Line Drake up next to a bunch of other characters and you'd see how his posing and design conveys that he's Drake. He's incredibly recognizable for a reason. Hence his silhouette sticks out.
Read above.
Read above.
Is there such a thing as an objectively bad character design?
- Thread starter Cinemikel
- Start date
I believe so, yes.
I made this thread to separate the discussion from the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 threads.
A good design is something that communicates relevant information to the user. It either represents the character's personality, character's role in the story, services just to function in an environment, or ties into metaphorical and symbolic nature.
Her outfit does literally none of these things. What does this outfit tell you about her character or background? In the game there is no single sign of any acknowledgement to her outfit. It even goes so far as to go against logic with her body mostly being open to attacks. It's not functional. The only thing is that it has the same color scheme and has sharp corners, like the blade.
I consider it an objectively bad design. People can still like bad designs. You can enjoy bad movies just like you can not enjoy good movies. But does your opinion change the fact that it's still a good or bad movie?
I'm only talking about the character designs. Character design /= art style
Thoughts?
Nah, Pyra's awesome. Great fantasy magical girl design. Maybe she is considered "horrible" from a serious real world standpoint, where you try in place her in a real world scenario or try and figure out the viability of those kinds of clothes, or judge her against real world PC standards but JRPG's are above all else- usually fantasy stories with fantasy characters. To my eyes, Pyra looks great- an awesome hot fantasy girl worth going on an epic quest for (if I were Rex, or any other plucky young hero in a JRPG). That is the great thing about fantasy- anything is possible! Hence why the JRPG has always been by favorite genre.
So, to the original question posed, no Pyra isn't objectively bad. Maybe subjectively to whose who just don't like the style, or simply tend to bristle whenever there is sex appeal in a character design, but for plenty of us, Pyra's design is quite sublime. I don't have expectations of realism when it comes to a JRPG series world that typically takes place on the back of giant freaking robots. Its all about the fantasy here.
Wanted to come back to this. It varies heavily from location to location. Speaking personally, students are generally required to take visual art classes up through the first semester of high school, but art criticism and art history were never prominent components until well past the point where classes were mandatory.
Pyra's literally the humanoid manifestation of a sword who was found in a stasis tube in traditional mysterious-anime-girl fashion. We have no idea how long she was conscious after she was forged. Manifested. Pulled out of a crystal. Whatever. Rex is implied to be a young orphan trying to make his way in the world as a diver and salvager alongside the... small living island who adopted him. I don't think he's been given an official age but characterization I've seen would put him around the standard shonen anime protagonist age of 14-16.
We've known the 2 main characters look like trash for a long while now, I can live with it if rest of the game is good, which is looking likely at this point
If you have to put window dressing on your design to "age" it, I'd say there's something objectively wrong about that.
But this probably isn't the thread for that topic. Don't want to derail it.
Principle #5. FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION
When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through.
Not that it can't be taken too far obviously like in DoA
Agree to disagree as far as the posing presented in that image goes.
You don't need to put a character in the real world to ponder about the viability of their design. Fantasy does not automatically mean everything is fine and nothing needs to make sense, that's lazy thinking from a design standpoint when a lot of these designs aren't anything resembling abstract art. See this artwork from the character designer of Gravity Rush, an incredibly fantastical series:
He's incredibly recognizable for a reason. I very much doubt anyone who saw that image was immediately confused about who he was.
"K.I.S.S" aka "Keep It Simple, Stupid!" was a design philosophy I was taught in art school in my character design courses. In general, I'd say that's a pretty good rule of thumb.
Could Pyra be improved if you removed like 40% of her bells and whistles? I think so. Does she really need ALL that stuff on her?
And again, I think they tried to hide her large breasts with some color contrast.
Dare I say this is sort of a creative way of doing this.
Ps. How old are Rex and Pyra? I'm gonna say 15 or 16 tops. Going by looks they could both pass for 14. Going by Japanese..."culture" I'm gonna guess they look young but are supposed to be older.
What are their official ages?
that stupid wincing emote...
that "hands over chest somberly looking down" pose...
i can already hear her whiny little voice....i can already read her textbook "im not from this world so tell me why things are this way" dialogue....
