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Character designs that look cool without being stupid?

sgc_meltdown

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2003
Messages
6,000
wallace said:
A good balance should be struck.

or you can ratchet both up as high as you dare with a steady hand on the till: see disciples 1 and 2 portraiture


w6so7.jpg


there's another fanart where a liefeld style character is serving up a plate with pouchbuns but unfortunately I did not save it
 

Machocruz

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2011
Messages
4,318
Location
Hyperborea
Trash said:
Modern? Dude, that's the kind of stuff you could find on the cover of pretty much every pnp source book since the 80's.

Yeah, I'm probably seeing the lingering influence of that DnD books and Heavy Metal magazine, although I think the young artists today consciously ape shit like WoW and Soul Calibur.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,983
[quote="MetalCraze" Rude dude looks OK. The second dude looks like a fag.

[/quote]

Wow. Totally didn't see THAT coming.

They are not "unique" which is the whole point. They are normal. I understand that for tasteless retards like you "unique" characters are exactly what I wrote a few pages back - some dickhead dressed in all colours of a gay pride flag wearing gold chains and hugeass shoulder plates while carrying a 2m long blaster (he is in fact a member of a very secret police and has deep character to him, he is very sad because Ancient Evil dressed like vikings with gauss cannons killed his family thus he is on a revenge roll and tries to stay unnoticed) = unique.

Newsflash: random shit put together is not unique. It's what 95% of games do. It's how all characters in every single jap game and Avellone writing are being made in 5 minutes. I myself just came up with a very unique and deep character of CDP quality in just one minute. I would totally turn TW3 around with my unique and deep creativity.

Here's the next 80 or so protagonists for you then. All very tasteful and normal.

chinaarmy.jpg
 

thesoup

Arcane
Joined
Oct 13, 2011
Messages
7,599
Tell me how Max, Fisher, JC and 47 aren't unique. Just because they aren't dressed like they're autistic and colorblind doesn't mean they're generic.

I'd even argue that 47 is too unique for someone who's supposed to blend in crowds and act invisible.
 

Kz3r0

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
27,013
wallace said:
Speaking of sleeves, here's one of the plainest designs you'll ever see. Just another Jedi - but with such a truly wicked smile you can't help but suspect she can see, and probably even has a left hand. A wretched old bitch, and the game would not work if it weren't as obvious as daylight, with another lie layered on top, to ensure the most you can rebel against her, is to simply keep her safe and take her exactly where she wants to go. Great concept art (albeit very digital.)
2612ob7.jpg


Along those same lines, I always thought Vance Kovacs had a talent for knowing just how far to push it. Look at these people - the characters write themselves.
I_10.jpg
I_04.jpg
I_02.jpg
:love:


Let me add something dandy:


Clickety click image.
 

Luigi

Barely Literate
Joined
Jan 21, 2011
Messages
428
sgc_meltdown said:
wallace said:
designs that are characteristically evocative, and generally pragmatic for whatever purpose in that setting.

my rule of thumb for an excellent portrait is that the face and general body language has to convey as much as the clothing or armor and leave you interested in the character

often designers just do some accoutrement smoke and mirrors filling up and it generally satisfies most people's criteria for 'having character'
blam intricate armor and holding something with fantasy greebles = deep personality, as you do in high school

like this this shit for example
ukJpg.jpg


that is the furthest thing from real for me. It might as well be a photoshoot with a dragonborn model or whatever that is. Just there in lieu of a blank cover.



compare to these, which have a lot less going on ornament-wise and actually shift your attention to the actual person

0bmKQ.jpg

ufsCW.jpg

Dude, Imma let you finish and all since you are one of the last members her who is not a complete brian surgeon.
BUT WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU COMPARING HERE?!
 

Wunderpurps

Educated
Joined
Sep 27, 2011
Messages
569
He's confused because he is comparing characters that are supposed to be unnamed archtypes on a PnP cover and supposed to show off the coolness of being a warrior mage lizard elf to individual characters like jack the ripper or emma of the green gables.

