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[kyn]

^{--- Berserk Spoilers below ---}



To me Guts is one of the most interesting character design studies, not because his initial concept, but because he keeps changing and growing older, showing us his growth from the day he was born. It's not only facial features either, his body is abused and mangled beyond belief, losing his arm and his right eye, his hair starting to grow white, the sacrificial mark, scars throughout his body (every scar really does have a story behind it) and his armor and weaponry also keep changing. His personality gradually changes as well, he goes from being a fucking asshole to a more relaxed and wise man, only to reveal a beastly-like nature in battle.
And god knows how much will he keep changing, the manga has been going on for like 20 years, and Kentaro Miura says it's like 60% done, and from the slow pace this is going lately with months going by without a single chapter being released, I'll probably die before I get to see how it ends.

[1982]

These, little lively faces full of expression

[McMutton]

Hell, Kentaro will die before Berserk's done, at this rate.

[Tumetsu]

Hell, Kentaro will die before Berserk's done, at this rate.

I thought the same. Which would be shame. I readed all available volumes recently and got hooked.

[kyn]

Hell, Kentaro will die before Berserk's done, at this rate.

It has crossed my mind. The guy who made Shin-chan died while hiking alone in the mountains.

[Derek]

To me Guts is one of the most interesting character design studies, not because his initial concept, but because he keeps changing and growing older, showing us his growth from the day he was born.

Cool post.

I'm glad he changed Guts from his prototype form, which was much more weaselly-looking and hard to like.

Berserk in general has some great character designs, especially the armor.

Speaking of manga, I like the gaunas from Abara (Tsutomo Nihei):

[Bandages]

yeah nihei! did you see all that BLAME! on the last page?

apparently the man is an architect, and so that's why the worlds he designs are so bizarre and awesome. among other reasons, probably.

[Derek]

Oh, no, I didn't see it!

But yeah, he does good buildings... probably why Blame! took place in a Dyson Sphere! The thing he's amazing at, though, is action scenes and fast-paced battles. I'd say the best I've ever seen in any comic.

[Angelbait]

While it's not really a specific character, Blizzard always exhibits superb character design. Strong silhouettes and bold colours.

I've always loved Blizzard character design, and gotten in a lot of trouble backing it.  Tracing them back, even their Vikings characters were at once identifiable to their associated skill, albeit one bro is carrying a mondo shield and the other a sword so its kind of obvious, but the characters were so alive when you added in all their movement and sounds!

[HöllenKobold]

These top-heavy designs incorporate lovable gimmicks and strong shapes. The dichotomy created by their little spandex legs makes it all the better.

The antennae, double scarves on the back, and popped up collar define a strong silhouette. He also has a stark color palette and clearly defined limbs that appropriate the fighting. His suit also gets dirty very easily, conveying the dirtiness of battle.

[:^)]

I love those thernz. You find cool stuff.

[knotty spine]

I like this.

[inkBot]

And yeah I have  a shitty attitude.

That's not a strength dude. Besides, you have not made a single contribution to the thread besides whining.

When I look at the images people post, I ask myself "Why does this person like this design?" and similar. Just flinging an image aside just because I personally think it's shitty is lazy if you ask me, which you didn't.

I could go over Gabriel, but thernz already did that (I'm gonna do it anyway, just wait). Sarcastically, yes, but it was pretty spot on. Lords of Shadow is a simple game. Subtleness would be sort of wasted on it, because frankly, there's no need for it. The player needs to understand a few basic things about Gabriel. He is a templar, a "tortured soul", and has resolve. All of these things are implied through his clothes, posture and gear. You might think that it is shitty, but what you're missing is that it is competent and deliberate. There are few, if any, parts of his design that feel sporadic. It's not the pinnacle of design, it was not intended to be.
 

[mono]

This is one of the best character design, or should I say, one of the most realistic character design. It strays away from the typical slender girl with big bewbs and cute face. Instead it really depict the average teenage girl, complete with her spotty face and messy hair(and attitude )

Yes

[mozzy]

EVERYTHING in this. Such a great, sadly forgotten film:




The Theif and the Cobbler.

[gimymblert]

As much I like the art direction in mirror edge, FAITH is a failure as a CHARACTER design. The outfit design is awesome and masterly done, but as a character it's a total failure. I'm not talking about deep and nuance characterization here, lara croft is a much stronger character and have more personality than faith, despite being paper thin. Faith is not "relatable (or hatable)" nor display real value or ideal, worst some aspect actually actively contradict themselves (she pose like a fashion model playing tough girl, she punch but that's not what define her character) or are simply random (that tatoo was a good idea but the pattern is a big fuck you to design). That she have a huge written backstory is not enough, it does not translate into something graphically that communicate empathy nor is evocative. Also the entire cast of character is simply bad, it's all about the env in this game.





This wonder woman redesign really caught my eye!