I might actually skip this game
You don't need to put a character in the real world to ponder about the viability of their design. Fantasy does not automatically mean everything is fine and nothing needs to make sense, that's lazy thinking from a design standpoint when a lot of these designs aren't anything resembling abstract art. See this artwork from the character designer of Gravity Rush, an incredibly fantastical series:
A rare step in character development
"so how exactly is this character supposed to put this outfit on every day"
There is no hill to die on, because I am objectively correct.
Art is free from all restrains even if you find some things disgusting, revolting, horrific or whatever else. Why? Because art harms nobody, it is all fictional. This is one of the reasons you can't file a suit against somebody because the person might think about doing something against the law, because it is just a thought, something fictional. If he actually does something, rape, murder, stealing, etc. , then you have an actual case. Before that you are innocent!
Fiction /= Reality
Thought /= Action
/= (means "does not equal")
You may not personally like it and that is totally okay. I personally don't like the rape scenes in Game of Thrones either yet many love them even if they may feel uncomfortable. But that is their personal opinion and my personal opinion.
I could write the most depraved stuff for a murder or a rape scene and nobody could do anything because it is all fictional. You may find it disgusting but that has nothing to do with how art should be "regulated".
Sidenote:
It is a harpy, a monster, a heteromorph if you will and nothing that even comes close to reality.
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The characters and character designs in Xenoblade 2 are the reason I'm not getting the game, even though I loved the first.
Pyra has a downright awful design as far as I'm concerned. Most of the blades do. It almost mystifies me that people see something in Pyra particularly, but then, the most common defense I'm seeing is literally "well I think that sword gurl looks mad hot", well fuck, y'all aren't self aware enough to think for a moment that that might be telling?
Pyra has a downright awful design as far as I'm concerned. Most of the blades do. It almost mystifies me that people see something in Pyra particularly, but then, the most common defense I'm seeing is literally "well I think that sword gurl looks mad hot", well fuck, y'all aren't self aware enough to think for a moment that that might be telling?
An insane amount of work tends to go into even the most outlandish designs to ensure that they'd actually be wearable, yeah. It's not uncommon for the artbooks and design sketches of even the most outlandish, anime-as-all-getout stuff to include breakdowns of how the weird outfits actually work. Fantasy as a genre often plays up outlandish stuff, but everything tends to fall apart if it doesn't at least try to maintain some semblance of internal coherence in its weirdness.
...If anything realistic practicality for at least a few hours of real-world wear is probably one of the great unifiers here, because if Pyra's design couldn't actually be worn by a real human it'd fundamentally fail on the cosplay circuit.
I mean, I think that's the most honest response one could possibly give. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with pandering to a specific subculture demo as long as one recognizes the losses, like yourself, that are going to occur as a result of doing it.
The blades are a result of taking a bunch of prominent artists from varied backgrounds, but backgrounds exclusively within the otaku subculture, and letting them do whatever they want respective to their own interests and aesthetic sense, with no concerns for house style or international markets. It doesn't surprise me that it'd cause some whiplash, especially for people who didn't grow up on anime. Personally, I think it's interesting to see some of the absolute madness that resulted from artists who are often more restrained in their other contracted work, but there's a lot of room to put people off when you let a huge stable of designers who're part of a niche subculture go completely wild for a relatively mainstream product.
If anything I think that's the more interesting discussion here. Saito was chosen because past Xeno games had extreme difficulty transitioning designs from 2D to 3D and he had just done the designs for a 3D film that was by most accounts extremely successful at achieving the same (and also produced an iconic cosplay character).
I have to wonder whether it was the best decision for the international market to dig so deep into the anime otaku subculture, but I guess ultimately these games are made for the domestic market first, so perhaps it wasn't even a concern.
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Reading this thread further I'm coming to a conclusion that I wouldn't want to live in a world where Ga...cough... ResetEra users are character designers in games and other media. It would be unbelievably boring.
Also I'm rolling my eyes at people almost religiously touting the silhouette test as some be-all and end-all of character design. It reeks of some "I read one article on character design and now I'm an expert" attitude.
