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Early designs for video game protagonists

Maybe I'm in the minority, but the design we got for Aloy is better than those prototypes. She's still pretty, but looks like a real person and is more athletic looking. Plus, her hair is more practical, even if I hate that they went with dreads.
 
tumblr_mm9ecemQ2A1re9fe1o3_1280.jpg

All of these are better than any Dante from DmC 1 to 4.
 
Maybe I'm in the minority, but the design we got for Aloy is better than those prototypes. She's still pretty, but looks like a real person and is more athletic looking. Plus, her hair is more practical, even if I hate that they went with dreads.
She doesn't have dreads.

And yeah, I think final Aloy design is a lot better than that (still amazing) artwork. Also, I'm pretty sure the people who don't like the final design are in the minority. Nothing wrong with that, though.
 

cordy

Banned
Maybe I'm in the minority, but the design we got for Aloy is better than those prototypes. She's still pretty, but looks like a real person and is more athletic looking. Plus, her hair is more practical, even if I hate that they went with dreads.

Yeah you're. 100% agree.
 

eso76

Member
Little known fact is that NT at the very start of DmC's development started off desgining Dante with a red coat and the white hair albeit with the modern fuckboi twist
but Capcom told them to push his design away from that so they experimented quite a bit:

tumblr_mgozang7O51rblqwco4_1280.png

tumblr_mm9ecemQ2A1re9fe1o3_1280.jpg



Literally had to F5 your name to find that post my bad.

Say what you want about DmC Dante, but the artist who did these and the promo material for the game is legit good.
And these are all pretty good designs per se, they just have nothing to do with the Dante we know in aesthetics and tone obviously. Which I believe was somewhat the point.

The long-ish haired one with different clothes wouldn't have upset people as much as the final design maybe.


Also, thread is super interesting.
 

Mariip

Member
P5 artbook has alot of early design for characters going on .

MC



Kinda cool that he kinda looks like this in the end briefly where his head pop out from the car roof
Persona 5 mc had a lot of cool concepts, even a female version iirc
Piggybacking off my own post, for a while I thought this was Lani, but I think it actually may have been a dark-skinned Garnet/Dagger.

ffix.h8.jpg


Concept art with Zidane and a bunch of black mages.

ffix.h19.jpg
Holy shit the black mages look so damn creepy
 
Now for a distraction from all the bickering about Aloy. I actually really dig this design for York from Deadly Premonition.

1389245-00596354_photo_rainy_woods.jpg

Damn York looks like a baby in this. Or maybe just more anime? I'm not sure but either way it doesn't really fit his attitude of the hardened, fearless FBI Agent.

It would totally work for Zack though.
 
Damn York looks like a baby in this. Or maybe just more anime? I'm not sure but either way it doesn't really fit his attitude of the hardened, fearless FBI Agent.

It would totally work for Zack though.
His name was also David Young Henning.

SWERY referenced that with David Young in D4.
 

jelly

Member
I wouldn't even call it a different design for Aloy (apart from the hair), it's the same character just rendered in a different style. Compared to those sketches, her final look in the context of the game is slightly older, slightly less waifish-- less of the cartoon princess vibe. It's entirely appropriate to the game and people saying that they deliberately "made her ugly"-- just yikes.

This, it's just different art styles. They choose what they wanted for the game, end of, they didn't make her ugly, my god. I would also say it's says a lot about gaming and people that some can't see beyond one type. Apply your thinking to TV, films, people, it's ludicrous. You would criticise the roster of a CW show! Uniqueness is great.
 
There is also this too.

Her hair looks blue here.


This image is actually kind of fascinating and I wonder just how far along in development it was done. It's curious how a good chunk of the characters are more or less comparable to their finished versions while their are others who are kind of getting there like Pharah, Mei (I assume on the front row?) Widowmaker (dude version) and Soldier (I love this version of Soldier, btw). And then you have weirdos like that punk chick in the back (was this early DVA? Jesus....) and the two Cyborg guys on the flanks who just seem completely at odds with what we've seen from Overwatch so far. It almost feels like it was going to be a much darker game in its earlier drafts, before they settled on the Pixar-esque look.