All the blah blah blah about how bad DnD art is can probably be replaced with "fuck, I am not using my brian, am I?" or maybe "I am confused and angered by things which are exaggerated or stylized in any way." with a side of "I don't understand that it's much more important to hit the notes even too loudly than to miss them completely, especially for the type of pieces I like to rage about where the character himself is not the real focus, and where it can be very difficult to be subtle such as an action scene.".
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,983
thesoup said:
Tell me how Max, Fisher, JC and 47 aren't unique. Just because they aren't dressed like they're autistic and colorblind doesn't mean they're generic.

I'd even argue that 47 is too unique for someone who's supposed to blend in crowds and act invisible.

Because Fisher is the only one that's actually recognizable. I've seen as many pictures of 47 and JC as I have of Fisher, but Fisher's image is the only one I could match to a game.

Not that makes him a good candidate for the thread. The idea of a stealthy character walking around with a fucking tripled up green lighthouse for a face is pretty stupid.

Does every character need to be visually unique? No. Some are meant to be forgettable. Rude is just another minor goon in the game. 47 is supposed to blend in with a crowd (though as you mentioned he really doesn't, unless the crowd is made up of bodyguards.) There's more to character design than the visuals. But arguing that anyone you'd be able to remember without seeing them hundreds upon hundreds of times is stupid design is retarded. Vault boy would not be a better design if he were a generic stick figure with no colours. The vault dweller's outfit shouldn't have been jeans and a wife beater. This goes double for characters that aren't normal people. There's nothing stupid or out of place about scarring or maiming someone who's spent a lifetime fighting to the death, or giving a character of another species distinct features or strange clothing.
 

gromit

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
2,771
Location
Gentrification Station
Wunderpurps said:
it's much more important to hit the notes even too loudly than to miss them completely
Which is why Yoshitaka Amano is a legend, instead of a joke. However that didn't stop all of his signatures and hallmarks from turning into punch-lines in others' hands: in fact it made it happen. I'm all for hitting notes loudly, but this is like the thousandth time the little shit across the street has played the intro to "Smoke on the Water" this week and he seemingly thinks it loops four times as long as it does.

There're tropes and cliches that slowly grow over time, feeding into one another (and still getting bitched about anyway, but well...) and then there's "that thing people buy looks like this so our thing must too" which is - from the outside - just what seems to be going on. A good artist will still pull off something nice within such boundaries, but it's not exactly conducive to creativity (unless you've got a list of pet peeves and subversions to work from.)

Even if it's not what's going on, that it looks like it is, in and of itself, a bad thing. I wish the folk at the top got that: if there are two outwardly similar movies in one summer, one of them is "the rip-off" even if it's logistically impossible. I bet the board at EA was pretty happy to see DXHR come out and make a splash - but the best feeling the art team had that day was possibly "reassurance."

Anyway to ramble back to my point: these days giant pauldrons, toothy swords, cuirasses with gold-trimmed titty shelves, and 90% of staffs with "fantasy greeble" stuff at the top are used so frequently, they're less like adjectives and more like indefinite articles.
 

Wunderpurps

Educated
Joined
Sep 27, 2011
Messages
569
wallace said:
Wunderpurps said:
it's much more important to hit the notes even too loudly than to miss them completely
Which is why Yoshitaka Amano is a legend, instead of a joke. However that didn't stop all of his signatures and hallmarks from turning into punch-lines in others' hands: in fact it made it happen. I'm all for hitting notes loudly, but this is like the thousandth time the little shit across the street has played the intro to "Smoke on the Water" this week and he seemingly thinks it loops four times as long as it does.

There're tropes and cliches that slowly grow over time, feeding into one another (and still getting bitched about anyway, but well...) and then there's "that thing people buy looks like this so our thing must too" which is - from the outside - just what seems to be going on. A good artist will still pull off something nice within such boundaries, but it's not exactly conducive to creativity (unless you've got a list of pet peeves and subversions to work from.)