Also I'm rolling my eyes at people almost religiously touting the silhouette test as some be-all and end-all of character design. It reeks of some "I read one article on character design and now I'm an expert" attitude.
congratulations, you've cracked the code
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That's better than this notion - "I've never understood design or had a desire to, but have always considered myself an expert... I've seen a lotta anime in my time" - exuded by all of the people who waltz into these threads only to talk shit on how boring everyone else is because they think some shit is overdesigned.
No. There are schools of thought on what makes a design good or bad, but there's no one size fits all so it's all subjective in the end.
I personally like the XB2 designs.
I personally like the XB2 designs.
I just like to imagine everyday situations in which said outfit would become impractical.
not even for combat...just for general comfort.
And you'd be wrong.
Just letting you know, arguing this point is worthless because you cannot win from this angle.
An image isn't a silhouette, and the posing isn't very unique. To me he's recognizable, but that's as a direct result of someone shoving full images and videos in my face via advertising to ensure I knew the UC series existed. Given the same focus any equally nondescript character could take his place. And problematically that image still doesn't tell me any of the things the op suggests good design should tell me.
My recognition of that character is purely driven by Sony repeatedly telling me and showing me who he is and the fact that I can distinguish facial detail with distinctiveness greater than simply white and male. But my definition of his place and role is wholly driven by being explicitly told what those are.
Kat, who was pictured above is a high mobility character that has an outfit that seems like it would come apart or become uncomfortable when moving due to being held in place through compression with her body. Especially since some parts would need to be stiffer to maintain their shape.
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I feel like all the people hating on Pyra's design are hating on it from a "Oh boy another super slim fantasy girl in unrealistic armor. I've complained about that for a few years now and I though the world agreed to move on!" stance, which is more internal than external. Needless to say, the world agreed to no such thing.
For the record, I like it. It feels sufficiently fantasy in its ridiculousness of design, and the colors are good. That's all I ever wanted.
It's not exactly advancing women's rights, but then again I don't think it's trying to.
For the record, I like it. It feels sufficiently fantasy in its ridiculousness of design, and the colors are good. That's all I ever wanted.
It's not exactly advancing women's rights, but then again I don't think it's trying to.
How do human beings come to the conclusion that this is how logic works?
In my subjective opinion, boring is synonymous with bad. It's why I hate 99% of western designs.
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Some like to make the insinuation that if you don't like _______ (flashy char design), it's because you're a dull ass prude, and maybe even an ess jay double yew to boot.
On some level, I appreciate the quoted sentence in your post because it's kind of how I feel (although replace the 'world agreed to move on' bit with 'I assumed Xenoblade's aesthetic would run with and evolve the Xeno aesthetic and not regress things down to 'LOOK AT HOW TALES WE ARE') but most of my dissatisfaction with Pyra's design stems from that I think it's slathered in unnecessary flourishes. My least favorite kind of character design until it's justified well, and in XB2, we all know what the justification is. "Anime fans love fanservice." We can see it in action in this thread. As someone who consumes more anime than most, that shit still ain't even close to interesting to me.
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I agree entirely with this. Dragon's Crown characters design are amazing in their excessiveness.
Their design convey what type of character they are (dwarf, sorceress, elf, amazon, fighter, wizard) and are immediately recognizable, which make them "pop-up" on screen. It helps with the visibility of the action in game which is important since it's a beat 'em up where the screen can get rapidly crowded. It's good chara designs that helps the gameplay imo.
I mean, you can see the blood circulation of the dwarf in direct, how can you not like this:
This is pretty much my thoughts on the subject as well. Well said.
Pretty much agree with this. I don't particularly like it or dislike it, but I think the use of colors on her is pretty good.
well....yeah???
You could put a silhouette of Jesus Christ up and nobody would be able to identify it if you decided to be deliberately nondescript with the pose. it's a character, so the pose counts.
Comparing a T-pose silhouette is a good way to judge the variance of characters within a single works....but if you do that for every character ever made, then judging by silhouette will quickly become pointless. Even SUPER recognizable characters like Sonic the Hedgehog or Mario would blend into a crowd of similar characters if you remove all body language from them.
