Yeah, I have to agree with that. I guess things will change once that more women enter the industry.
Um, no? Because Yaoi and Slash fiction don't necessarily have to be porn?
Sexualized Designs do not equal Bad Designs
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Yeah, I have to agree with that. I guess things will change once that more women enter the industry.
Um, no? Because Yaoi and Slash fiction don't necessarily have to be porn?
Obese, no, but there are so many other body types. 70 year old woman? Sure.
I agree with OP somewhat, though this is a highly subjective thing.
Personally I'm a big fan of Tharja and Camilla's designs from FE Awakening and Fates.
Their designs dont make any sense in context of warfare and dont really service thier background either other than vaguely relating to their classes.
Also I'm not sure I agree that Chun Li's basic design is particularly sexualized. Maybe in Third Strike but her normal design is as tame as Ryu/Ken's.
Just because a woman is voluptuous doesnt make her design automatically sexualized, unless Kratos and every fighting game dude ever is sexualized simply for being beefy.
Personally I'm a big fan of Tharja and Camilla's designs from FE Awakening and Fates.
Their designs dont make any sense in context of warfare and dont really service thier background either other than vaguely relating to their classes.
Also I'm not sure I agree that Chun Li's basic design is particularly sexualized. Maybe in Third Strike but her normal design is as tame as Ryu/Ken's.
Just because a woman is voluptuous doesnt make her design automatically sexualized, unless Kratos and every fighting game dude ever is sexualized simply for being beefy.
Yeah this is just my opinion, don't take it as anything other than that.
Another mans trash is another mans treasure,and vice versa.
Are you arguing that those two aren't sexualized or that they're sexualization done right?I agree with OP somewhat, though this is a highly subjective thing.
Personally I'm a big fan of Tharja and Camilla's designs from FE Awakening and Fates.
Their designs dont make any sense in context of warfare and dont really service thier background either other than vaguely relating to their classes.
Also I'm not sure I agree that Chun Li's basic design is particularly sexualized. Maybe in Third Strike but her normal design is as tame as Ryu/Ken's.
Just because a woman is voluptuous doesnt make her design automatically sexualized, unless Kratos and every fighting game dude ever is sexualized simply for being beefy.
I agree with OP somewhat, though this is a highly subjective thing.
Personally I'm a big fan of Tharja and Camilla's designs from FE Awakening and Fates.
Their designs dont make any sense in context of warfare and dont really service thier background either other than vaguely relating to their classes.
Also I'm not sure I agree that Chun Li's basic design is particularly sexualized. Maybe in Third Strike but her normal design is as tame as Ryu/Ken's.
Just because a woman is voluptuous doesnt make her design automatically sexualized, unless Kratos and every fighting game dude ever is sexualized simply for being beefy.
Its mostly in proportions. From Third Strike onwards Capcom has made those the default designs( such as Ryu having black hair instead of brown or red), and in Third Strike Chun is pretty fucking THICC, its not a bad thing at all.
I'm just saying that I like them and think they're nicely designed artistically, even though they dont seem to fit OP's view on what makes a "good" sexualized character design.
Blizzard had such a great streak.
Its baffling that they decided to go with that as Moira´s design.
She indeed looks like a Battleborn or Agents Of Mayhem character. Im disappointed in you Jeff.
Its baffling that they decided to go with that as Moira´s design.
She indeed looks like a Battleborn or Agents Of Mayhem character. Im disappointed in you Jeff.
You'll get in trouble mostly because what you're pointing out is neither a necessary point, nor adequately presented. Women do sexually objectify men, and men sexually objectify men. But the scale of it is so insignificant compared to how deeply the sexual objectification of women permeates contemporary cultures, and the sexualization of men is associated with such a different set of privileges, that it's almost irrelevant to the topic.
Otherwise, all i have to say is that frankly any sort of implied objectification is always denigrating by definition, even if it's harmless or necessary in approaching technical topics, but sexual objectification is imo never not denigrating. Especially when we're living in such a sex negative and queer negative world.
On this issue I defer to Patty Jenkins (multiple collected quotes):
It's okay to be sexy. Celebrate sexy, just do it in a way that serves either your character or your story if you want it to be impactful in any way and for your audience to support it. Strong characters can be sexy, too. So can weak ones. And ugly people can be strong. People come in all types. Whatever your character is, just be true to it while keeping in mind what you want to accomplish.