Even if it's not what's going on, that it looks like it is, in and of itself, a bad thing. I wish the folk at the top got that: if there are two outwardly similar movies in one summer, one of them is "the rip-off" even if it's logistically impossible. I bet the board at EA was pretty happy to see DXHR come out and make a splash - but the best feeling the art team had that day was possibly "reassurance."

Anyway to ramble back to my point: these days giant pauldrons, toothy swords, cuirasses with gold-trimmed titty shelves, and 90% of staffs with "fantasy greeble" stuff at the top are used so frequently, they're less like adjectives and more like indefinite articles.

It's a matter if it's appropriate to what you are doing.

Specifically in the DnD module cover. It's symbolic that they stand back to back. They have their weapons at the ready, they are in a pause during a battle before the fury gets unleashed. I'd say it's actually a fucking amazingly good piece that does everything it should do and does it well. Because it's not about having cool and unique characters, it's about adventure and about magic and action and mystery and exotic places and stuff. And it has to do all that instantly or else it's pointless.

Now if it is a character based story instead, like maybe for conan then it should be different, but even so being a cover it's going to be much different than a character that appears in a crpg. But even judging it as a cover if the characters alone are what's selling it then it fails, but that's not what DnD is all about.

I hate when the oversized weapons get over the top, but if you try to do things like make a male warrior whose arms are not over the top muscled or a female whose breasts are averaged size but still show up and look normal ingame it's much harder than to make exaggerated ones. I probably see the same dumb comments about breat size for every single game, but it's just really fucking hard to make female models that have proper proportion that aren't exaggerated and where the detail shows up and same goes for abs and biceps on men without shirts.
 

gromit

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
2,771
Location
Gentrification Station
I'm all for archetypes, and I'll stick up for them - but they, by definition, hold no power when it comes to mystery or the exotic. And it's a sad fact that those generic archetypes are more-or-less indistinguishable from the kind of design you see for characters who are supposed to have strong characters.

1/5 for defending JiggleTech, but you raise a good point. I had an excellent and frank discussion at the end of doing some storyboarding. The central characters were all black, and I was complimented for making them look it. Naturally we talked our way to the very heart of caricature.

In firing out umpteen cartoonish charcoal-and-washes, worrying almost solely about composition and legibility, one has to hit upon the iconic exaggeration necessary to make a person "look black" without just slapping buck-teeth and big lips on all of them and calling it a day. Or, equally, without drawing a bunch of darkish white people. Or even without fearfully avoiding it, because there was, in fact, a family of characters that had rubber-boat lips and teeth they could float them between (this was even used to visually reinforce a mostly-unspoken plot point.)

It's all about straddling that fine line, and getting your feet as close together as possible. Rest assured, I drew some lips which likely violate the square-cube law, and went through a few erasers' worth of politically correct angst in the process. Fortunately, the reaction was never "holy fucking big lips, you little white devil bastard," because some exaggeration is expected (and wholly necessary) for that kind of work.

It still could have gone that way if I played it up a bit too much. If the goal is to "exaggerate to the point of normality" so to speak - in games we are largely talking about characters inhabiting neon worlds, bearing ears of all shapes and sizes - the ball is still usually dropped. If the average pair of breasts is consistently large enough that noticing it has become cliche: ipso facto they've failed in the attempt to get them to "show up and look normal in-game."

