Character designs: THE SUBJECTIVITY THREAD :'D

[Kriven]

@Kosheh, I agree with the majority of that post, but there's one thing you were off about...all those characters did at least have something on.  Bugs there has gloves~  The only one I can think of off the top of my head that's well known, that doesn't even have gloves, would be Daffy Duck.  But like 90% of the other famous toons at least have gloves, or something else.

The clothes don't contribute to Bugs' appeal, though.

Also: Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Tweety Bird, Tom and Jerry, Roadrunner, Taz, and the original designs for Chip and Dale are all industry icons... and they run around 100% naked.

The only Looney Tunes I can think of where clothing is essential to the design are Marvin the Martian and Yosemite Sam (maybe Lola, because she wasn't really designed to be seen without them?) Even Elmer Fudd could pull off nudity, because of his unique shape.

I really feel like "Bugs wears gloves guys" is reaching.

[Koh]

Those characters are all defined by their personality anyway. Bugs wouldn't be bugs if he wasn't cynical, Foghorn wouldn't be Foghorn without his southernness, and etc. Their silhouettes don't define what make them iconic, it just defines what makes them recognizable. Bugs became famous not because of how he looks, but because of how he outwits his foes and such. A silhouette doesn't tell you anything like that, it just gives you a definitive character to fill the space.

[Gors]

You're forgetting one thing my fam

the visual design is as important as the personality design

by making the character visually pleasant to look at, you can draw in more people to like said character

[Koh]

Absolutely right. I think there's a happy medium. Simple, yet charming is usually the route that catches me most. But I also think too much on a character hinders the animation as well. The more rendered something is, the longer it takes to animate.

[miyabi95_]

There are also some cartoonists who merge both western and Japanese visuals in their characters:

(and since we're kind of on the subject of anthro characters)

Ben Dunn (mostly anime inspired)


Tavi Simons (mostly anime inspired, partially US comic inspired)


Taral Wayne (his style varies, but for the most part it has a retro cartoon vibe)

[Kriven]

Those characters are all defined by their personality anyway.  Bugs wouldn't be bugs if he wasn't cynical, Foghorn wouldn't be Foghorn without his southernness, and etc.  Their silhouettes don't define what make them iconic, it just defines what makes them recognizable.  Bugs became famous not because of how he looks, but because of how he outwits his foes and such.  A silhouette doesn't tell you anything like that, it just gives you a definitive character to fill the space.

Bra, this about designs. Of course personality is important, otherwise anime character and book characters wouldn't develop a following... But the thread and the argument is about characters being recognizable at a glance, and simple character design lending itself to that.

Edit: Did Reality Check die in the unholy Tokyopop fire, or is there a conclusion? I ask only so I don't get invested and let down by another abruptly canceled comic book.

[miyabi95_]

Those characters are all defined by their personality anyway.  Bugs wouldn't be bugs if he wasn't cynical, Foghorn wouldn't be Foghorn without his southernness, and etc.  Their silhouettes don't define what make them iconic, it just defines what makes them recognizable.  Bugs became famous not because of how he looks, but because of how he outwits his foes and such.  A silhouette doesn't tell you anything like that, it just gives you a definitive character to fill the space.

Bra, this about designs. Of course personality is important, otherwise anime character and book characters wouldn't develop a following... But the thread and the argument is about characters being recognizable at a glance, and simple character design lending itself to that.

Edit: Did Reality Check die in the unholy Tokyopop fire, or is there a conclusion? I ask only so I don't get invested and let down by another abruptly canceled comic book.

It would appear that a revision is in the works being run by the same two-person team: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rik...escription

[Benny The Miraj]

Also, is it just me or do a lot of video games and children's programming just plain try to avoid using anthro characters at this point for some odd reason (maybe some odd stigma? Did Conker's Bad Fur Day literally kill off any and all chances of anthro characters or something, for the same reason you don't see mascot characters on cigarette packs?)

Now adays, I basically only see anthro characters as villains or cartoon characters, so no I don't think it's just you. Also, part of it is because of the wildly held belief that anyone who likes anthro characters is a sexual deviant (which is an exaggerated stereotype) doesn't help. Personally, I'd love to see more anthro characters in video games. That's why I'm hoping Yooka-Laylee is going to be good.

[Dolphman]

The stereotype in question is true in some ways due to making the characters sexualized like crazy. That's why people get put off by them.
It's also pretty much why you don't see anything in mainstream media. Nobody wants an anthropomorphic animal character made for fanservice.