Or don't. That's the artist's prerogative and they have every right to create their art however they intend. But the audience is free to respond to that and it might not be kindly.
Patty wanted to depict a strong, sexy character and she did. And the audience rewarded her for it.
It's okay to be sexy. Celebrate sexy, just do it in a way that serves either your character or your story if you want it to be impactful in any way and for your audience to support it. Strong characters can be sexy, too. So can weak ones. And ugly people can be strong. People come in all types. Whatever your character is, just be true to it while keeping in mind what you want to accomplish.
Or don't. That's the artist's prerogative and they have every right to create their art however they intend. But the audience is free to respond to that and it might not be kindly.
Patty wanted to depict a strong, sexy character and she did. And the audience rewarded her for it.
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Jeff isnt the designer, so he is innocent in this. From what I hear the previous art director Arnold Tsang (designer of the initial Overwatch cast) stepped down to co-art director, and it shows.
This is all extremely subjective and threads like these always show me how wildly different my tastes and reasoning for enjoying certain designs are compared to the norm, or at least compared to most in communities like these. I see people throw out "context" as a big talking point, and I understand why, but it's never been a big deal for me from a visual standpoint (though is still almost always is from a narrative one). As long as a design is "fun", I'll probably be cool with it no matter what kind of story you want to tell. Meanwhile, I don't think I've EVER had anything above a neutral stance for simple designs, which I almost always just see as boring. Of course this discussion goes way beyond sexualization. Like an example would be the anime Shiki, which has absolutely ridiculous character designs despite being a super tense horror series, and yet I love them all the same. Maybe I see the dichotomy effective or something, I don't know. It's the same in stuff like Danganronpa, which may be my favorite aesthetic ever honestly and yet there's such a sharp contrast with the narrative itself.
On topic, I'm all for sexualization and whatnot, but I'm also a straight male that's being overly catered to. And that lack of variety is fucking BORING. This goes beyond sexualization and into female body type variety in general. And then there's the lack of any kind of male sexualization outside of fujoshi-bait games.
But at the same time, I get it. Resources are limited and in a way, game development is sort of a zero-sum game. It's unfortunate, but it's impossible for everyone to get catered to equally unless there's a financial incentive. Of course as far as male sexualization goes, there's probably a ton of companies leaving money on the table as only Japan has figured out that it can sell and flat out save entire franchises. But when you're developing games in a country with no established culture around that kind of demographic, it's a huge risk to be among the first, so developers stay in their comfort zone. Not that there's anything wrong with that if it's what they want to make, which is why these discussions really should be critical of the industry as a whole and never individual devs or those that consider themselves "auteurs".
On topic, I'm all for sexualization and whatnot, but I'm also a straight male that's being overly catered to. And that lack of variety is fucking BORING. This goes beyond sexualization and into female body type variety in general. And then there's the lack of any kind of male sexualization outside of fujoshi-bait games.
But at the same time, I get it. Resources are limited and in a way, game development is sort of a zero-sum game. It's unfortunate, but it's impossible for everyone to get catered to equally unless there's a financial incentive. Of course as far as male sexualization goes, there's probably a ton of companies leaving money on the table as only Japan has figured out that it can sell and flat out save entire franchises. But when you're developing games in a country with no established culture around that kind of demographic, it's a huge risk to be among the first, so developers stay in their comfort zone. Not that there's anything wrong with that if it's what they want to make, which is why these discussions really should be critical of the industry as a whole and never individual devs or those that consider themselves "auteurs".
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Well, I wasn't talking about sexual objectification, I was talking about sexualization. I don't know why did you take that from my last line.
Tharja I struggle with. Were there other ways to do Tharja? Yes. That being said, it's interesting, she's not a front-line fighter so she doesn't need armour, and she is incredibly sexual. I do like her.
Camilla I think is a travesty. Front-line fighter with an armoured bodice that they made sure she could jiggle in as she walked and they even cut out thigh holes in her greaves so she could have steel panties and show off her legs. Just a terrible design overall.
Speaking of FE, the female Corrin had the same asinine thigh cut-outs as Camilla. For Super Smash Bros, they filled in the thigh holes and Corrin's design looked just as good, if not even better.
Well just explain what makes them a good character design.
