What do you think of the new character designs in Awakening?

[Lauren]

I apologize if a thread similar to this one has already been created!

I personally am not a fan of the fashion and clothing/lack of clothing of the majority of the characters in FE: Awakening---I honestly only love Lucina's character design. Do you think the new artist, Yusuke Kozaki, being a male has anything to do with this change? Which style do you prefer? I don't want to start a debate~~just want to know how other people feel about this. I prefer clean+elegant vs. extremely decorative+sexy.

Senri Kita - FE9+10 (Titania + Elincia)

Yusuke Kozaki - Awakening (Cordelia + Olivia)

Cordelia: Garter belt, boobplate

Olivia: bouncy and... panty

Edited January 28, 2013 by Lauren

[pichupal]

There's actually three artists in this topic...

http://www.serenesfo...lc_jp.html#rvb1

Elincia's Artist: Douji Shiki

But yeah, I understand trying to use Elincia in both...

IIRC, the only DLC pick the main artist did was Katarina. I personally like both, but I really think you should at least show more varied character designs if you want to have a better vote.

Edited January 27, 2013 by pichupal

[Iridium]

Weren't the DLC artworks done by other artists? y;

I'm pretty sure the only DLC character that Kozaki drew was Katarina, who was incidentally one of the best.

[Icon of Sin]

The first detail that strikes me oddly in both of the Awakening artwork is how the legs have been designed.

Cordelia's right (character's POV) leg is bending at a wrong area while Elincia's right leg vanishes almost completely under her knee.

[Refa]

FE9/FE10 character design, at least clothing wise, has just as many practical flaws as the ones in FE13.

Excerpt taken from;

http://exploringbelievability.blogspot.com/2010/12/aggregate-effect-and-character-design_06.html

[Comet]

WHAT HAPPENED TO ELINCIA'S WHITE CAPE?!??

Titania broke her leg between the events of Radiant Dawn and Awakening.

[Lauren]

^I know! Her cape was so elegant and regal

There's actually three artists in this topic...

http://www.serenesfo...lc_jp.html#rvb1

Elincia's Artist: Douji Shiki

But yeah, I understand trying to use Elincia in both...

IIRC, the only DLC pick the main artist did was Katarina. I personally like both, but I really think you should at least show more varied character designs if you want to have a better vote.

Oops, thanks for the update! I edited it and added Olivia in place of Elincia + included a "both" option on the poll. I didn't want to include Tharja or Nowi, since I didn't want to appear too biased (or at least more biased than I already am). I also didn't want to include too many pictures to avoid having the first post be too image heavy. Voters' opinion, hopefully, will also be based on characters who are not listed.

FE9/FE10 character design, at least clothing wise, has just as many practical flaws as the ones in FE13.

Excerpt taken from;

http://exploringbeli...-design_06.html

Yes, I agree, so I guess the contest is between "compartively reasonable" and "on the brink of ridiculous."

---

Does anyone know who designed the Marth DLC? EDIT: found this and saw he was drawn by Senri Kita! ---I am too biased

Edited January 27, 2013 by Lauren

[Knight]

Although the lack of armour around the waist may be to improve maneuverability, protection was a much greater priority in the medieval ages. Nothing in FE looks like a traditional knight, as they lack a lot of essential pieces to the suit, except for the case in armour knights, in which it's over the top. I actually like Cordelia's design in Awakening, and Chrom and Lucina of course, but the clothing is quite extravagant, especially compared to older games. My surprise is no one has a besagew, it was an essential piece of armour, as it protected underarms, which were the weak points of many knights due to the arteries in the armpits. In the medieval ages it wasn't "hit anywhere and strike blood", many weapons were invented just to exploit weaknesses in specific armour pieces, as armour wasn't an easy thing to get around.

[RJWalker]

I would like to when Elincia lost a leg.

[Rehab]

I won't presume to know much about the actual degree of protection afforded by the armor, because even in the whole of the series what I usually consider at least relatively reasonable-looking probably is less practical than anything people actually wore to battle, but generally I prefer that many of the earlier designs at least might be said to pay lip-service to practicality, or at least a decision against total flamboyance.

Awakening's designs are interesting to me in some places, and I think they're alright as experiments, but I seem to remember somebody saying/linking to a source saying that the people who designed them weren't told what series they were designing for? Which seems a reasonable enough assertion to me at a glance, as my subjective conclusion is that they seem a lot more "anime." I hope they don't signal an overall/permanent change in the series direction to come, because their extravagance just doesn't charm me as much.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Rehab

[Anouleth]

It's not really fair to compare a Paladin and a Falcoknight to a Falcoknight and a Dancer. Dancers have always worn skimpy clothes.

[Thor Odinson]

Probably might be fairer to compare Sully to Titania. As far as I can tell in Sully's OA, she's not even wearing pants, and just has (visible) panties under her shirt thing. From what I know about Sully's character, it really feels like pandering instead of something in-character (Like Aversa's sexy design I'm not opposed to since it's a part of her character)

Or hell, Cherche. Dragonknights are supposed to be defensive so leaving your entire back open is ???

