if your female character doesn’t look like she has lived the life she leads and you can’t get a sense for her actual personality by looking at her because you’re too focused on making her pretty and perfect and palatable it’s bad character design and you should feel bad
It’s worth noting that, generally speaking – this is why concept artists want to be concept artists. They want to convey feelings, story and inspire the imagination. It’s not uncommon for concept artists to do staggering amounts of research in order to find ways to convey a type of character in a type of time period.
So, if you come across a product created by a major studio where they have extensive executive and production staff – it’s safe to say that any aggressively boring female character designs are done at the behest of a particular type of individual pushing a ridiculous myth to try to seem like a genius.
It is important to call out this kind of absurdity, not just to try to reduce the amount of gratuitous objectification in media – but to also spare these poor artists the indignity of having a guy try to convince them he invented anime tiddy.
– wincenworks
Also to note, some creators try to “justify” their boring, pandering designs. Character design should speak for itself. You shouldn’t need someone there to explain it, unless there’s worldly lore the viewer needs to know (like family crests, or magic stuff, etc).
Does the character look nothing like a sniper, while the creator insists that she is? Probably a bad design. Is the character’s backstory strangely convoluted, while also not impacting the character at all besides making an excuse for her to look hot? Probably a bad design. Is the character wearing clothes anachronistic with the setting, just to look hot? Definitely a bad design, unless she sneaked in some stockings from a parallel future universe. (Looking at you, Witcher 1.)
this is all fun and games folks, don’t get upsetti!
a while back, @bikiniarmorbattledamage reblogged my pink-overhaul doomguy illustration, and they’ve been on my radar ever since. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at a redesign, and one of their newer posts caught my eye!
Angela, from the game Trials of Mana, has so many awesome motifs in her design, and she’s absolutely adorable. I wanted to keep a lot of that, but also cover up them lovely legs and put the cloak in it’s rightful place, making her seem more like a magician from a colder place, rather than an attractive swimsuit model.
I took a lot of inspiration from Alena from the Dragon Quest series with this design, especially with the hat. It was so tiny on her original design, so I gave it a little growth spurt.
I think the biggest change I implemented for this design was her dress. I kept the slim waist, because hey, it’s cute as hell, but I added a lovely skirt that mimicked the design of her hat and her cape, which was rightfully relocated to her shoulders.
I really hope words can contain how impressive this redesign is, @mintyeggs! You brought out all the potential poor Angela had that Trials of Mana’s artists refused to take the advantage of! I especially like changing the butt cape into a regular cape while maintaining all the shapes where they belong. Also a big fan of the tunic you designed for her from scratch.
If there’s one thing I’d reconsider, it would be whether the inside of the cape’s color blends too much with her hair (maybe the lining should be dark
at the top
like her pants?), but that’s really a minor nitpick.
~Ozzie
Ohh, I absolutely love what you did with the shirt! I didn’t even notice those cuff things on her wrists until I looked at your redesign and saw that you turned them into a blouse. Well done! She definitely looks more like a magician now, and she won’t be freezing her buns off in her own house. And you still maintained the shape language and color scheme, too, what an inspiration for our own future redesigns.
-Icy
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Odin’s Boob Sphere Redraws: Gwendolyn
I went into redesigning this with no idea who that character is supposed to be, and frankly, looking her up now, can’t say I’ve missed much back then.
Can you believe she’s supposed to be a Valkyrie? Judging by her (and her sister’s, Griselda’s) design, Gwendolyn looks more like a really weird mashup of Odette/Odile from Swan Lake and lingerie model with random armor bits on legs… plus the ass wings. Call me weird, but I never got the idea of putting wings on humanoid characters’ butts/hips/lower back instead of shoulders. It’s not like regular laws of physics apply either way, but this seems like a much less uncomfortable way to fly than with the upper back.
Of course, first thing I did was move the wings to more conventional position, then copypasting her a brand new left arm, it fitted surpirisingly well.
I kept the changes to the outfit to a minimum, giving her tights and expanding her frilly top, so that it doesn’t slip off her chest (both in matching yellow/gold). Also got her some pauldrons (edited from the armor on her thighs) and recreated from scratch a bit of her dress that was hidden behind the ass wing (quite happy with how I painted it). Another minor detail was changing her left shoe’s shape into something that doesn’t require foot liquification.
Much less radical redraw than Icy’s excellent Velvet (who’s apparently Gwen’s half-sister), but I hope you guys like it!
~Ozzie
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Odin’s Boob Sphere Redraws: Velvet
Not sure why it’s now apparently my brand to redesign characters named Velvet, but here we are. Can you tell that this gal is a forest witch? Cause neither can I. She’s also a princess. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I really want to see the art lead’s notes on this design, just to see what their “reasoning” was for this. “The gold jewels under her breasts are symbolic of her ties to the royal family, but she can’t see them because of her breasts obscuring them, just like she lost sight of her family!!” I don’t know.
For the redesign, I just wanted to give her some breast support (since she does acrobatics and stuff, and you don’t want to be distracted by The Jiggles), as well as some kind of pant so that she doesn’t have to worry about forest insects biting her in the crotch. This is the result of 2 iterations on both the top and the pants, in usual “me” fashion. So let’s break it down.
The red sleeves looked weird to me, so I just combined them into the black shirt. Since the belt? crotch covering? I don’t know, but since that part is also black, I just decided to make all that into the collective Shirt. On top of them is that half vest that has the hood attached. I decided to give her some jingling coins at the last minute, cause the idea of hearing her walking through the forest would be kinda eerie, and she’s apparently an expert acrobat, so they would make noise when she fights. ~It could also be seen as a remnant of her royal life,~ or something.
As for the pants, I didn’t really have any ideas, so I just went the default “poofy pants” route, and then picked the only other color in the color scheme that wasn’t red or black. I initially was going to get rid of her butt cape, but decided to keep it cause she just didn’t look quite right without it.
I remember disliking the final result when I finished it initially, but looking at it again now, it actually looks kind of good? Maybe her shirt sleeves are a bit too short, but at least I don’t have to continuously grimace just looking at her now.
-Icy
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Hyrule Warriors – A Link to the Pants, Part 2
Well, this one was definitely a journey. I’ve wanted to redesign this unfortunate “armor” ever since it was posted on this blog. Those who joined us while we worked on these pieces will know how much I struggled with certain aspects of this, and how much I hate the original. I had to change something about almost every element in this. I’m just so glad it’s done and I can move on with my life.
The first things I knew I wanted to do are the breastplate and pants. Then I gave her the sleeves to match her “skirt.” That was the easy part.
After that I didn’t know what to do about her midriff, so I focused on her hair and face. I put her hair up so it doesn’t get in the way, and I just took some of her makeup away. I do this a lot, and it’s not because I hate makeup; it’s to show that you can have lady characters look good and cool and strong without giving them false eyelashes and a contour to rival Kim Kardashian. Also because women are always expected by society to wear makeup (but not look like it, that’s important), and screw that, so….
After that, the last thing to do was get rid of that idiotic corset. I had no real ideas, so I just extended her tabbard and gave her a belt to hold her tassets. It’s kind of a hack job, but I had no better ideas, and I had spent way too much time trying to come up with something. I wanted to just keep the plate armor and not add chainmail or anything… so here we are.
I still feel like I could have done better, but at least I don’t feel my blood boiling when I look at my redesign, as opposed to the original. Now I can believe that this is a woman that actually goes out into combat, while maintaining her regal air.