For example I Tharja, her design is very gothy and sexual, and by the tired look on her face she kind of gives of a creepy vibe. Thats basically her entire character
I dont like Camilla though because her design is almost close to lookinglike cool armor, but her paizuri breast strap looks really lame to me.
Like I get it, she wants to fuck the main character and shes very sexy, but why not design a cool armor set and a lingerie set when shes trying to get you to take a bath with her or some shit.
I would say that context is very important in whether or not sexualized designs are ok, but I do have a huge threshold for them. Quiet was my favorite part of MGSV, Ivy's Soul Calibur IV outfit is the best fighting game outfit of all time, the waifu's are what got me into Fire Emblem in the first place, 2b's butt is what got me to check out Nier Automata, Mai Shiranui is one of my favorite characters in gaming, so on and so forth. I generally am a huge fan of fanservice, but I'll admit it wouldn't work in something like a Last of Us or the Walking Dead games, but level of seriousness is rare in gaming.
Wonderwoman effortlessly pulled off a mini-battle skirt and avoided the pervy camera. Patty Jenkins is a winner who gets the balance. Be sexy, just don't have a pervert.
I would fucking LOVE that. An acrofatic obese 70 year old woman game would be amazing.
But you're right, we would need a massive culture shift for a concept like that to have any degree of mainstream appeal. Fortunately, we live in a time where something doesn't need to have mainstream appeal to be successful. Not to say something like that even has appeal in the indie space, but we'll never know if no one tries.
Mostly i feel that sexualization is not specific enough and added some specificity to accompany my point.
I agree with OP but I like these two designs alsoI agree with OP somewhat, though this is a highly subjective thing.
Personally I'm a big fan of Tharja and Camilla's designs from FE Awakening and Fates.
Their designs dont make any sense in context of warfare and dont really service thier background either other than vaguely relating to their classes.
Also I'm not sure I agree that Chun Li's basic design is particularly sexualized. Maybe in Third Strike but her normal design is as tame as Ryu/Ken's.
Just because a woman is voluptuous doesnt make her design automatically sexualized, unless Kratos and every fighting game dude ever is sexualized simply for being beefy.
Again, pretty much.
Loved Wonder Woman but that wasn't really because of how great Gal Gadot looked (although she does look great) but because is a really good film that gets the message of equality really well.
And Camilla is a wyvern rider! It hurts to ride a horse bareback but riding a creature with hard scales for skin while flying in only panties is a really really bad choice.Well just explain what makes them a good character design.
For example I Tharja, her design is very gothy and sexual, and by the tired look on her face she kind of gives of a creepy vibe. Thats basically her entire character
I dont like Camilla though because her design is almost close to lookinglike cool armor, but her paizuri breast strap looks really lame to me.
Like I get it, she wants to fuck the main character and shes very sexy, but why not design a cool armor set and a lingerie set when shes trying to get you to take a bath with her or some shit.
I especially love his Tactics Ogre art, Yoshida loves his fat bottomed women!
I never played Borderlands, so I had to look her up. Without any context and judging only by the image search I'd rank her as an objectified design. Which leads me to my next question, what's the major distinction and where does the line lie? Also is it objective or subjective distinction?
You can tell I haven't partaken in past discussions regarding the subject matter.
IMO, entirely subjective. Everyone has their own comfort level and everything on the other side of that is bad and hurtful.
Indeed, they are prominent because she's a martial artists character with incredible kick strength. They only seem sexual(ized) to you because of male gaze; you might as well say that Zangief being barechested and muscle-bound is because he's "sexualized", rather than a direct consequence of being a wrestler.
But yeah, you kind of just proved my point that a lot of people in this thread don't seem to understand what "sexualized" means. :)
It's mostly things like color theory and or how their designs relate to their personalities (rather than thier backstories or factions).
Tharja comes off as somewhat sinister but not a prude or afraid of showing off her body. The body stocking I think were a nice touch and the way the color is distributed between the purples, golds and dark blues is appealing.
And the thing I've always noticed on Camilla first before her huge tits, is her long light purple hair and how it contrasts with her dark armor. She has a perpetual smile and shown with an axe, signalling to me her loving side but also her cruelty. Obviously you have the suspend your disbelief at her fighting on the front lines with her tits out, but for a titilating axe user I think they did a good job. She is still wearing a lot of armor reinforcing the fact that she's on the font lines compared to less armored other characters in the same game. Camilla is also apart of the Royal Nohr family so her armor is in uniform with their designs (and I just like the Nohr side's designs).