On character design from the same one who did that redesign:

Crash course in character design (the best one I read so far):
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/2413085571/costumes-the-wearable-dialog
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/3583964949/figures-they-speak-for-themselves-mildly-nsfw

bonus round, his own character design appreciation

http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/844079811/the-obligatory-top-10-favorite-character-designs
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/10732436312/top-10-best-superhero-villain-redesigns
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/10756160867/top-10-worst-superhero-villain-redesigns

His redesign:
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/10830387057/5-essential-superhero-redesigns
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/10979241054/rebooting-the-justice-league
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/11174072014/rebooting-dcs-villains
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/11344418364/rebooting-batman
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/11364826489/dc-comics-reboots-dresden-codak

Yep link dump because that's good data for those who are interested in this subject  

[:^)]

EVERYTHING in this. Such a great, sadly forgotten film:




The Theif and the Cobbler.

Woa. Super cool.

[Bandages]

the cobbler character is actually just rad as fuck

thanks for the cool find .__. not a surprise disney jacked someone else's story

[JoGribbs]

On character design from the same one who did that redesign:

Aaron Diaz's redesigns are uniformly poop. He designs costumes because 'they'd make more sense if they were this way', or because they're part of some far-too-clever fan fiction he's got concocted. Just look at his Superman/ his justification:

I wanted to bring Superman back to his depression-era roots, where in the earliest stories he was mostly concerned with social justice more than representing specifically American ideals. It was only after World War 2 that he became a more “boy scout,” authoritarian character. I wanted him to be closer to the Nietzschean “Superman” (the earliest inspiration for the character) whose morality can be independent of traditional ones

Whhhhyyyy? Okay I get it ur smart I dum but good grief maybe you are overthinking this a bit? Superman is supposed to be exciting! He's SUPERman!

He re-imagines Gorilla Grodd, a telepathic gorilla who lives in a city full of gorillas called Gorilla City, as like a scientist who mutates into a monkey in an experiment gone wrong. He reimagines Lex luthor as a Steve-Jobs-a-like because THATS SO RELEVANT YOU KNOW. I don't think he gets that the impossibility and silver-age weirdness of these characters is often the core of their appeal.

The reasons his redesigns have been popular is because nobody in the mainstream comics industry knows how to make comics any more. Sure, Jim Lee knows how to draw two manly men punching the shit out of each other and Geoff Johns knows how to click 'send' on those scripts but you ask any of them to show even a modicum of imagination or verve they'd probably just stare back at you baffled. So DC noticed that people weren't buying their comics and asked these people to do something about it, and showing as much initiative as they could muster, they gave Superman a collar, juggled all the women's costumes around and presented their work to the public like when my dog lays by my feet and sheepishly leans his head towards a pile of sick.

So yeah, DC comics relaunch resulted in a lot of pointless, vulgar and in many cases absurdly misogynistic character design. Diaz's designs are inoffensive which to many people = better than the DC ones.

The only one he did that I liked was his first Batman redesign, and even that one's only visually interesting (it's soooo clever to say that Batman is like, totally, like, the crazy bad guy and stuff; so subversive!):

[gimymblert]

It's a matter of interpretation (the justification) and taste, It does use greatly the principle of character design as much as it expose it clearly. His design does match and communicate what HE want and he know what he want, that's why it's design.

The other part of character design is to match an audience expectation, some people like it tame, some up to 11, but the principle remain the same. Most people in this thread present character design from this side of the POV, ie not about design but about personal taste and impression. It's still important, the greatest design without a public is as worth as nothing, character design purpose is to connect with that audience. But here it's an old problem of good (good at communication) vs popular (good at attraction) which is like the chicken and egg issue.

So what makes a good character design? A design that works or a design that attract? The graal is to do a design that does both AND find new way to do it in unexpected way, to create appeal you haven't thought about, that is not the cheap one.

A great design is therefore a design that surprise (creative), attract (appeal) and communicate correctly, that is both immediate to understand, yet have nuance, subtleties and depth. WHO CAN DO THIS?

I'm sure the Wonder woman I like how he redesigned would absolutely baffle many people. But I had no interest in the character until his take.


EDIT:

OH WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME! I can't stop thinking about it, but I had to shut my brain those days ...

I would say the best design became or impose new archetype, strong design follow archetype. For example faith, unlike lara, failed to impose a character archetype beyond her strong visual flair. Character like Rei in evangelion had spawn legion of copycat character that came in endless variation.

While locally from an episode or arc most super hero are only rarely complex, their long story and evolution did bring them a lot of nuance and had cemented them into abstract concept, they had became archetype. I mean what is batman? the batman of burton? the original? the bold and the brave? animated batman? or the new gritty nolan batman? All have some batmanness to them. Some super heroes have evolve to a point where wild variation make it hard to break their concept, and sometimes they overshadow their original inspiration, batman is inspire by ninja, yet nobody reference ninja when speaking of batman, they reference another greater archetype: super heroes. Which lead to superman, by itself he create not only the main archetype of all super heroes but also sub archetype within that genre and the whole structure (tight costume, emblem, super power, weakness, hidden identity).

In conclusion, the greatest design are never design front end, they evolve until they reach maturation, ie they are not really design, they are processed.