What an :incline: thread this is. Pretty pictures, lively and nuanced discussion; fuck me, Skyway even said something from Final Fantasy looks ok.
 

sgc_meltdown

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2003
Messages
6,000
as usual with topics about quality this is turning into arguing semantics and personal taste and clarification needed for posts in order for addressing perceived hazy issues so as to intimately dislike a person's viewpoint more righteously

it's good we all have our own kind of investments here eh what would a discussion be without that fun stuff

Wunderpurps said:
He's confused because he is comparing characters that are supposed to be unnamed archtypes on a PnP cover and supposed to show off the coolness of being a warrior mage lizard elf to individual characters like jack the ripper or emma of the green gables.

perhaps one of my unsaid points is that a character which looks named and yet hasn't been for the viewer is far better than one that looks like it has been drawn purely as a safe stereotypical example template
Firstly unless you're going for something a lot more academic like a ethnological dictionary written by a british man in the 1890s it is a bit of a fallacy to say any example npc or character should be drawn generically because that's somehow better.

In a non-formal setting quirks and personality variances between a hundred members of the same guild should become very apparent. Even if each is isolated in a scene, the difference remains. Remember, we are talking about character design here, not uniform or armor design of an organisation.

Same here, in an action scene. Why shouldn't these designed as fully realised individuals? Wouldn't that deepen interest in the class for prospectives? Isn't the notion that you should give the loosest and blandest template possible running counter to the objective of 'cool' design?

in the context of this discussion all four characters here don't have names anyway, and would giving them all placards and honorifics shift the field there?

along the lines I think it's interesting you consider my examples named characters compared to the d&d cover. I can photoshop out 'chokeshin' on the second if you like, it makes little difference to the piece in terms of it being better as a 'cool' portrait. Stating a case is well served with strong counter-examples(not anti-examples, mind) so perhaps my deliberate choices became another entirely opposing camp with different ideals for you.

And yes I do try to ascertain the context and intent of a piece. With all the above in mind the costume detailing and intimate proximity do little to tell me that I am supposed to see and judge this as two faceless no-namers. Unfortunately the delivery ends up making it all interest-diffusing and sterile.
You can say that with an extreme judgment like that I have missed the point of the piece entirely because those who actually do will like it but that's really just your call I'm afraid just like this is mine.

with that said my overall intent was to show how an interesting character portrait versus non interesting ones so perhaps this whole 'why do you hate action shots' thing has meandered a bit too far off the scope of the thread

in the interest of full disclosure I'll probably be very pleased with an image of scantily clad dragonborn men or females laying against a sloping peak and curling their supplicating arms around a heroic wizard or witch king, so timeless and classy that stuff is
probably not as a portrait though unless as satire of a previously established character

also I've long given up the idea of disliking someone for liking something I don't so if the problem lies there for you be at peace. condescending? be sure to tell me


All the blah blah blah about how bad DnD art is can probably be replaced with "fuck, I am not using my brian, am I?" or maybe "I am confused and angered by things which are exaggerated or stylized in any way." with a side of "I don't understand that it's much more important to hit the notes even too loudly than to miss them completely, especially for the type of pieces I like to rage about where the character himself is not the real focus, and where it can be very difficult to be subtle such as an action scene.".

Going to have to disagree with your slight strawmanning assumptions about my thinking processes and how flawed the road they led me down was bro

in fact I do love d&d art and have p. much all the monstrous manuals and have never taken issue with the artwork inside them (will this turn the discussion into something similar to oh the rpgs you like back then are as good as the rpgs now in fact they are the same hypocrisy hypocrisy what you say cannot be trusted), but not the conveyances here as regarding character design

hitting the notes loudly? disciples 1 and 2 art is hitting the notes loudly. this comes off more as elevator music.
the rest I probably addressed in some convergent fashion above.