Also interesting with the big robot in the back that the concept of an African-style mech was floating around so long before Orisa took shape. I'm not sure if that is supposed to be her or a very early concept for Reinhardt but its curious nontheless. Also, lol at the Tachikoma looking machine on the far right.
 

DemWalls

Member
It was literally their idea for them to push concepts this outlandish in the first place. Plus Alessandro Taini is genuinely a great artist.

Indeed. The promotional image with the angels is a stunning piece of art. In general, say what you will about Dante, the writing, the gameplay... but the (environmental, at the very least) art direction in DmC is on another level compared to the other games. The first DMC is the only one that may come close, but I've never been a huge fan.
 
To answer this question, when this occurs:
Video-Game-Protagonists-Brown-Haired-White-Guys.jpg.optimal.jpg


and when this occurs:
675c80160bcbf225043f268d1d11529e.jpg

yPN12Q1.jpg


This seems to be more fair of a comparison (even though there's not as many portraits on it – concentrates on the last 5-something years). Also featuring Aloy, who doesn't seem off in comparison at all IMO (granted, those are mostly in a similiar age range and all designed to be visually nice or interesting to look at).


One also should not forget that our brains tend to "muddle the images together" if you look at many small portraits of people, so the format to present it like this supports the impression of "everything looks fairly similiar". Because both in the versions for men and women, if you look at the artworks in whole (with outfits, poses, maybe even animated) they aren't as similiar anymore. Anyway, I think the -realistic- female character designs seem to actually become better and better over the years, and I feel even though there is less women playable protagonists than men, there is more variety.

In that regard, while I really like the concept art of Aloy and can see many of the elements being put into the ingame version as well, I also think that the model they went with seems more fitting for the overall game. I wouldn't call it bland at all, it fits her character and seems very natural (and I usually prefer highly stylized/cartoonish game graphics.. but I really dig what they are going for in Horizon)
 
I mean, these are more realistic human faces, and I think they're pretty damn varied for what it is. The anime one is the one that is bad.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
yPN12Q1.jpg


This seems to be more fair of a comparison (even though there's not as many portraits on it – concentrates on the last 5-something years). Also featuring Aloy, who


One also should not forget that our brains tend to "muddle the images together" if you look at many small portraits of people, so the format to present it like this supports the impression of "everything looks fairly similiar". Because both in the versions for men and women, if you look at the artworks in whole (with outfits, poses, maybe even animated) they aren't as similiar anymore. Anyway, I think the -realistic- female character designs seem to actually become better and better over the years, and I feel even though there is less women playable protagonists than men, there is more variety.

In that regard, while I really like the concept art of Aloy and can see many of the elements being put into the ingame version as well, I also think that the model they went with seems more fitting for the overall game. I wouldn't call it bland at all, it fits her character and seems very natural (and I usually prefer highly stylized/cartoonish game graphics.. but I really dig what they are going for in Horizon)
I can't tell what you're saying here. Are you saying those are bland? What you just posted was an example of how diverse the medium became over the last five years while simultaneously showing how it can improve. Specifically when it comes to more diverse facial structure and features, hair color, and ethnicities.
 
Spoiler Warning: Even though this is a trailer is for an early version of the game there is still a spoiler here for DP.

https://youtu.be/EbbhwO7pRHA

It's the latter, Rainy Woods George had slightly longer hair.

Wow, I knew about the whole Rainy Woods thing but I had no idea it was far enough along in development to have a trailer like that. Also weird seeing how most of the game appears to be more or less the same (with a few obvious differences) but it still wouldn't come out for another couple of years.
 
and LOL at this. Just because Snake might be a character that personally means more to you doesn't mean the face is somehow inherently more distinct than all of the other faces there.

I actually hate Kojima's games with passion. Snake is the most recognizable of that picture, even if it means nothing to me.The rest are even worse. It's difficult to tell them apart while in the other picture with female character portraits I can tell you who are most of them.
 

rtcn63

Member
Little known fact is that NT at the very start of DmC's development started off desgining Dante with a red coat and the white hair albeit with the modern fuckboi twist
but Capcom told them to push his design away from that so they experimented quite a bit:

tumblr_mgozang7O51rblqwco4_1280.png

tumblr_mm9ecemQ2A1re9fe1o3_1280.jpg



Literally had to F5 your name to find that post my bad.

