2012-03-18, 16:32 | Link #101 |
Still Alive
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@fanty
Haha, I bet anybody(including me) who liked Initial D couldn't care less about how the characters looked. I don't really mind watching anime from the 80's as long as the story is good. As for what I prefer more, the modern designs I guess. But really If can watch Shin Chan then I can watch pretty much anything
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2012-03-18, 17:09 | Link #102 | |
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Join Date: May 2004
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But for this one, I can't understand how you could possibly think this is a good thing. This is exactly what ticks me off when watching western animation and makes it impossible for me to enjoy it for anything else than comedy. This feature breaks any immersion and changes otherwise interesting characters into mere caricatures. Coincidently I have the same problem with One Piece. It's hard to enjoy the story and look past what I perceive as joke characters. |
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2012-03-18, 17:42 | Link #103 | |
Boo, you whore
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2012-03-18, 21:12 | Link #104 | |
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2012-03-18, 22:39 | Link #105 |
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Join Date: Jul 2007
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I actually don't mind stick figures if they're used well:
http://xkcd.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw4wzwYeZ0Y
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2012-03-18, 23:14 | Link #106 | ||
Vanitas owns you >:3
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2012-03-18, 23:59 | Link #107 | ||||
Try me! <3
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Germany
Age: 40
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It is totally beyond me how any sane person could prefer freaky stuff like afro Kei over today's designs - there's *light years* between them. Quote:
Caveman Ken looks just plain horrible. If you like that caveman look, why don't you watch GI Joe, or Superman, or most other dumb Yankee cartoons, which are generally full of these brickbrained steroid-abuse bodybuilder types? Quote:
While I'm not into lolis, I'll take Ika over that... that ugly 80s thing any day of the week. Quote:
The recent design is clearly the best there.
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2012-03-19, 00:05 | Link #108 |
Boo, you whore
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Honestly...I'm really kinda standing in the middle here. There are designs from both eras that are great, and there are designs from both eras that suck ass. Anytime someone says "MODERN ANIME BEATS ALL OLD ANIME" or "Fuck this, we should go back to the 80s of GOOD ANIME", I tend to punch my screen out (figuratively of course.)
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2012-03-19, 09:38 | Link #109 | ||||
Absolute Haruhist!
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http://and-babel-fell.deviantart.com/ http://mooglegurl.deviantart.com/ http://nheira.deviantart.com http://meago.deviantart.com/ http://hiritai.deviantart.com/ http://rannsama.deviantart.com Quote:
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Character design has always been accompanied by exaggeration in both animation and comics. What type of exaggeration do we see in anime? Big eyes, small noses, slimness, bust size, crazy hair, crazy clothes. So what are these exaggerations used for? Prettiness, coolness, purely for the form, it shows a lack of creative decisiveness, lack of exploration and experimentation of design. Japan is afraid to take risks in their design. I'm not sure how it breaks any immersion, because even using One Piece as an example, the variety of design is what created such an amazing and imaginative universe that us fans find so appealing and intriguing. If the opposite is true, does that mean you find that characters with all similar body shapes increases immersion for you? Isn't that what people usually complain about? That there are too many guards looking the same that it breaks immersion, its just like too many Officer Jennys and Nurse Joys.
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2012-03-19, 10:25 | Link #110 |
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Join Date: May 2004
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It breaks the immersion because the idea that a character has visual features, including their body features, that match their character/job/attitude, are completely unrealistic, and logically backwards.
Unless you go the route of the likes of StarWars or MassEffect, where being evil somehow makes you look evil by power of the force/magic. This is ok in comedy, but is completely rediculous if the show is going for a more serious attitude. To stick with OnePiece, I just can't take an enemy serious, that is living on a winter themed island and therefore looks like a crossover of Santa Clause and a nutcracker... I mean, ok it's fun and interesting. But it comes at the cost of making the whole thing look like some kind of implausible staged joke. In this respect, yes, I find that if this does not happen, but instead all characters get the same treatment, making them all look cool or whatever, this increases immersion. In that case it is just an overall artstyle. By the way, it is not like anime is never doing this. Far from it. Often you can tell who is the which kind of anime charcter arche type just by looking at them. The Rei type for example (silent , unemotional girl). I don't like it much either. But at least this is more of a case of tradition (or being unoriginal), instead of spelling it our in an obvious way. |
2012-03-19, 10:35 | Link #111 | |
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You don't know any crazy guy in real life that actually looks crazy? You don't know any hard thuggish people in life that actually look hard and thuggish? You don't know any clean-cut looking people in real life who actually do have clean-cut/straight-laced personalities? People's appearance doesn't always match their character/job/attitude in real life, but often, they do. So it's hardly "completely unrealistic and logically backwards" for a character to have an appearance that matches their character/job/attitude. I wouldn't want a 100% match here across-the-board, but some matches are to be expected and are probably beneficial in fact (as some characters you might not have the time to devote lots of exposition for, so having a telling appearance can be helpful for setting an immediate impression). Also, having a generic template for everybody is certainly not an improvement over having distinct character designs intended to reflect specific characterization. I don't have a big problem with anime's frequent body/facial type template approach, but a bit more body type/facial type variety here couldn't hurt.