The (now cancelled due to being a scam) fighting game Beast's Fury was full of characters that a few suffered from the problem above.
One was a female kangaroo, and she really looked like obvious pornbait. She was even in the boobs-and-butt pose on her profile artwork.

Gah! That pose is so cringeworthy. I mean, Just look at this infamous Nina Williams figure.

[Koopaul]

Well if someone wants to make a furry fanservice game, there is an audience for that.

[Kosheh]

Well if someone wants to make a furry fanservice game, there is an audience for that.

That's the problem that Dolphman's stating. For a company like - let's say in a parallel universe Marvelous Entertainment, currently producing the Senran Kagura titty-fanservice games, rolls over and says "Hey, let's make a furry fanservice game with furries with big ol' knockers"

Yes, there'll be an audience for that but it'll be way, WAY smaller than your current fanservice base. Unfortunately (as two users have stated) I think developers are actually afraid of using anthropomorphic characters in the fear of having them fetishized and troves of weird yiff collections spilling over into Google searches - sort of how it's permeated the Sonic the Hedgehog community. With said stigma, you're pretty much driving off the mainstream audience (the majority of your sales) when you have boobs and butts with cat ears and tails


ACTUALLY, there IS a market, and visual novels (a very fanservicey genre) where kemono/furry characters populate the game's roster of characters exist on Steam, but the problem with those is that despite "wonderful" visuals, the games' writing is so absolutely piss-poor that the very audience they're geared towards absolutely can't stand it. :/

[miyabi95_]

We can't forget this series...



...Which was more or less an experiment to see how players would react to anime-inspired anthro characters. Safe to say, they gained a very niche and cult following. Personally, the gameplay itself didn't do much for me (for both games) - I'm far more mesmerized by the character designs.

I hate to say this, but I just keep in mind that Rule 34 is has evolved to becoming a law of the internet. Things will be taken in a "weird" direction, and whether not majority of people don't like it, there's still an audience for it - that's why these "weird" things exist in the first place, because certain people seem to like them.

[Gors]

Furries ultimately cater kids in general, so honestly imo, they aren't used because America has a tendency of liking edgy characters (see American Kirby to see what I mean). Anthropomorphic animals often invoke the "childish" feeling you find in children movies, so adding to the sexual stigma, there's the "kiddy" stigma too.

[Kriven]

I honestly feel like that cultural edginess is more responsible for diminishing anthro representation than "omg, people might jerk off to them!"

There's also always that huge push (at least in the USA) for fiction to be more "realistic", which I know is a vague term, but the general consensus is that walking-talking-animals aren't very realistic.

And it's not like the concept is completely disappearing... some of what's being done with anthro characters isn't the best out there, but it's still around. TUFF Puppy on Nickelodeon was only canceled last year, multiple Cartoon network characters have anthro animal sidekicks (Jake the Dog? Uncle Grandpa's Dinosaur Pal?) not to mention Regular Show routinely featuring anthro characters. I mean, they aren't drawn in the totally almost-human way that characters from like, TwoKinds are, but they're still as anthro as Bugs Bunny, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Rocko's Modern Life ever were. Even on the Bugs Bunny front, I don't think we've gone a single year this decade without the Looney Tunes being involved in something, whether it's the Looney Tunes Show or that new Bugs Bunny show that's happening.

Sure, anthro characters aren't as predominant as they were in the early to mid 2000s, when even Disney was producing new anthro cartoons (Brandy and Mr. Whiskers, The Buzz on Maggie), and when every up-and-coming game studio wanted to make the next Banjo-Kazooie... but that doesn't mean the format has disappeared, and I really don't think it's Rule 34 that has put studios off of creating this kind of content. I think it's just not the flavor of the decade. It'll come back. It'll go out again. That's just how things work.

[miyabi95_]

There's also always that huge push (at least in the USA) for fiction to be more "realistic", which I know is a vague term, but the general consensus is that walking-talking-animals aren't very realistic.

I've felt that there's been a lingering "push" for most media in the US to be a certain way. Arin explained in an early episode of Game Grumps how people working in Japanese media industries view Americans as "children" who want to be "adults." Thus explaining why early consoles like the NES and SNES weren't super colorful like their original Japanese releases, and the fact that many third-party (NON-NINTENDO) games that featured child-friendly and anime-inspired visuals didn't make the cut to be localized (Any games that did make the cut were almost entirely deprived of their original visuals, such as Street Combat and Whomp 'Em).