Pyra's look is interesting and cool on my book. Designs with tons of belts and buckles are my nemesis. I hope this thread doesnt become another outlet for skin shaming on designs. Some people like full armor or clothing with tons of detail, but it should be equally okay to have some attractive designs built in on some characters.
Yes.
JNCO jeans and a "baseball" shirt was a way of life for some in their day.
Just wanted to add a second note. While I don't think a character's aesthetic/design (whatever you wish to call it) tells you all you need to know about a character or needs to (that's just my personal opinion on the matter) I do think that a lot of eastern developers use convoluted or nonsensical reasons to justify their female characters looking ridiculously sexualized, regardless of age, and completely unpractical clothes regardless of setting, theme or genre.
To denote an example of both cases, Tifa from FF7 seems from the offset like the type of ridiculously sexualized character design we've all come to know and expect from eastern games. But once you learn of her character, how she functions in the world itself, where she came from and what her upbringing was and the things she endured, that's the thing that brings value to her as a character. Maybe she was designed in that manner just to appeal to a specific demographic, but she was more than just fan service.
Whereas on the other hand you have a character like Quiet from Metal Gear 5, who has an absurd design and is given a tragic backstory that is one of the most ridiculous convoluted reasons to justify fan service. She has a role in the story and she does have a background but it's hard to take her seriously as a character because of nonsensical reason used to justify her appearance.
I don't understand why, in general, gaming communities tend to be much more critical towards games like Dragon's Crown in which all of the characters were heavily sexualized or had very exaggerated proportions but will give a pass to games that try to excuse the needless sexualization of female characters just to please the gaze of some individuals like Quiet, or most of the female characters in MGS4 or Cindy from Final Fantasy XV who the director famously said wasn't meant to be sexualized:
It confuses me how most of the community will gladly excuse something I view as blatant dishonesty and disrespect (like implying that "outgoing women" are meant to show their underwear and reveal most of their breasts) but make a big fuss about a game like Dragon's Dogma, Bayonetta or Lollipop Chainsaw that use sexuality as tool to fit a theme or a setting and treat it with the same level of exaggeration as the opposite gender and other things in it.
I don't mind sexualized male or female characters in any game, but it upsets me on a personal level when such characters are presented in a dishonest manner.
yes
I will say though that designs being practical and realistic isn't a requirement for me. I love that in Fire Emblem there's maid/butler characters fighting like ninjas with kunai and throwing stars.
This is so awful. I expect there are courses you can go on to learn about character design, and this shit probably commits every cardinal sin for Character Design 101.
Yes.
Y'see, I don't like this but I don't think it's a particularly bad design or anything. It's just a horrendous art style bringing the whole thing down.
The heels, the chain, the size of the weapon, the nonsensical belts, the shields on both arms, the scabbard for yet another normal looking sword
Again, this just does everything wrong. It's overdesigned and way too busy with needless bullshit. Strip away 75% of the nonsense and the ridiculous weapon and he would improve immensely.
Can a mod please move this into the correct (game of the year) thread? thanks!
As for my take, there isn't a single awful character design out there that at least the artist and one other person think is awesome. There was one game I was trying to remember, was a UK developed RPG game back around the N64/PSX era which had terrible terrible amateur anime style character designs. I think it had a male and female lead, the male had really crappy cgi anime red hair.
Perhaps this could be of help to encourage discussion.
There are Principles of Art & Design
and there are Principles of Animation
I'm most familiar with animation principles since that's what I do. So I might be less than knowledgeable about the other principles but here they are
12 Principles of animation- http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_principles.html
Principles of Art & Design https://www.thoughtco.com/principles-of-art-and-design-2578740
Rather than just saying "it looks bad therefore it is bad" or "I don't like it so it's Bad Design" we can point out these principles and how they failed or succeeded in their Art or Design.