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2012-03-19, 10:43 | Link #112 |
Absolute Haruhist!
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Exaggeration can used to amplify effects not just positively, but also negatively, which means you don't have to exaggerate the right part for the right job, but a large contrast also creates a stronger design.
Lets take a huge bulky guy, 190cm tall, 95 kg for a simple example, immediately we associate such a character to brute strength, brawn over brains, possibly a villian, one of the strong henchmen. But then I give this character a contrasting personality to his image, he is actually very gentle, he is a violinist and tends his garden and love playing with his two pet dogs. Is it still too comedic? Maybe his wife died 2 years ago, he has been living alone in a big house which makes his size seem small. We play around with relationships, spatial interaction. There are countless ways to play around with characters of any sort, as long as not everyone looks the same. Big guy interacting with small guy, big guy with small sword fighting with small guy with big sword, big guy racing a small guy through a swamp. They are the last soldiers of their respective platoons on a war zone, how do they go about killing each other? It is perfectly fine for exaggeration to happen in serious stories, we can even exaggerate the seriousness for greater effect.
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2012-03-19, 11:43 | Link #113 | ||||||
Vanitas owns you >:3
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I meant Megatokyo is the only published one that did it. Please read my posts a little more carefully, eh? Quote:
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2012-03-19, 11:57 | Link #114 |
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Anime style might be so easy that the western artists keep trying to do things like they know...like adding a nose for example. Or trying to add more detail and lines, because it seems unfinished to them.
Or they are Dreamwave: Transformers and like "detail".
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2012-03-19, 12:00 | Link #115 |
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Why do I mention eyes so much? Actually that question should be directed to Japan.
There has been various research published in both scientific and artistic contexts on why Japan focuses on eyes so much. The research comes down to this, Eyes are deeply rooted in the cultural and psychological behaviour of Japanese. When the rest of the world talk, they get clues of the emotions of other people mostly through their mouth, whether they are smiling or pouting etc. In Japan, the movement of the mouth is very reserved, they don't like to open their mouths too much or smile too widely, giving them a kind of cultured, polite and shy demeanor. But in place of the mouth expressions, Japan has eye expressions and they read each other's emotions through the eyes. They are very obsessed with eyes for its beauty and as the saying goes 'the eye is the window to the soul'. The obsession with eyes is not just seen in behaviour but through their media. Film research has shown that Japan uses exceeding more extreme close up shots to the eyes than any other international media. This obsession of eyes also led to the big eyes we see in anime that will never go away. And for different bodies, some of us has been discussing in the thread that anime style bodies vary very little. More often so, the main difference in character bodies are height and bust size, if they don't wear different clothes, you can't tell their bodies apart.
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2012-03-19, 12:19 | Link #116 |
Gamilas Falls
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My first experiance in hearing about character art was from the Dark Crystal special in 1982.
There, illustrator Brian Froud talked about how he starts his projects....always with the eyes. They eyes are a window to the soul is more or less how he put it. If you want to believe something is real, the eyes have to reflect a sort of life in them. (This might be why I'm fascinated by the eyes of Nagato Yuki)
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2012-03-19, 13:11 | Link #117 |
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Let's appreciate designers.
In no order of preference: Mostly anime and manga: Haruhiko Mikitomo Spoiler:
Tsukasa Hojo Spoiler:
Katsuhiro Otomo Spoiler:
Yoshihiro Togashi Spoiler:
Yukito Kishiro Spoiler:
Yoshiyuki Sadamoto Spoiler:
Nobuteru Yuki Spoiler:
Asako Nishida Spoiler:
Oh Great Spoiler:
Tetsuo Hara Spoiler:
Hirohiko Araki Spoiler for FABULOUS MAX:
A non exhaustive list. I'd have taken longer if I did not have to sleep just right after. |
2012-03-19, 13:20 | Link #119 | ||
Vanitas owns you >:3
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*sigh*
I know how important eyes are. I'm saying it's not fair to pick ONE thing that's around the same size and go "this needs variety". The size means NOTHING if the style is completely varied, which it is! Quote:
YOU CAN'T TELL THEIR BODIES APART!? I assure you, if Buruma put on a sailor fuku like Konata, and the picture was cropped so you couldn't see heads or hair, I will still be able to tell which one's Buruma and which one's Konata. With much ease. Konata's way skinnier and looks like a child. Buruma is fuller with a mature body and has muscle. Quote:
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2012-03-19, 13:21 | Link #120 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2009
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The basic character designs of Gunbuster, Macross, Dirty Pair and Maison Ikoku ,the examples shown by the OP, are fully on par with those shown from Code Geass and Air and vastly superior to the generic design of Da Capo. Last edited by Bri; 2012-03-19 at 13:38. |
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