed from one particular image where an explosion was happening near him that illuminated his face and made him look lighter skinned. It went on for 14 pages and oh boy what went down wasn't pretty. And yes the thread title says "Barret looks white": https://www.resetera.com/threads/fi...ns-are-mad-because-barret-looks-white.117164/
Not Era's finest hour.
Again, there's light skinned Mexicans too living here. I know this because I'm one of them. Everytime I read some random foreign comment with thinly veiled "so and so isn't Mexican enough because their skin is too light" assertions they never fail to rub me the wrong way. I would be banned on the spot, and rightfully so, if I said something like "Ms Marvel from Avengers is too brown to be an American". Issues of colorism aside (which of course exist) there's diversity in skin colors in Mexico too.
Now I'm remembering that disgusting thread before FFVIIR came out where we had pages and pages of ppl arguing how Barret wasn't "black enough" because his hair wasn't curly enough, his nose wasn't wide enough, or his skin wasn't dark enough (to some Era members). Can we, like, not keep doing that please? And yes that thread was real. If you want I'll look it up and post a link but I'd rather not have to it it's not necessary. It happened in 2019 sometime after that E3 re-reveal.
EDIT: I don't know why I do this to myself but I looked for said disgusting Barret thread from 2019. It all stemmed from one particular image where an explosion was happening near him that illuminated his face and made him look lighter skinned. It went on for 14 pages and oh boy what went down wasn't pretty. And yes the thread title says "Barret looks white": https://www.resetera.com/threads/fi...ns-are-mad-because-barret-looks-white.117164/
Not Era's finest hour.
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She's a walking stereotype, though. She's the stereotypical horndog design that would feel at home in Strip Fighter. Imagine if it was Ramón in a thong instead of her, lol.
Naw, and that's definitely true. Just at first sight, or unless someone told me, her being Mexican wouldn't have been my Top 10 immediate choices (largely, again, cuz the boots and denim threw me off) (actually it was the name that immediately tipped me off to her Hispanic background). I do like that KoF tends to feature a unique variety of designs that don't make their origins readily apparent; whereas Street Fighter makes a lot of its nationality allusions so obvious it almost takes the fun out of it.
Yeah that too. KoF is really struggling to update designs in a fashionable way (this goes for the guys too).
Not Aloy, I'm talking about the Returnal woman he referred to who is literally just.. the actress scanned. I find it quite odd if someone yells "bad design" when it's literally a real human being that is being talked about.
Oh but the explained themselves so well right after
You wanted me to explain less lol
If you want an actual explanation:
This.
It's the epitome of generic design. Unappealing and uninteresting, nothing special. Just a random old white woman.
Yeah, pretty much. Equating something different (that really should be normal) as 'great' just because it's not lowest common denominator trash probably isn't the angle this thread is going for. Or else this thread might as well be an extension of the sexualized character designs thread.
User banned (1 month): Dismissing concerns around representation and sexualized designs, inflammatory generalisation
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Character design discourse on Era really hasn't evolved beyond the hardline anti-sexualization mindset that seemed to explode in popularity partway into the 7th console generation. Boring, artless shit.
Watching users in this thread parade around the blandest, frumpiest, most unseasoned* outfits as "GrEaT cHaRaCtER dEsIGn" at the expense of some genuinely striking (and usually Japanese) design work is painful.
*Obviously I'm being hyperbolic, but this is a thread where a middle-aged white woman in a space suit is being treated as some sort of artistic revelation, so when in Rome... 🤷🏾♂️
The thing is her character design is only interesting due to the context in where she is put in, mainly as the main character in a AAA game. Outside of that context she would be treated as a random side character.
So the character and what is being done with them is intriguing and novel to me but the design itself is basically the opposite of that. Though I wouldn't call it bad either, it's well-made and fits what the game is trying to do. This absolute generic-ness that clashes with these crazy worlds is something you don't see too often.
You said she was brown skin a few pages back which is it?
So here is a half naked one?
That "just an old woman" is based on a real person you weirdos. realistic games benefit from actor likeness. Considering how few older women there are starring in big games no, I don't think that counts as generic.
Random forumgoer calls professional character designers "artless" and proclaims their tastes are more evolved because they can see passed all the pandering. Quality shit right here.
Random forumgoer calls professional character designers "artless" and proclaims their tastes are more evolved because they can see passed all the pandering. Quality shit right here.
Yeah, character design discourse is going to get interesting as more real people are scanned into games.
Women can't be middle aged or look normal, they have to look attractive and with weird sexualized attires. Meanwhile men..
We've been over 30? Years than an incredibly shit ton of female characters in videogamera weren't just allowed to look normal while male characters couls, so yeah, in this medium, a normal looking female character is actually more creative than one fighting around in her undies.