The lower left Dante reminds me of

jim-morrison.jpg
 
I actually hate Kojima's games with passion. Snake is the most recognizable of that picture, even if it means nothing to me.The rest are even worse. It's difficult to tell them apart while in the other picture with female character portraits I can tell you who are most of them.

I don't even see how you can judge that. Most of these faces are distinct in their own way. It just comes down to what you are more familiar with. The ones that stick out the me are the ones I know well. (Like Drake)

I can't point many of them out because I don't personally know their games, but that's not valid reason to say none of them stand out. The vast majority of these look very distinct from each other, even if they are primarily white.
 

Linkark07

Banned
Ok, managed to find early designs for Totori and Meruru in the Atelier Arland Artbook.

The one who had the biggest changes was Meruru. Totori was mostly the same since the beginning.

Oh, and also Adult Rorona in Atelier Totori. Shame they didn't add early designs of Rorona in Atelier Rorona

 

Lijik

Member
It's awesome seeing them nail down the look, but my God that artist needs to fix his head ratio. Those heads look like peas on top of gangly mannequins.m

Thats the entire point, theyre supposed to look like fashion sketches with the elongated limbs and small heads. Theres nothing to "fix" when its an intentional aim
 

Bahorel

Member
I can't tell what you're saying here. Are you saying those are bland? What you just posted was an example of how diverse the medium became over the last five years while simultaneously showing how it can improve. Specifically when it comes to more diverse facial structure, hair color, and ethnicities.

Seriously. If the collage is meant to show that all the women have same face they failed miserably because they don't. Look how different Elizabeth is from Emily, or Aloy. These women are far more varied than the white men with brown hair chart.
 
The outrage sparked by this is something I will never understand. Cole by default looks like a generic white male game character. So people were asking for them to choose between two of those.

The "outrage" was that as generic as Cole looks, the original I2 "Cole" looked completely different and had a completely different voice actor. So... why the hell was he called Cole? It was more about just giving fans something that resembled the original character. It's not as if the newer design was any better, if anything they just made him look like Nathan Drake.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The "outrage" was that as generic as Cole looks, the original I2 "Cole" looked completely different and had a completely different voice actor. So... why the hell was he called Cole? It was more about just giving fans something that resembled the original character. It's not as if the newer design was any better, if anything they just made him look like Nathan Drake.
Thought the in-game model looked a lot more like Cole with hair than the concept art.
 
I don't even see how you can judge that. Most of these faces are distinct in their own way. It just comes down to what you are more familiar with. The ones that stick out the me are the ones I know well. (Like Drake)

I can judge that because I haven't played most of the games where they come from: These are the ones I recognize (O means I played the game; X means I didn't):

Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell Conviction) O
Dude from Watchdogs X
Chris Redfield (RE5) X
Dude from the Sweary game X
Joel (Last of Us) O
Big boss (MGS3) O

The ladies:
Aloy (Horizon) X
Girl from Mirror's Edge X
New Lara Croft O
Woman from Bioshock Infinite X
Protagonist of Life is Strange X
Girl from the Witcher 3 X
Ellie (The Last of Us part 2) X
Girl from Infamous 2 DLC X
Bayonetta O
Samus Aran (Smash Bros) O
2B (Nier Automata) O
Lighting (FFXIII) X
Woman from ReCore X

Don't ask me how I recognize those female characters, it may be that they are not white males in their 30s-40s, with brown hair. A good haircut may do wonders.
 
I can't tell what you're saying here. Are you saying those are bland? What you just posted was an example of how diverse the medium became over the last five years while simultaneously showing how it can improve. Specifically when it comes to more diverse facial structure and features, hair color, and ethnicities.

No, they're not bland at all. Neither are many of the designs in the male portraits (I tried to explain why it might seem so if presented in form of small portraits next to each other). I agree with you on how diversity of the medium got better and how there's additional room for improvement. I think the reason I posted it was to show that Aloys design fits, looks fine and is well-made, also when shown in direct comparison to other recent female characters in gaming (after reading so many posts about how it was made to not look as good as possible or less attractive compared to the concepts). Re-reading my post, yeah, I was quite jumping around with my thoughts and probably unclear on that, probably because I had already half-written it before putting that picture together.