I'm with OP.
I think Moira is a terrible design. Just looks completely amateurish compared to the rest of the cast.
She looks like she's from Battleborn.
I think Moira is a terrible design. Just looks completely amateurish compared to the rest of the cast.
She looks like she's from Battleborn.
It based on your beliefs and values. I dont really like Moxxis design, I just dont think it looks that interesting. This thread is mostly talking about designs that you feel are sexualized and well designed (like in my OP, Chun-Li)
bad sexy female characters (Ivy from Soul Calibur 4), good non-sexualized female character designs(Lady Maria,Bloodborne) and poorly designed non sexualized female characters (I said Moira,but many disagree.
This is all personal, I just like hearing others thoughts on character design.
Are we including alternate costumes in this reading of Chun-Li? Or the way the camera lingers on her legs and butt? Hell, despite her costume being based on traditional dress, it still functions as cheesecake in how it flies up and reveals her underwear beneath it.
See, this is the kind of talk I like hearing, you picked a design I didn't like (Camilla) and you explained why you liked her succinctly. I feel a lot of people are getting stuck on some of the examples rather than naming designs you like or dislike,
Isn't the point of Moira being the counter part of Mercy then she can reflect a dark side fo the same arts then a more gritty look?
This whole OP is biased, but Moira is a bad example because her design is actually very good imho, reflexts a lot about her and her inner struggles.
This whole OP is biased, but Moira is a bad example because her design is actually very good imho, reflexts a lot about her and her inner struggles.
I mean, Chun-Li was created for the project manager's fetish. I remember for SF2 the female artist was kind of grossed out with how the manager kept looking at her art and going "No, the thighs got to be bigger" every time and would be spend several minutes describing the thighs themselves in what she said was "too much detail".
I still love her though. Maybe because I also share the manager's thoughts on the matter, but also because as a character and design, she's solidly crafted.
When does the camera linger on her butt, its not in Street Fighter 4 or 5, and I don't remember that being in the EX games.
Her third strike super turns her back towards the players and her skirt flies up, showing her butt. The camera pans up around her legs and up her body in SF5 and SF4. Not to mention the multitude of sexualized costumes in both games that simply emphasize her fetishized legs.
I mean yeah its biased, its my opinion, I wanted to hear your opinions on what female character designs you like or dislike, and for what reason.
I can kind of see the Mercy parallels, but I still think the design itself is really boring and busy.
That's an excellent question and ties in neatly with the above. The definition of "sexualized" implies intent, and we are never privy to authorial intent. Authors that sexualize characters have no incentive to admit they do, and many incentives to deny it (not to say some don't actually admit it, especially in Japan, but they are rare). That's to say nothing of authors that don't even do it consciously but simply default to "hot babe" for character designs (and let's be frank, it's very easy to do so without even thinking when pretty much everyone else does it, which is a huge part of the problem).
All of this means that claiming "sexualized" (or "not sexualized", which is every bit as much of a claim) is to claim to know someone else's authorial intent. By its very nature this is going to be subjective; there is also probably not so much a "line" as a gradient, and I'm sure everyone can think of examples that they would place in different points of the spectrum.
First time seeing Moira and yeah... She looks terrible.
Ivy is indeed the worst here, followed by Quiet.
Ivy is indeed the worst here, followed by Quiet.
This?
Thats not really that big of a deal, unless you want Chun hopping on one leg to move forward. She has to turn around while kicking to stay balanced,plus its just a cool looking super.
The real question is whether sexualizing the character would have made her better or if there's a way to make characters interesting without forcing sex appeal. I'm not a huge fan of her design either, but it has more to do with the tubes coming out of her rather than wanting her to be sexually charged.
This?
Thats not really that big of a deal, unless you want Chun hopping on one leg to move forward. She has to turn around while kicking to stay balanced,plus its just a cool looking super.
I'm just saying she's not exactly sex-negative. She's certainly a sexualized character and her physical assets a big part of her design, so much so that they're often at least somewhat on display. Hell, I even like her design, it's just facetious to claim she's not sexualized.