Board 8 > I rank 155 characters by visual design [ranking]

(+) Yeah! (+)

That hair is insane, even by anime standards.

Since my oldest point of reference for Cable was Marvel vs Capcom, I never imagined he would look that bulky

I actually like Cable with modernized art, but the Liefeld version not so much.

Edea: I don't think I can defend the design on the merits, but it is a bit iconic. Plus I love her speech in the Japanese version:

Oh, the stench. The reek of you soiled fools.
Since time immemorial, we witches have lived within illusions, the self-same illusions you yourselves gave birth to. You clothed us in fearsome garb and tasked us with abhorrent rituals that stole the life of honest folk. You had us cast merciless flames upon verdant fields and lay beds of ice upon your warmest hearths.
...Foolish, all of it.
And now, upon learning that those fearsome witches have emerged from illusion to ally with Galbadia, you sigh with relief? Which one of us, I wonder, is the dreamer laying illusion upon illusion?
Reality isn't so kind. Not in the slightest.
So then, you fools, all of you! You have but one choice: to flee into your own illusions! And in that illusory world I will dance for you, dance for all-eternity as the fear-begetting witch! You and I, together, shall craft the final fantasy, where life and death are but a sweet dream! Long live the witch and her illusions! Long live her servant Galbadia!

(we will not talk about the English version of it.)

With Nate, I am somehow more... bothered? by the fact that her foreward -bang drill hair things are thicker than her arms. But "bothered" isn't the right word. I just can't look away! She could warp her arms in her hair on a cold day to say warm! Heck, all of that hair could be a cloak! Is she Bayonetta from an alternate timeline? The questions are as endless as they are silly.

152. Tracer (Overwatch)
@KokoroAkechi

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4426a594.jpg

Few characters in this ranking are as much of a fashion disaster as Tracer. The poster child of Overwatch has a fascinating backstory involving chronal displacement (thats why she has that gem on her chest), but her clothes are the real story here.

The colors in her outfit do not match at all. The pants (or whatever that half-jumpsuit is) look ridiculous and dont match the upper half at all. Shes wearingCrocs? Lord knows that when I want to jump into action, Im always sure to grab my trusty pair of Crocs.

I guess Ill reveal one of the key criteria I used in the making of this ranking: I really learned that I valued whether I could learn things about the character from the design. There are going to be a lot of characters in the lower half of the list whom I didnt learn anything about visually. Tracer has that problem, compounded by the fact that I think her design is visually unappealing.

There is an absurd amount of lore around this character though! The Overwatch Wiki is one of those Wikis thats incredibly detailed about every little thing. Tracers chronal accelerator is the most striking thing about her outfit, and Ill admit that her eye mask thing is kind of cool-looking. But the rest of it is kind of not great.

Plasman posted...

Im not somebody who likes things unironically when I like something, its with my whole heart

One too many negatives I think there lol. But yeah, this guy is insane.

Oops. Yes that should be ironically. I'm not a cynic when it comes to enjoying things!

should've gone with Anniversary skin Tracer

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e3266537.jpg

You ranked Tracer low? I guess the h in your username stands for homophobe.

j/k

Don't worry, loves. The cavalry's here!

Johnbobb posted...

should've gone with Anniversary skin Tracer

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e3266537.jpg

Definitely better.

Tag 2

I just now realized she has like half crocs that's really strange

Yeah, Tracer has some poor design synergy between her top and bottom halfs, but to put her worse then the Globglogabgalab? I don't know about that.

I think the top half of Tracer's design is very good, but they forgot to keep designing her past her waist.

I like the bomber jacket part of her look!

The rest of her, not so much. Especially in HotS, where her leggings are riding up even more of her back & cracks, plus her face looks extra-derp.

Also, her mains are caffeinated gremlins worthy only of scorn.

And here we have the first character from a piece of work I've spent a non-zero amount of time making fan work for. (I do enjoy FF quite a bit, but while I'm not an 8 hater, I can't say that game scratches my artist itch much)

I've never drawn Tracer before though, definitely preferring to draw the tankier characters lol

I would definitely place her higher. I hate the Crocs, and wish her tracksuit was a different colour, but her top and her shape language are both positively brilliant. The long legs and sporty haircut just read "yeah she's a runner" to me, and the bomber jacket definitely feels like something a sporty British lass would wear. Idk for sure, my sporty British gf is currently asleep (sad face)

It is a mixed bag for sure, but the stuff I liked I really liked

there's something impressively bold about the idea of, like, Crocs loafers

Tracer going out so early is harsh. Her style is a bit janky (I mean, what are her cuffs all about) but in a game with a roster of humans running around frantically, she stands out amongst the crowd almost instantly with little overdesign. Even in a line up of silhouettes you would know it's her. I think even looking at the design, you might be able to gather she is about speed too with the pointed shoes, hair and goggles.

