Anyone feel like Kozaki is the perfect Fire Emblem character designer?

[Anacybele]

Hawkeye is pretty tan as well. A guy that tan is not going to sunburn easily.

[Sentacotus]

Being covered in a desert has more to do with preventing sunburn since there is no shade and the sun is out for most of the day. The clothing is usually loose to allow the body to breathe as well and light in color in order to reflect the UV rays.

Of course that's being practical this is Fire Emblem after all.

[Ownagepuffs]

Hawkeye flexes and makes the sun sweat.

[CazTGG]

A thousand no's isn't enough to express my dissatisfaction with Awakening's art style. Putting aside the ridiculous and impractical sexualization of most of the female characters (and the boob armor), Kazumi's often exaggerated art style simply does not mesh well with a series that reimagines traditional western imagery of the Middle Ages and mythological creatures like the western dragon. Having said that, I do love the design for the Manakete we've seen thus far for If, so perhaps it was a fluke, given what I heard happened to Awakening's art direction. Then again, there's the Female Avatar with her 90's female comic book spine curving out to show her chest and butt at the same time and her two left feet, so it could just be poor artistry...

In short, more of this:

Less of this:

Not a fan of what i've seen of Fire Emblem If's art design, but what I like of it, I like a lot, especially compared to what little I did in Awakening.

[Crysta]

Yeah that pose looks like it'd be mighty uncomfortable.

I'm a little surprised a guy noticed.

[Ownagepuffs]

Her art has been thoroughly discussed by both genders. It's a bit of a mess.

[Dark Holy Elf]

That special pose which uniquely allows the viewer to make out both chest and butt is something that is hard not to notice once you've had it pointed out to you. It's ridiculously prevalent in comics, in particular.

That particular shot of F Kamui is such a mess. At least the shot on the big group official art isn't as bad about it (and hopefully includes a right foot. Unless she was designed with a weird genetic defect on purpose. ... which would actually be kinda cool, if so, but the male art contradicts this possibility).

[BrightBow]

It's a bit hard not to notice the awkwardness of her pose. I mean, she is standing like she is wearing high heels despite being obviously being barefoot. It's like the pose was taken from an entirely different context and just copied with absolutely zero consideration on how it would fit here.

Personally, my first thought was that she was posed as a model walking down a catwalk presenting some accessory like a pouch or something similar. Alternatively, the way she holds he sword reminds me of schoolgirls in an Anime holding their bags but that wouldn't fit with the invisible high heels.

Be it as it may be, Kozaki was also the one to draw Katarina's DLC art, and she has a very solid pose there. So he definitely can draw women differently. So maybe IS wants him to draw like that? Or maybe the art was just rushed, so he copied a pose. That would also explain how he couldn't catch such an obvious error as having two left feet.

The poses back in FE12's artwork already left a lot to be desired (especially Catria), so personally I don't think Kozaki is really responsible for this aspect either.

Edited April 14, 2015 by BrightBow

[dap005]

i think the designs would be good if they changed but what i don't like is people saying the designs weren't fanservicy in previous games and bare leg riders were mentioned and as i checked every game and you pointed out every game but thracia has at least one partly bare legged rider. And even thracia I'm not completely sure about as i haven't found a pic of Miranda as a mageknight as she has a bare leg in her art. And your tumblr i was not able to see completely( low internet ) but what i saw was so true. Though i am glad that gender lock classes seem to be a thing of a past.

You are right about tharcia: http://danwensrandoms.tumblr.com/post/115714960399/the-previous-post-i-did-about-fe-female-riders-and

Even guys wore thigh highs (http://danwensrandoms.tumblr.com/post/115756091764/arthur-apologist-that-post-on-ladies-wearing) , it does have an unconvetional design in character costumes and I think is better off for it (variety, practicality, a sense that everyone is actually in the same army). One of my favourite FE character designs is definitely Tharcia's :).

I always liked how FE didn't really enforce gender specific classes and roles (though I'm unaware or male dancers or pegasus knights atm, which funnily enough shows that FE girls have more class variation than guys).

[dap005]

A general rule I use is, the less defense your class has, the less I give a shit about how much you wear. Mages wear, well, whatever? Whatever. I'd like to see some female mages wearing pants (such as Miriel, credit is given when due) just for variety in design's sake, but it's not like I'm gonna care too much about them in skirts. Swordmasters want to show some leg? I'm not opposed. Berserker want to wear something akin to a sports bra? Go ahead. One thing about the berserker class is that it's supposed have a sense of primal power akin to the Hulk, and if female berserkers were to be introduced I'm not going to campaign for them to be covered up. But Wyvern Lord doing the same? Do you want your leg to fall off chafing on that scaly-ass wyvern? Are you a tank or not?

Well said. There's an article from 2012 that covers the female armour design sentiment perfectly: http://www.themarysue.com/for-anyone-still-wondering-yes-woman-can-wear-full-armor-too/

Rather than a complaint, I think a cry for better character design on female character is a message of encouragement for something we don't usually see representated. Cliches and fanservice are old and unprogressive so I don't think is wrong to criticism particular designs, actually it makes people pay more attention to how the industry portrayals genders differently.

Variety is differently another thing to tackle, especially when you game (like FE) is characterisation heavy, I think the Suikoden series has probably one the most diverse array of character designs that takes liberaties on many occasions: http://danwensrandoms.tumblr.com/post/115898834909/jrpgs-tend-to-get-not-be-particularly-divergent-in

[Sunwoo]

Looking through the FE:if screenshots on the main SF page, I noticed something.