Seriously. If the collage is meant to show that all the women have same face they failed miserably because they don't. Look how different Elizabeth is from Emily, or Aloy. These women are far more varied than the white men with brown hair chart.

No, it wasn't meant to show how they're same face. Quite the opposite.

[...]Anyway, I think the -realistic- female character designs seem to actually become better and better over the years, and I feel even though there is less women playable protagonists than men, there is more variety.[...]
 

volcarona

Member
I can judge that because I haven't played most of the games where they come from: These are the ones I recognize (O means I played the game; X means I didn't):

Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell Conviction) O
Dude from Watchdogs X
Chris Redfield (RE5) X
Dude from the Sweary game X
Joel (Last of Us) O
Big boss (MGS3) O

The ladies:
Aloy (Horizon) X
Girl from Mirror's Edge X
New Lara Croft O
Woman from Bioshock Infinite X
Protagonist of Life is Strange X
Girl from the Witcher 3 X
Ellie (The Last of Us part 2) X
Girl from Infamous 2 DLC X
Bayonetta O
Samus Aran (Smash Bros) O
2B (Nier Automata) O
Lighting (FFXIII) X
Woman from ReCore X

Don't ask me how I recognize those female characters, it may be that they are not white males in their 30s-40s, with brown hair. A good haircut may do wonders.

Well it helps that Max in the Promotional art looks nothing like ingame Max
 

eso76

Member
I actually hate Kojima's games with passion. Snake is the most recognizable of that picture, even if it means nothing to me.The rest are even worse. It's difficult to tell them apart while in the other picture with female character portraits I can tell you who are most of them.


The truth is, ethnicity aside, most of those designs are actually quite good at conveying many, very different face types.

Most of those would only look the same to people who apparently think all that defines character design is hair length and colour.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
No, they're not bland at all. Neither are many of the designs in the male portraits.
They're bland because they all fall literally under the exact same description, are all American, and all have the exact same facial hair and represent a very noticeable and problematic trend in the gaming industry that at the worst of times, leads to the formation of movements like GG against those who want more diversity and at the "best" of times, leads to the assumption that brown haired, American, white male is the default and that anything else should be considered pandering or "needs a reason" to not apply to that default. Meanwhile. The image you created sorta showed the exact opposite. Where you can be diverse and that there still needs to be improvement in that regard since like I said earlier ITT, the facial structures and features are very similar. There's also the disingenuousness of using renders that look nothing like the in-game models as a comparison when the majority of the characters in that first image are in-game. For instance. Elizabeth looks like this.


I agree with you on diversity of medium and the additional room for improvement. I think the reason I posted it was to show that Aloys design fits, looks fine and is well-made in direct comparison to other recent female characters in gaming (after reading so many posts about how it was made to not look as good as possible or less attractive compared to the concepts). Re-reading my post, yeah, I was quite jumping around with my thoughts and probably unclear on that.
Yes, she's very traditionally attractive. As are most game characters.
 
I can judge that because I haven't played most of the games where they come from: These are the ones I recognize (O means I played the game; X means I didn't):

Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell Conviction) O
Dude from Watchdogs X
Chris Redfield (RE5) X
Dude from the Sweary game X
Joel (Last of Us) O
Big boss (MGS3) O

The ladies:
Aloy (Horizon) X
Girl from Mirror's Edge X
New Lara Croft O
Woman from Bioshock Infinite X
Protagonist of Life is Strange X
Girl from the Witcher 3 X
Ellie (The Last of Us part 2) X
Girl from Infamous 2 DLC X
Bayonetta O
Samus Aran (Smash Bros) O
2B (Nier Automata) O
Lighting (FFXIII) X
Woman from ReCore X

Don't ask me how I recognize those female characters, it may be that they are not white males in their 30s-40s, with brown hair. A good haircut may do wonders.

I can also point out more of the females than the males. They are definitely more unique than the male list. (I think those games are just more culturally relevant at the time generally than the games those male faces are from, but that's just my guess) But anyway, I just don't see what makes Snake's design inherently more distinct than most of those other light skinned brown hair guys up there.
 
The truth is, ethnicity aside, most of those designs are actually quite good at conveying many, very different face types.

Most of those would only look the same to people who apparently think all that defines character design is hair length and colour.

To you maybe, I think they look boring af.
 
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