Shower curtain and tyre enthousiast I can see where you're coming from, but I think this is waaaaaay too low.

Disclaimer: I did not submit Tracer.

151. Diona (Genshin Impact)
@PrinceKaro

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/908f857b.jpg

I went through a lot of the Genshin Impact designs for fun a while back and I remember enjoying some of them quite a bit (though dont ask me to remember which ones). So I was a bit disappointed to be presented with Diona, who subscribes to the school of character design of lets cram as many things in as we can.

For starters: shes some sort of dainty catgirl. She has cat ears, which I originally thought were part of her hair, but theyre not covered by her ginormous hat, so its unclear. To keep on with the cat theme, she has a slender calico tail, as well as a paw-print satchel bag. Sure, shes part cat, and she likes cats. Cat pride and all that.

But insofar as I can tell, this doesnt factor into her character or story at all. Diona is a bartender (hence the pouring of a drink) cursed with the inability to make a bad drink. This is a problem because she wants to torpedo the wine industry of Monstadt. Again, not getting any of this from the design apart from pouring (purring? dohoho) the drink. She also does not look old enough to bartend. She barely looks old enough to go to school!

This all isnt bottom tier material necessarily, but then her outfit is weird too. Its like some elaborate top that still manages to be sleeveless and show off her midriff. She has a fluttery cape/tassel thing that doesnt do her any favors (this cape design is shared by another HoYo nomination). Her shoes are fine I guess but theyre weird enough that they become one additional thing to have to focus on in the design.

Its like, you know how a good detail in a story can tell you so much about a character, compared to ten irrelevant details? Thats Diona for me. Give me some personality that isnt cat and take two drinks, then call me in the morning.

How I imagine the design process for the hat going:
"Let's give her a big poofy hat!"
"But that will cover her cat ears! She can't cover her ears!"
"Then let's just stick it on the back of her head instead."

So now you have a hat that is either pinned to her hair or defying gravity. Both of which make it a dumb clothing choice.

I never noticed Tracer's Crocs and now I wish I hadn't.

it's not that hard to incorporate cat ears with a hat smh

Oh a new ranking dropped before I refreshed my tab.

I've never been a big fan of Genshin designs. They all look very busy but also very... Similar? In the way they layer stuff and everything has a lot of details. Even when they supposedly come from different regions and nations, with different social standings, but the language of the design stays largely the same.

Also her weird pony tail horn is dumb looking imo.

Raka_Putra posted...

I've never been a big fan of Genshin designs. They all look very busy but also very... Similar? In the way they layer stuff and everything has a lot of details. Even when they supposedly come from different regions and nations, with different social standings, but the language of the design stays largely the same.

As someone who's played a ton of the game, I like most of the Genshin designs. There are definitely some I can point out that I don't care for at all. (Recent characters Mizuki and Citlali have terrible color palettes of pale blue and pale pink with no darker colors to offset them, for instance.) But I have to admit, the choice to pick Diona, specifically, is a really bizarre choice when there are so many more interesting characters to work with. rwlh didn't even hit on the part of Diona's design I like the least -- the eyebrows. I know it's an artstyle to sometimes use those stupid little "dots" for eyebrows, but only two characters in Genshin do it, and I hate it both on Diona and on Xiangling.

On the note of "what can you tell by looking at the characters," here's another upcoming release...see if you can tell me what you can glean about Varesa here just by looking at her:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/73462c8c.jpg
If you said "she's a wrestler who fashions herself as a hero and a champion competition eater," you're a freaking liar. Yeah, she's holding a taco, but she was clearly made with a different design aesthetic in mind than the older characters.

azuarc posted...

"she's a wrestler who fashions herself as a hero and a champion competition eater,"

I said "she's the kawaii el fuerte" so I thought she was a mexican wrestler chef, which is pretty damn close

azuarc posted...

she was clearly made with a different design aesthetic in mind than the older characters

What? She looks like she could be an older version of Diona. The aesthetic is identical.

