I created this thread for Village who wanted to discuss character design but didn't want to derail the Old character design thread. All opinions in the OP are Village's.
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Village:
Today I would like to argue what is effective character design. Specifically in the case of classic sonic vs the redesign.
To put it simply, I don't believe classic sonic and his friends had any effective character designs, I don't believe sonic's and his friends character designs were effective until they were redesigned.
This is classic sonic , look at him , look at how cute he is.
Generic sonic poses, nothing new. But nothing was communicated with this character, he just smiled and wagged his finger, and sometimes he was angry. He also was supposed to be cool, but his fat short body was a complete contradiction to that. He was fat and short; he was cute, nothing wrong with that I love cute things. But It defeated sonics purpose, so you had this fat short cute thing, trying to do cool things that Nintendont. He was supposed to be rad and awesome, but none the less It worked for a while.
Along with the cuteness factor they made him blue, a majority blue, which was another bad idea. The other characters introduced like tails,knuckles, and Amy became, color wise, more interesting than sonic.
So what did Sega do? They gave him personality
( the illusion of one actually, and that's one of my faults with sonic, dreamcast forward characters actually have reasons to do things, sonic is kinda one note)
That first picture on the bottom left has more personality than the whole of the top part of this image. It effectively communicates what several failed cartoons and a comic book failed to do" hey look at him , he is cool", and that's why the fan base grew so large with SA games forward. The games were fun ( some of them, not excusing bad games here , not at all) and the characters were cool. And note I said characters, sonic as cool as suface value will allow, he is only has the Illusion of a personality. So they surrounded him characters that did ( some of them) have personalities and their poses and design effectively communicate " hey this character is cool" " and this character does this" " and this character acts like this". And designs had evolved from simple short fat things, they made them a bit more tall and lanky , a bit more human, and it worked.
And a couple years back hasbro did the same thing, and it worked again. I could also bring up how the colors and designs in that show are set up quite similar to sonic now. But I don't wanna talk about MLP any more than I need to. And to be honest, people will be turned off by this thread, by sonic alone, why make it worse.
Sonic and his friends designs as poses are generally more appealing than they were in the genesis era.
Lets go though the some of most popular sonic characters Dreamcast forward design.
You see her hand , you see what she is doing, you see her face, you see her color, that light purple, that indicates that she some mystical ability. You design a character for looks AND effectiveness. This amount of detail would have never happened back in the day with sonic , she would be standing there with a half smile, she might have not even existed. You would have known nothing about her.
This is a helpful character, he is cute. He waving and saying hello he is friendly.
You see this pose , this is determination. You see his colors, his colors, the amount of black used, that indicates mystery. Do you see his long body, That causes you to take this character a bit more seriously than fat and cute.
This Indicates this an angry character, he is strong he is tough and is angry quite often.
These types of sonic designs far better at communicating what a character is about , far better than than the art of old. Especially with the half smile everyone used to have, that only communicated "hey".. or in Amy's case, "hey i am also a girl".
What is very important about effective character design is communicating what the character is about. And modern sonic, despite.... bad..horrible games, still communicates what is needed. The fan base for sonic BOOMED in the Dreamcast adventure age, for good reason, how the characters were portrayed attracted people, kids, teenagers, adults. Sonic's design may lie in Simplicity, but classic sonic was too simple.
This would also explain the change in box art, the name of the game is attracting people to something. And I know this is getting a bit into box art, but I am gonna get a bit real here
As much as you( and I ) may like the covers to Final fantasy 6 and to Secret of mana, the call of duty black ops 2 cover Is more effective in communicating what the game is about. It isn't about looking pretty,( though I like new sonic's design WAY more than classic) Its about attracting customers. Not saying you cant innovate and try new things, and new designs, god no, everything would stagnate. I am not also saying you can't have interesting pretty covers, however these interesting pretty colors need to accurately communicate what is happening in the game, in a appealing way.
Somethings are more effective than others.
And what I am arguing with sonic is that new sonic is more effective, you can argue simple design until you are blue in the face. But all that shadow fan art is going to keep being drawn regardless of you accepting it or not.