Btw I'm all for arty designs, but let's be real, are some people really too? Look at that KOF character from the last page vs a fan art design, the fan art design is truly the artsy one, not the real one. That shit is more generic in the videogame medium than any woman in a space suit.
We've been over 30? Years than an incredibly shit ton of female characters in videogamera weren't just allowed to look normal while male characters couls, so yeah, in this medium, a normal looking female character is actually more creative than one fighting around in her undies.
Btw I'm all for arty designs, but let's be real, are some people really too? Look at that KOF character from the last page vs a fan art design, the fan art design is truly the artsy one, not the real one. That shit is more generic in the videogame medium than any woman in a space suit.
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I maintain that she's brown albeit of lighter skin tone but I said I didn't want to get dragged down into this debate anymore. Fact of the matter is there's Mexicans with her skin tone. We're not all one color.
Yes. But not because she's half naked but because she's a playable female Mexican fighter in a videogame which as far as I know she's the only one in the entire goddamn world so yeah, I'm not tired of her because there's not enough of characters like her for me to get tired of yet. Like I said we have our small share of Mexican fighters but they're always male and almost always masked luchadores so forgive me for cutting her some major slack since she's A) not male and B) not wearing a luchador mask.
Ángel is a bottle of water in the desert. It's slim pickings here. I wish I had more choices to choose from but right now she's the only fucking choice we have. Is that too difficult to understand?
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How is she fucking old? She looks like she's in her early 40s at most. I don't remember Joel being called old (not that people claimed he's a spring chicken) and at a guess he's 5-10 years older.
She isn't just "generic" she looks grim, determined, experienced, with fitting hairdo, everything fits her backstory and situation perfectly. It's excellent design to me when it manages to portray realistic looking human being without sliding into uncanny valley (Naughty Dog is also excellent at this, while some great studios don't quite hit the mark).
She isn't just "generic" she looks grim, determined, experienced, with fitting hairdo, everything fits her backstory and situation perfectly. It's excellent design to me when it manages to portray realistic looking human being without sliding into uncanny valley (Naughty Dog is also excellent at this, while some great studios don't quite hit the mark).
People posted while I was writing, right under the post that called Selene an old woman. The hell?
While the design is not really mindblowing, I did like The Eagle from Ghost of Tushima as an evil shaman who converts people into her tribe by forcing them to face their fears. Kinda continues that theme from the main gain where the invaders think they are noble and justified. she's also a pretty sweet fight.
Also what the hell at Selene being old she looks like shes in her 30s possibly 40s but that's not 'old woman'. Gaming doesn't have enough old ladies but old men are totally cool and everywhere. Gears of War has some and honestly I loved Lennox from Evolve for being a badass old woman.
Also what the hell at Selene being old she looks like shes in her 30s possibly 40s but that's not 'old woman'. Gaming doesn't have enough old ladies but old men are totally cool and everywhere. Gears of War has some and honestly I loved Lennox from Evolve for being a badass old woman.
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Ah, right, the subtle laugh lines really transform this latest skinny, white female character into a win for representation. Truly groundbreaking stuff.
Give me a break.
Hope you didn't tire yourself out taking down that strawman!
Yep, this is exactly why I dislike threads like these. You basically get a bunch of generic stuff praised to high heaven just because they aren't sexualized. Like I don't think that design for the Returnal woman is bad, but great character design? Ehh. And much like certain male designs, I'm also not really into designs being posted that aren't much different than what I can wear on any given day.
I usually try to avoid this topic because I don't think I'm equipped to handle it properly and based on this response and everyone else I think it's the best I don't from now on.
Just to clarify for everyone I didn't mean to say only Muslim women suffer under patriarchy. I thought this would be obvious in my original post but on retrospect we get so many dishonest people on this website that I really should have been more thorough.
I'm still not a fan of the hijab nor do I like celebrating it as a symbol of "feminism" because some women have chosen to wear BUT this is a discussion for Muslim women to have amongst themselves and not for my dumb ass to weigh on.
In general it feels like we have moved on from angry white man to angry white woman, with almost all of the other artistic trends I criticized about 7-8th gen still being stagnant, and are expected to praise it as a step forward.
The standout for me isn't really Selene, but Juliana. She's grounded but has a charismatic flair you'd like to see from a vg protag.
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Yeah, she fits the narrative perfectly. It's refreshing to see such a normal looking person in a game.
I'm not even sure what great character design means really. Does it need to be outlandish to some? What I do know is that Selene is definitely a great character.
Great character design, art and design in general, isn't restricted to the absurd or extraordinary. There is beauty in being able realize a design more tangible and familiar, something can evoke a relatability that more fantastical designs can't. They don't need to be immediately striking to be excellent.