I like Senri Kita's work better overall. Yusuke Kozaki has some stuff that are really great, like Krom and Lucina's designs (especially their tier two, man), but other stuff is... I dunno. It's a hit or miss with his designs. I do like the drawing styles of both, though Kozaki is more prone to making anatomically awkward posing once in a while. Either way, Kita's designs win out.

Edited January 27, 2013 by Thor Odinson

[cyron]

I prefer fe10 becuase i think it looks more realistic but fe has never really had realistic clothes, as stated above the armor isnt even all that accurate

[Samias]

I prefer Senri Kita myself, but I'm not totally averse to the designs in Awakening. There isn't any character who I particularly dislike design-wise in FE9/10, whereas I dislike the open back on Cherche's outfit, or Nowi's outfit, I absolutely love the practical Troubadour/Valkyrie designs. The mage design is also a great improvement on female mages if you ask me, doing away with the silly miniskirt. Senri Kita improved on the classics but Yusuke Kozaki took everything to new places. I'm also fond of war clerics, despite the impracticality of the hoop skirt.

Miriel, the mage of this game.

War Clerics (Battle Sisters)

Troubadours

Valkyries

I like the concept art a whole lot for Awakening, so I'd rather not just single out the "eh" stuff. I definitely love it way more than when Masamune Shirow illustrated the Shadow Dragon art.

[Topaz Light]

I like them both pretty much equally, I guess. They each have their charms and flaws, and admittedly many designs from Awakening are more than a little fanservicey, but that's not to say the art direction itself is bad. It's just different, I think.

Maybe this comparison isn't really all that fair in my head, because I wasn't really a huge fan of FE9/10's art styles (I don't like a lot of the faces) but compared to older Fire Emblem art as a whole, I'd say I probably prefer the style of the official art for Sacred Stones to Awakening, but not by a huge amount. In fact, I think with Awakening's characters it may not even be the art style, but the designs themselves I don't like as much. It seems like there's a much greater tendency towards ordinary hair and outfit colors in this game, which I actually don't like much, because for me part of the fun of the graphical aspects of Fire Emblem was getting to see all sorts of bright and colorful characters join your team and fight together. In Awakening the hair colors, and expecially outfit colors, are much plainer and less vibrant, which I find a little disappointing. Of course, Avatar and, by extension, the child characters, can have whatever hair colors you like.

Maybe I am totally missing the OP's point, but that's my two cents.

[BrightBow]

If I could ask for a moment: Realizing that Yusuke Kozaki is the man behind the designs of No More Heroes makes me wonder about something.

Could it be that every little girl he draws looks just like a Bizarre Jelly girl? I would prefer to believe that the people at IS not actually wanted Nowi to look just like Strawberry and her friends.

On topic, I consider his artwork to be a massive downgrade. Armor that flaunts a character's anatomy is a bad idea in general. It's not even a matter of realism.

After all, the artwork is supposed to express the character. But Yusuke Kozaki's artwork merely tries (keyword being "tries") to make the characters look sexy in exchange for mercilessly underselling the efforts that the writing stuff put into them.

And it doesn't end with the wardrobe. I consider the poses to be way worse with that.

The male characters are all fine. They have very expressive poses. I would say that I get a good idea who those characters are just by looking at them.

The poses of the female characters on other hand... well, I would say that they are all horribly bad at that but looking at Cordelia above in particular... Just what is her pose supposed to express? It's probably supposed to be sexy but it's just all kinds of messed up, swinging her hips like that and bending her body awkwardly.

Anyway, just compare the pose to Titania. Look at her focused eyes and secure stance. I would say that this an expressive pose. Compared to that, Awakening is just awful.

Edited January 31, 2013 by BrightBow

[Ein]

Eh. Both art styles are nice in their own regard.

Kita's are what you'd expect from Mideval-ish setting. Pretty much everything you see on a person is meant to function in a realistic way.

Kozaki's are far more liberal in terms of style or put it bluntly in a rather generic way, much more "anime" which isn't "bad" in of itself. Besides, the fanservice doesn't exactly detract from any of the character thanks to their support conversations.

Still, I personally prefer Kita's but that's not to say I don't enjoy Kozaki's amusing designs as they are rather endearing.

But seriously, Kozaki was asked to design characters and wasn't told what they were for? That's all kinds of awesome. >_>

Edited January 31, 2013 by Ein

[Sasori]

I prefer the first one (especially that Titania design), but I don't really have any problems with the new artist.

[ProfRaine]

Kita. I thought the designs/style of FE 9/10 (especially 10) were really well done. I do like Kozaki's work (Chrom and Lucina especially), but there's something about it that bothers me a bit, can't quite put my finger on it. Also, IMO, the generic classes in Awakening look pretty stupid. Some of those portraits are just like, ehhhh...? And then there's Kallum.

Edited January 31, 2013 by ProfRaine

[Faye]

The only thing that really bugs me is how SEXY nearly 99% of the female casts looks. :< Including DLC. Elincia and Micaiah, what have they done to you. "OTL There has always been fanservice, but never to a bad degree like this. I'll enjoy the game regardless, but it makes me sad that they sacrificed potential great character design for the stupid easy fanservice route. It's worse than the biker suits of Mario Kart Wii. >>