Tag

azuarc posted...

see if you can tell me what you can glean about Varesa here just by looking at her:

Since it looks like paint on her horns and she's covered in weird charms, I'm guessing she's an arts & crafts character. Probably very skilled at it, but messy (see: getting her horns covered in paint) and a bit of a ditz or otherwise hard for other characters to understand (see: covering herself with hearts for reasons that no one else can understand). Also she's apparently really into food, with the overstuffed taco likely also playing into her messiness.

azuarc posted...

she's a wrestler who fashions herself as a hero and a champion competition eater,"

...Yeah, I wasn't getting that.

azuarc posted...

On the note of "what can you tell by looking at the characters," here's another upcoming release...see if you can tell me what you can glean about Varesa here just by looking at her:

She is a clumsy or ditzy character who is supposed to be a bit of a "big dumb oaf". Muscle/strong character who eats a lot despite having a tiny waist and seemingly no upper body muscles or abs.

Also why is there a bandaid on her horn? What is that doing?

Edit after reading the answer: that is not wrestling attire. Or Hero attire.

Should have had a Zenless Zone Zero character instead, I almost nominated Lycaon and definitely would have if we got 3rd noms

Genshin Impact designs are very much a mixed bag to me, though it is unclear how much of it is personal gripe and how much of it is actually bad. The use of colour is great almost consistently, but some outfits are too busy and nonsensical to me (and this is definitely one of them) and uh, look I'll just say it, I hate the fact that they cycle through the same three body types and face types. With a lot of characters this doesn't necessarily bother me, but there's a few that makes me wish they pushed those boundaries more. If someone sent me a Genshin character for a design ranking I would have no idea where they would place!!!!

Also, Varesa's design?? Thanks, I hate it!

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Should have had a Zenless Zone Zero character instead, I almost nominated Lycaon and definitely would have if we got 3rd noms

I would liked to see Lycaon and would have loved to see someone nominate Ben. I love the anthro designs in this game. Too bad Hoyo has dialed back on that a bit.

skulltrumpets posted...

Too bad Hoyo has dialed back on that a bit.

I see you're lucky enough to have missed the latest trailer...

MacArrowny posted...

I see you're lucky enough to have missed the latest trailer...

Actually no! There's a reason why I said a bit instead of entirely.

I uh, well, I still haven't watched it, but I've heard the rumours!

One thought I'm having with the "overdesigned" bottom 5 is that they're part of large casts or franchises where they have to stand out by being memorable. I often see fans discuss "Could I recognize a blurred thumbnail of this character" or "Could I recognize them just by the silhouette," but lot of that gets lost when you remove someone from the context of their surrounding cast. Well, it's not like people listen to the album context when they do song rankings, so what can you do!

skulltrumpets posted...

Genshin Impact designs are very much a mixed bag to me, though it is unclear how much of it is personal gripe and how much of it is actually bad. The use of colour is great almost consistently, but some outfits are too busy and nonsensical to me (and this is definitely one of them) and uh, look I'll just say it, I hate the fact that they cycle through the same three body types and face types. With a lot of characters this doesn't necessarily bother me, but there's a few that makes me wish they pushed those boundaries more. If someone sent me a Genshin character for a design ranking I would have no idea where they would place!!!!

Also, Varesa's design?? Thanks, I hate it!

I would liked to see Lycaon and would have loved to see someone nominate Ben. I love the anthro designs in this game. Too bad Hoyo has dialed back on that a bit.

Oh I'd have loved to nominate Ben too, I like him even more than Lycaon!

I've noticed already (Well I had yesterday lol) that a very striking trend with the drops so far have been "An excessive amount of design elements that lack relevant substance or cohesion." And I have to say I agree a lot with that philosophy! It's something I especially think about when it comes to colour theory which is something I've tried to figure out for a long time, and actually ironically the game I submitted a char from for this list made me more sure of my stance on (Hopefully they don't end up dropping soon making this point moot lol), that there is a sweet spot for amount of them, unless a specific archetype you're going for calls for more. An example for something that's always bothered me and I could see going low on this as well is the robot masters for Mega Man 8, where there's just so many colours going on for all of them that almost all leave no impression after looking at them, and are just less enjoyable to look at in general. Design budgeting is a real thing! You can't just throw everything that might be fun at a character all the time. Unless they're like scenecore or something I guess.

azuarc posted...

see if you can tell me what you can glean about Varesa here just by looking at her:

She's from a Mesoamerican-inspired region!