Camilla's bottom half is worse than we thought ._.

[Thor Odinson]

This isn't even about fanservice anymore

this is just bad design this is a giant fucking mess who the fuck thought any of her lower half was ever a good idea

if you're gonna make a fanservicey designs at least make it look good, geez

[The Geek]

I hope there's reclassing in this game. There's no way I'm letting my adoptive big sister walk around in just her underpants.

[Tsunami922]

If she's an unpromoted wyvern rider, it'd be nice if she got pants or a skirt or something when she promotes.

Still best waifu.

[Ryo]

If she's an unpromoted wyvern rider, it'd be nice if she got pants or a skirt or something when she promotes.

Still best waifu.

Something tells me she won't :X

(Since Hinoka and the others are drawn in their promoted classes in those arts, it's safe to assume that Camilla is also promoted.)

[Thane]

Camilla's laughable design aside, those are some huge sprites/character portraits or whatever the correct word is. Don't they look bigger than in Awakening, or is it just because Garon looks like a peacock?

...Is that an asscrack? Since when are they considered hot? Good lord...

[Ryo]

Ryouma also looks pretty huge because of his armor. The others' portraits look normal to me.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Ryo

[RJWalker]

This is what happens when you lose respect for yourself and appeal to the lowest of the lowest common denominator.

[Nyanko]

Looking through the FE:if screenshots on the main SF page, I noticed something.

Camilla's bottom half is worse than we thought ._.

Can you imagine how Marx and Book Bro would feel having to see their sister's business all the time? Ick. She's definitely getting reclassed if that is still available.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Sir Frederick

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Something tells me she won't :X

(Since Hinoka and the others are drawn in their promoted classes in those arts, it's safe to assume that Camilla is also promoted.)

As much as that would dissapoint me, I am now excited for characters having fully custom models outside of their starting class. (Unless wyvern lords are always in panties now)

[dap005]

Even worse case scenario NoA censores Camilla costume with a badly photoshoped curtain again.

It's on the list of most ridiculous female armour. I actually think battle bikinis make more sense than heavy armour that protect everything but chest and ass. Whilst awakening's character art's are at times very gazy, the main game itself for the most part had very little if any pandering shots or heavy fanservice imagery (excluding beach dlc that were designed to well er show off the most popular charaters in beach wear). So I'm guessing the main game in IF isn't going to be full of pantyshots either.

Camilla's ass is probably going to be distracting in some scenes but heyho there's a trend to go down the fanservice route these days in Japanese media. I'd at least thought Nintendo and IS of all companies would not go for this trend but I guess it's ultimately up to the art directors' taste. Look at previous tellius or tharcia designs which did have ladies dressed sexily but never made them fanservice bait with silly armour; those who wore armour, wore armour, the lightly armoured units ones, dressed lightly. There was variety and it made sense. From the looks of it IF does have variety too, even if the female riders are trousers-averse (even Romans wore trousers when on horses despite the fact they despised them but I think the armour designer cares more about gender differentiation here).

[Espella]

Even worse case scenario NoA censores Camilla costume with a badly photoshoped curtain again.

Best case scenario: NoA changes the model of Camila to be more practical and less stupid fanservice design that doesn't make any sense.

I really need this to happen now.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Even better-case scenario: the shots we've seen are just an early build, and have since been replaced with something far better that will be in both the Japanese and Western releases of the game.

(I do like Camilla's design aside from her stupid armour, so let me live in hope.)

[Rapier]

This isn't even about fanservice anymore

this is just bad design this is a giant fucking mess who the fuck thought any of her lower half was ever a good idea

if you're gonna make a fanservicey designs at least make it look good, geez

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he merely draws the characters inside the costumes other people give him.

While some costumes are ridiculous, I do like how the characters are drawn, so I find him decent.

[Thor Odinson]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he merely draws the characters inside the costumes other people give him.

While some costumes are ridiculous, I do like how the characters are drawn, so I find him decent.

He gets the base class armor from the art director, which is why I'm not counting the toilets against him, but he does get a certain level of freedom over specific character designs.

Examples include: Aversa's design, especially the art book, seem to be in his art style (with several iterations) rather than the style that the class designs are drawn in, and also differs significantly from standard dark flier. Frederick's design is also different from the standard Great Knight. He gets to take liberties.

Camilla uses a similar design base to standard wyvern rider/lord which is how I figured her out before the map sprite was found, but it does take liberties from the wyvern lord design. The top half is at least aesthetically pleasing enough (although standard Wyvern Lord does not have a boobwindow), so I won't talk about that. On the bottom half, Camilla's panties are far thinner than the type Wyvern Lord standard shows, which, on the standard, looks more like a leotard due to it not being explicitly separated from the body (I really hope she's wearing some fabric under the armor, metal on skin sucks), and the crotch curtain does not have a weird-ass hole in it specifically to put the panty on display. If you really wanted to show that panty, removing the curtains would actually be a better design choice than cutting a hole in them since it just looks weird now.

I have issues with standard Wyvern Lord design as is, but I'm not going to take that bit out on Kozaki. However, he is responsible for design decisions that alters the base class design, and the weird crotch cutout thing is one of them.

I even did a version myself that, while still kept the whole fanservicey look and the pantyshot, at least attempted to clean up the mess at the bottom. It's not what I would personally do if I had full design control of the character, but hey.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Thor Odinson