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Village:
Today I would like to argue what is effective character design. Specifically in the case of classic sonic vs the redesign.
To put it simply, I don't believe classic sonic and his friends had any effective character designs, I don't believe sonic's and his friends character designs were effective until they were redesigned.
This is classic sonic , look at him , look at how cute he is.
Generic sonic poses, nothing new. But nothing was communicated with this character, he just smiled and wagged his finger, and sometimes he was angry. He also was supposed to be cool, but his fat short body was a complete contradiction to that. He was fat and short; he was cute, nothing wrong with that I love cute things. But It defeated sonics purpose, so you had this fat short cute thing, trying to do cool things that Nintendont. He was supposed to be rad and awesome, but none the less It worked for a while.
Along with the cuteness factor they made him blue, a majority blue, which was another bad idea. The other characters introduced like tails,knuckles, and Amy became, color wise, more interesting than sonic.
So what did Sega do? They gave him personality
( the illusion of one actually, and that's one of my faults with sonic, dreamcast forward characters actually have reasons to do things, sonic is kinda one note)
That first picture on the bottom left has more personality than the whole of the top part of this image. It effectively communicates what several failed cartoons and a comic book failed to do" hey look at him , he is cool", and that's why the fan base grew so large with SA games forward. The games were fun ( some of them, not excusing bad games here , not at all) and the characters were cool. And note I said characters, sonic as cool as suface value will allow, he is only has the Illusion of a personality. So they surrounded him characters that did ( some of them) have personalities and their poses and design effectively communicate " hey this character is cool" " and this character does this" " and this character acts like this". And designs had evolved from simple short fat things, they made them a bit more tall and lanky , a bit more human, and it worked.
And a couple years back hasbro did the same thing, and it worked again. I could also bring up how the colors and designs in that show are set up quite similar to sonic now. But I don't wanna talk about MLP any more than I need to. And to be honest, people will be turned off by this thread, by sonic alone, why make it worse.
Sonic and his friends designs as poses are generally more appealing than they were in the genesis era.
Lets go though the some of most popular sonic characters Dreamcast forward design.
You see her hand , you see what she is doing, you see her face, you see her color, that light purple, that indicates that she some mystical ability. You design a character for looks AND effectiveness. This amount of detail would have never happened back in the day with sonic , she would be standing there with a half smile, she might have not even existed. You would have known nothing about her.
This is a helpful character, he is cute. He waving and saying hello he is friendly.
You see this pose , this is determination. You see his colors, his colors, the amount of black used, that indicates mystery. Do you see his long body, That causes you to take this character a bit more seriously than fat and cute.
This Indicates this an angry character, he is strong he is tough and is angry quite often.
These types of sonic designs far better at communicating what a character is about , far better than than the art of old. Especially with the half smile everyone used to have, that only communicated "hey".. or in Amy's case, "hey i am also a girl".
What is very important about effective character design is communicating what the character is about. And modern sonic, despite.... bad..horrible games, still communicates what is needed. The fan base for sonic BOOMED in the Dreamcast adventure age, for good reason, how the characters were portrayed attracted people, kids, teenagers, adults. Sonic's design may lie in Simplicity, but classic sonic was too simple.
This would also explain the change in box art, the name of the game is attracting people to something. And I know this is getting a bit into box art, but I am gonna get a bit real here
As much as you( and I ) may like the covers to Final fantasy 6 and to Secret of mana, the call of duty black ops 2 cover Is more effective in communicating what the game is about. It isn't about looking pretty,( though I like new sonic's design WAY more than classic) Its about attracting customers. Not saying you cant innovate and try new things, and new designs, god no, everything would stagnate. I am not also saying you can't have interesting pretty covers, however these interesting pretty colors need to accurately communicate what is happening in the game, in a appealing way.
Somethings are more effective than others.
And what I am arguing with sonic is that new sonic is more effective, you can argue simple design until you are blue in the face. But all that shadow fan art is going to keep being drawn regardless of you accepting it or not.