There are Principles of Art & Design
and there are Principles of Animation
I'm most familiar with animation principles since that's what I do. So I might be less than knowledgeable about the other principles but here they are
12 Principles of animation- http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_principles.html
- 1 Squash and Stretch
- 2 Anticipation
- 3 Staging
- 4 Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
- 5 Follow Through and Overlapping Action
- 6 Ease In and Ease Out
- 7 Arc
- 8 Secondary Action
- 9 Timing
- 10 Exaggeration
- 11 Solid drawing
- 12 Appeal
Principles of Art & Design https://www.thoughtco.com/principles-of-art-and-design-2578740
Rather than just saying "it looks bad therefore it is bad" or "I don't like it so it's Bad Design" we can point out these principles and how they failed or succeeded in their Art or Design.
The nitty gritty of how an outfit comes together isn't rare at all actually. It matters quite a bit.
Even if a character is wearing lots of equipment
Or isn't:
at a glance, you can see exactly how this is constructed:
or even other artists can when constructing breakdowns:
so yea a breakdown of all the elements of a design, including implying or directly showing how a character gets dressed, is definitely an incredibly important aspect.
Scalebound is a Japanese game.....
Yes an insane amount of work goes into everything naturally as iteration is incredibly common in art but at the same time I don't think whether or not something is cosplayable is the basis for whether or not a design is bad. As I'm 100% sure cosplay even exists for that JRPG character that borders on parody with how overdesigned it is.
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Your entitled to your opinion, we are entitled to ours. I think its nuts to skip whats shaping up to be a great epic game in a series you profess to love over the design of magical fantasy sword girl, but that's up to you (and anyone of a similar mindset).
And I don't really care about how a character gets dressed- that is mundane real world thinking- I get dressed every work day for business and its a fucking boring slog, so that don't concern me where a videogame character's outfit is concerned. Again, where gaming is generally concerned, I'm here for the fantasy. I think in the end, we'll all just agree to disagree here. Obviously, everyone likes what they like, and doesn't like what they don't- Yes, it is a very SUBJECTIVE thing, so that's all there is too it.
Absolutely. Silhouette is the first thing any character designer thinks about, and ND artists are some of the best there are. They can convey a lot without using wacky shapes.
Interesting detail. Maybe I'm going too hard. Sometimes that happens, when you find out about a sequel to one of your favorite games only to discover that you really, really don't like the new aesthetic.
Xenoblade 2 maybe isn't for me. It hurts to say that when Xenoblade 1 sure as hell was. but I'm starting to understand how they landed on this visual direction, and it probably won't do much to dissuade their core audience, quite the opposite I'm sure.
I was just speaking generally. Japanese games can have boring design too. I find Solid Snake boring.
yes
I will say though that designs being practical and realistic isn't a requirement for me. I love that in Fire Emblem there's maid/butler characters fighting like ninjas with kunai and throwing stars.
I actually liked Nooj's design. Well, I only saw his head and upper torso at first, and my opinion dropped when I saw the rest of him, but I did think he looked cool.
Do i deserve to be banned for this? lol.
Fuck me, I forgot how bad he looked.
Although in general I hate most of the aesthetic of the FFX games.
OP
OP
One example of a good design:
A character who's look/design reflects on purpose. He wears that outfit because it is fitting for a fight. Why is his hair like that? Because it is tied to his nature as "Spring man", forming a coil spring in his hair. Let's not also forget his arms are springs which also services the gameplay as well. His shirt design is based on his emblem for competitions. It also silhouettes well, and has great color scheme as a bonus.
But the most important thing is that his design overall reflects on what he is supposed to be and do.
I like the girl in the OP. She won't be remembered in five years time as an example of groundbreaking character design, but that's fine. She has an odd-looking sword and some sort of electrical power/crystal in her armour and that tells me all I need to know - we're going on some futuristic action-filled adventure.
As for poor designs, I'm glad Knack was brought up in this thread. He is completely unappealing to look at. I can't really put my finger on why, apart from just pointing out how ugly he is. Nooj is another good example. Overcomplicated for the sake of being overcomplicated.
As for poor designs, I'm glad Knack was brought up in this thread. He is completely unappealing to look at. I can't really put my finger on why, apart from just pointing out how ugly he is. Nooj is another good example. Overcomplicated for the sake of being overcomplicated.