Luigi said:
Dude, Imma let you finish and all since you are one of the last members her who is not a complete brian surgeon.
BUT WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU COMPARING HERE?!

what a sweet thing for you to say man don't hit on me I'm just another guy rpg gamer

and I'm quite aware of the genre or setting differences there, the idea was to show 'having character' versus not having it
the following images should help
your other misgivings I probably answered or help cement in that mess above




so bros here are some pictures of characters that I think constitute as looking interesting or delivering well in various fashions and degrees of sophistication that I won't go into because what is this a damn thesis let me say things are unequivocally shit or good in fine codex tradition you fuck

these should give you a better picture and refine any further questions
if you dislike what I'm saying these should give you more ammo

quite a bit of these are not specifically game or setting related and can well be captioned with descriptives like 'a fantasian being pauses for reflection'
I think they are all p. nice really and you should look at them even if you don't care about the shit said so far

there might be some tits
http://i.imgur.com/UaqSb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NutwP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4qlZh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/89tc2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4XQL2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RIoJ0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/q5k30.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lvVvR.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vjn6k.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZysvZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DqJE7.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/M5i38.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ySiED.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/E6Wt1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/7phEL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZIcZg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0R6gw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oanHP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/eSidX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2FCFG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RomXV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K99Bn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qg23Q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KgUmA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uKZuS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tNVd5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FMaDA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/is3jH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/68dQo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/leiLo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3Cp1d.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hXcRn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MmM7D.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mAat5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GQKyj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WZKY8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/h3LcD.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6DtNf.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EMMlq.jpg



'generic action pose/scene' contenders I approve of
next up is debating what is generic
http://i.imgur.com/SLNGX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/eomD8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uTrYl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MIr0T.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/53pRc.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ToYH5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wiasL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tNVd5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CH4Nq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Y6P0O.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iGwEF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aAGyv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tWIp0.jpg


ok your turn
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
What DamnedRegistrations means is that unless a character looks as retarded as possible instead of being dressed like a human, not like a clown - it's a completely forgettable character.

DamnedRegistrations said:
47 is supposed to blend in with a crowd (though as you mentioned he really doesn't, unless the crowd is made up of bodyguards.)
If you've played Hitman you would know that 47 changes outfits to blend in with specific crowd. And these crowds for some reason are also dressed into something humans wear, not something autists wear.

Vault boy would not be a better design if he were a generic stick figure with no colours. The vault dweller's outfit shouldn't have been jeans and a wife beater.
VD outfit is OK. Jumpsuits isn't anything dumb, besides he ditches his jumpsuit fast in favour of an armour (that doesn't look like a medieval armour which is how every sci fi game today looks) early on.

This goes double for characters that aren't normal people. There's nothing stupid or out of place about scarring or maiming someone who's spent a lifetime fighting to the death, or giving a character of another species distinct features or strange clothing.
So because some character isn't a normal everyday guy he must look like a dickhead with flashing signs all over his outfit crying "certified unique dude" to be "unique"?
 

sgc_meltdown

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2003
Messages
6,000
MetalCraze said:
So because some character isn't a normal everyday guy he must look like a dickhead to be "unique"?

yquY2.jpg



also I forgot to mention that a lot of the main pc portrait selections in Arcanum do well in having personality and being distinct from one another 'despite' just being faces with no doodads whatsoever
 

Tagaziel

Scholar
Joined
Feb 20, 2008
Messages
193
Location
Ass end of Niedersachsen
Excidium said:
I think it's him, the armor is the same, and the throne and the whores...maybe they made his face different from the concept art. Or is that supposed to be the king?

I always thought it was the portrait of the original owner of the castle. Gomez simply picked up his armor after killing him.
 
Joined
May 6, 2009
Messages
1,875,975
Location
Glass Fields, Ruins of Old Iran
sgc_meltdown said:
also I forgot to mention that a lot of the main pc portrait selections in Arcanum do well in having personality and being distinct from one another 'despite' just being faces with no doodads whatsoever

That's because they were based on photos of real people.

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=34604

MetalCraze said:
DamnedRegistrations said:
47 is supposed to blend in with a crowd (though as you mentioned he really doesn't, unless the crowd is made up of bodyguards.)
If you've played Hitman you would know that 47 changes outfits to blend in with specific crowd. And these crowds for some reason are also dressed into something humans wear, not something autists wear.

http://mydirtyglove.com/wp-content/uplo ... -D0WPV.jpg
 

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