Just took a quick look at the ZZZ characters, and yeah Von Lycaon is easily the highlight there. Ben is cool (still less cool, I don't think they do *that* much with him) and Koleda is fun for basically just being a Fire-type gym leader, but yeah its kinda hard for any others to stand out to me from a cursory look.

some bold drops, respect

I can understand not liking Genshin Impact's design philosophy, but at least have her beating the clear joke nominations, geez.

Anyway, Diona is nowhere near the top of 'Genshin characters with too many design elements'. (here's looking at you, Fontaine and your unsightly several dozen chunks of metal fused to everyone's clothing)

What joke nominations?

PrinceKaro posted...

(here's looking at you, Fontaine and your unsightly several dozen chunks of metal fused to everyone's clothing)

uhhh....what?

I just looked through every Fontaine character, and aside from some very natural looking fasteners, the only "chunks of metal" I see on anyone's clothes outside of Wriothesley is one ornament for Navia and one ornament for Sigewinne.

edit: Okay, after looking in-game rather than just at the wiki pages, I guess there's a decent number of small studs on some of the outfits, but I've honestly never given them half a second's thought.

I mean like how for example Freminet and Chevreuse have all these metallic accoutrements that don't provide any realistic combat protection and look uncomfortable as hell.

PIayer_0 posted...

One thought I'm having with the "overdesigned" bottom 5 is that they're part of large casts or franchises where they have to stand out by being memorable. I often see fans discuss "Could I recognize a blurred thumbnail of this character" or "Could I recognize them just by the silhouette," but lot of that gets lost when you remove someone from the context of their surrounding cast. Well, it's not like people listen to the album context when they do song rankings, so what can you do!

I think there's a sort of perfect middle ground to be struck there, I would say the characters of TF2 are both very clean and simple and very easily differentiated

tag

Each bad design ranking above Edea is like an icicle through my heart

150. Galactus (Marvel)
@MarkS2222222222

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b94ad049.jpg

This one might be a hot take, but I also thought Edea would be a hot take, so what do I know.

Galactus is a principal antagonist in Marvel comics. He debuted as a foe for the Fantastic Four in the sixties. His lore is he goes around devouring planets to sate his all-consuming cosmic hunger. Later stories painted him as a morally neutral figure, part of the cosmic balance, and that his planet eating is a necessary force in the universe. Naturally this means he is a rather big boy, though his size varies between appearances.

Galactus is an iconic character for sure, more so than anyone else whos dropped so farbut honestly I think his design is kind of goofy! For somebody meant to be this all-powerful universal entity, hes just likea big white guy who wears purple clothes. This is my same objection to characters like Mr. Mxyzptlk, a very powerful foe of Supermans who can take any form known to the imaginationbut who commonly appears as an old white guy. Look, I have nothing against old white guys (especially since this topic isnt tagged with the Politics flair), but surely, now that were beyond the Golden Age of Comic Books, we can come up with more creative designs for these cosmic beings? I get it, theyre relics of a different era, but that doesnt mean I have to like them.

This wouldnt really be an issue if he at least looked threatening. While I like the purple and blue color scheme, his outfit is just kind of there for me, certainly nothing befitting somebody who poses an existential threat to entire civilizations. I also find his helmet, probably the most iconic part of his design, a bit goofy, though I do appreciate how the angular horns are more alien in appearance.

I think Galactus is absolutely threatening, but thats because of his size, not his actual design. Howard the Duck could be Galactus-sized and he would be a threat.

Buuuuuuut theres a really interesting thing about Galactuss appearance: his form changes to match whatever species is looking at him. So while the comics normally portray the humanoid Galactus, there are endless variants from the perspectives of other species. Thats kind of neat! His standard design doesnt really reflect that, but it is a cool part of his character.

Apologies to MarkS2222222222, our first elimination (two in the bottom six is rough). No apologies to Marvel, whove already lost two of their six reps. Do better, Marvel!

Galactus is definitely hurt by his design and especially his color scheme.

The helmet is good because it gives him a good iconic head silhouette but the rest could all be changed and improved.

I hope Kurt at least won't show up for awhile.

galactus helmet makes him look super dumb