Great environmental art isn't restricted to lands of fantasy, being able to reproduce the beauty of a realistic environment is just as worthy of praise. Forza is just as great as Final Fantasy.
The same is true for people and characters.
Doesn't make the character design itself great. But art is subjective so if you like generic stuff and consider it great then I can't really disagree there.
Imagine calling this generic just because the woman in question is blond.
In a medium where we don't get a lot of sci-fi games in general when it comes to the mainstream. Let alone anything along the lines of Returnal. Good character design is not just about the face of the character. Which, given that we're talking about a scan of a real person, shouldn't matter. Even less so because how many characters look like this again?
Looks like a random space suit if you ask me. It's really nothing special. Just there and functioning as intended which is to be generic.Imagine calling this generic just because the woman in question is blond.
In a medium where we don't get a lot of sci-fi games in general when it comes to the mainstream. Let alone anything along the lines of Returnal. Good character design is not just about the face of the character.
EDIT:
Apologies for the role I may have played in making the tone in this thread more hostile. I admittedly wasn't in the greatest mood when I made my original post earlier on the page, and I got heated when another user snarkily replied with a bad-faith interpretation of that post.
I still stand behind the general sentiment of my posts, but I could have expressed myself a bit better. Now that my head's a bit cooler, I'll be bowing out. ✌🏾
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Cool, now tell the opposite to everyone on this forum who regularly shits on absurd (again, often Japanese) character designs for not toeing the line when it comes to "practicality", sexualization, and "good representation".
There's plenty of room for character design of all types, but users of this forum (and in this thread) are practically on autopilot when it comes to shitting on character design that emphasizes spectacle, personality, and sexuality (often speaking for marginalized people and making suspect generalizations about artists from certain regions in the process). There's no nuance. It's just the same knee-jerk dismissals that we've been hearing for 10+ years now. It's wack, binary thinking that does a disservice to the care and creativity the artists put into the work. Like I said in the post you quoted: it's boring, artless thinking, and I'll happily continue to shit on it.
Apologies for the role I may have played in making the tone in this thread more hostile. I admittedly wasn't in the greatest mood when I made my original post earlier on the page, and I got heated when another user snarkily replied with a bad-faith interpretation of that post.
I still stand behind the general sentiment of my posts, but I could have expressed myself a bit better. Now that my head's a bit cooler, I'll be bowing out. ✌🏾
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Cool, now tell the opposite to everyone on this forum who regularly shits on absurd (again, often Japanese) character designs for not toeing the line when it comes to "practicality", sexualization, and "good representation".
There's plenty of room for character design of all types, but users of this forum (and in this thread) are practically on autopilot when it comes to shitting on character design that emphasizes spectacle, personality, and sexuality (often speaking for marginalized people and making suspect generalizations about artists from certain regions in the process). There's no nuance. It's just the same knee-jerk dismissals that we've been hearing for 10+ years now. It's wack, binary thinking that does a disservice to the care and creativity the artists put into the work. Like I said in the post you quoted: it's boring, artless thinking, and I'll happily continue to shit on it.
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Compare that suit to literally what the average space suit looks like in video games. When Metroid, Mass Effect, and Halo are the golden starndard for space suits, one much much more grounded sticks out by default especially when it comes to the use of colors. It's the same reason why Morgan from Prey stands out.
Care to post an example of what you believe is a character design that emphasizes the "sexuality?" of a character?
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People in this very thread unanimously agreed on Lady Dimitrescu being a great design for example. Pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to argue she doesn't emphasize spectacle, personality, and sexuality. I usually see people going hard defending "sexualized for no reason" designs way more on this site than what you've described, but I guess it just is a matter of perspective and which threads we tend to click on.
I definitely agree with you, though, that "generic white woman" shouldn't be the norm we strive for. Unfortunately right now "generic looking woman" (dropped the "white" here, since people were also calling the Forespoken protagonist generic in this thread) is quite different from what you usually see in games, which makes it stand out.
The 1st pic just shows what we're all saying, generic design. It's not just about the face as you're implying. It's the general appeal. When I look at this, I don't think 'whoa look at this character! Seems interesting. What's the story behind this character? I want to find out and play the game!'
Instead I'm thinking 'meh, random woman with a random ass space suit. Go on.'
Funny that you picked the 2nd pic because that shot is so horrible and underlines how unappealing the design is. They showed that shot a billion times in the PS showcases and I was shaking my head the whole time (even worse that the animation in that scene is so off). Even a closeup like that where you don't see the random space suit is just generic.
You can do realistic design and still be appealing. There are a lot of games that do that. This one however does not at all. Looks more like a random NPC in a space game.