Claire's Character Design in CV remake - Analysis
okay do I'm working on a YT video on the Code Veronica remake, but I need to organise thoughts so here we go.
My first thoughts when I saw the trailer was that the clothes she is wearing look similiar to the clothes she has in og CV, but then we got more pics and ohh
Claire's older design in my opinion are the peak of resident evil's character designs - because they tell you s lot about the character, they're practical, suit her personality and just look cool.
subjectively, I consider Claire's design in Code Veronica to be her best in the series
The vest is so short that it's a bit impractical, but that's probably the only flaw this design has.
Red is retained as the main color (nice). Claire wears red not only because it looks good on her, but also because red symbolizes emotion, action, energy, and courage – if I had to describe Claire, traits like "relying on emotion" and "brave" come to mind.
Claire's nature is a coin with two sides that work together, right? Red combines two traits that don't seem to mesh well at first glance - those traits being "passinate/heroic" and "emotional/empathetic".
Maybe I'm overthinking things and being silly, but I feel like the plot of RE2 focuses more on her empathy, while CV's plot focuses on her actions and bravery, which seem to be reflected on her clothes - mainly on the prints she has on her CV vest and RE2 jacket.
The jacket she has in RE2 has a Valkyrie on it that looks more like an angel, which aligns with her behavior towards Sherry – gentleness, empathy, and kindness.
In CV, the creature/character on her vest is similar to that of a Valkyrie, but this time, it looks like an actual Valkyrie rather than an angel –
her wings are more like fire, right? Fire symbolizes passion, action, and energy. CV is a game where Claire shows more of her active, courageous side - she's emotional, but not as empathetic or gentle as in RE2 (actually, even the circumstances don't allow her to show her empathy, but that's another story and you get the point looool).
Additionally, the CV design looks like something Claire would actually wear – practical, keeps her personality, looks comfortable. To me, it feels like a natural evolution of her design in RE2 – it's similar, yet different. Claire went through hell in Raccoon City and knows what to expect in another hellhole, so long jeans and a vest that doesn't restrict her arm movements.
Her design in CV (including the Darkside Chronickes version of CV) also gets a thumbs up for giving us Claire, who wears clothes that actually look like something she would wear, but are also something new and fresh.
Her design in recent years has been reduced to a red jacket and a random white shirt, making her look like an NPC in a red jacket. Her design in Death Island, Eternal Darkness, and Rev2 looks almost identical, and the only difference is the intensity of the red in her jacket.
...which is sad, because we're talking about Claire here, who was destroying hordes of zombies in outfits that look both punk and interesting and fun. She had the best and coolest design, and now she looks like an NPC :(((
Her design in CVX also gets a thumbs up for the yellow wing icon. Yellow usually symbolizes action and energy (like red)!
Honestly at first I had a small problem with her choker, because chokers can be quite restrictive if it comes to the movement and this doesn't really fit Claire who priotitises comfort... But now I really think that this isn't that important, because Previously I praised her design for looking practical and just nice and without the choker her neck kinda feels empty.
What (kinda) bugs me is the color of Claire's hair - they seem to be dark which doesn't sit that well with me. Don't get me wrong, she is pretty and I know that in RE2 her hair are brown (for some reason), but in character design, characters hair is something that doesn't usually change. Hair is something unique and only changed when absolutely necessary (and Claire only changes her hair once in Rev2 ->)
Other characters even in RE don't really change their hair - Jill does which is (imo) symbolic end of her STARS era and Leon does, because his hair reflects his mental state but aside from these two, no other characters change their hairstyles.
Besides that, Claire's fiery red hair were unique, because yk half of the characters in RE have Brown hair and Red is Claire's color. Red is the color of action, passion, emotions. Since Claire is the emotional character you can even think of her as someone who is guided by her heart (aka emotions) instead of her Brain (aka logic).
At First I thought they just reused her older design with the vest, but nope. This is her new design again:
I love the theme of angels and angelcore aesthetic(s) and I love how it's used with Claire... but I don't like the fact that they're trying to take away the fire symbol from her. The old symbol on her vest looked like an angel wing AND fire at the same time. Two meanings. Two sides of the same coin.
Claire as a character, had so much imagery and things associated with her, it feels wrong to reduce her to just wings and a red jacket;; I know that the new games are taking the storylines more seriously and that's great, but that doesn't mean the designs have to be so allergic to color and some personality.
