Because I need one good reason why we needed the pink.
A lot of the donghua designs make stupid color choices actually but this one pisses me off the most
I just don't understand why we couldn't have kept the same color palette for both their male and female forms
Also the pink just doesn't make sense for the character, why pink, for a character who's associated with wind it makes absolutely zero sense the teal/mint color is perfect for the elemental association, so I don't get why change the color palette for their female form.
Because this makes no sense.
This looks like 2 completely different characters rather than different gender forms of the same one. And what I think contributes to this is the hair and eye color change which is even worse than the change of color palette for the clothing
And this is only a donghua problem, the manhua has both designs keep the same color palette and the female design is gorgeous.
Manhua design for reference
Now, if I may, I propose a solution
And a side by side with the original
And lastly
This actually looks like it's the same character.
And I know I sound like I just hate pink in this post but I promise it's not that it's just the inconsistent design pisses me off as a lover of character design and the association of colors to different elements
This is probably a hot take in the Naruto fanbase. And honestly I cant remember if I already talked about it or not but...
I HATE THE DESIGNS OF THE NARUTO CAST FROM THE LAST TO BORUTO, JUST IN GENERAL. BUT MAINLY: THE HEADBANDS.
And also the weird arm bands that every jonin seems to have. Like what are those? I see the Uzumaki Swirl on them but I liked it better when the swirl was on the back of the flak jackets.
Speaking of the Flak Jackets, that's the only good thing about the new designs IMHO.
Back to the headbands though: WHERE ARE MY TASSLES, KISHIMOTO!? I DONT CARE IF THE LONG TASSLES NARUTO HAD ARE IMPRACTICAL, I WANT MY TASSLES BACK! GIVE ME THE TASSLES BACK KISHIMOTO.
Edit: if you agree, I wanna see your design ideas for how the Boruto/Post Shippuden designs should look cause I genuinely wanna know.
Id draw my own ideas but I have more important projects
I love nerdy characters but I really wish that there were more female and or black nerdy characters because when there’s a nerdy character I mostly see a white boy with glasses and acne…and that’s fine it’s just that not all nerds are white males. Some people may say that there are just more white male nerds irl and I would disagree I definitely met more black and or girl nerds more than the stereotypical. I genuinely hope people and show writers start being more creative with nerdy characters, and also realize that nerdy isn’t a look, someone who is nerdy doesn’t always look like bill Dickey from the eltingville club, anyways that’s it thanks for reading my rant.
Side tangent, I hate when people gender bend like a male character with armour and OH WOW THATS A LOT OF SKIN SUDDENLY like guys… LIKE I DUNNO IF THIS IS CONTROVERTIAL BUT WHY DO WE GOTTA SHOW SKIN WHEN ITS WOMEN? And pls don’t be like “do it yourself if you don’t like it” or smth i had ptsd from that EUUGKRJ just a side rant as an artist and female of origin or smth I dunno
Can we agree that they did Agent Blank dirty with her looks?
Every agent has a somewhat okay looking suit. Sure Agent ██████ is the only one who's suit is actually, properly fitted and everyone else's looks like the sleeves got sewed on while drunk, but they are at least consistent
And now look at Agent Blank.
Firstestly, her hair is 100% not up to a standard dress code; Agents typically NEVER wear their hair out, they usually tie it back up, and her bangs are a mess. (Agents ██████ and Chill are also on the border of being acceptable.)
Second -and more impotantly- that disaster we can only assume is a suit.
I'm not going to get into the shoulder pads, because again, Agent ██████ seems to be the only one who seems to have a well-fitted suit, and compared to the rest of the agents, Blank's shoulder pads are not that bad.
But her suit is inconsistent as hell, missing several details other agents' suits do not; shirt cuffs don't show, lapels are missing and she doesn't have a hankerchief pocket either.
Now, I could excuse these details, given the fact that many women's suits are designed differetly from men's.
What I can't excuse is this:
HER SUIT IS MISSING AT LEAST 2 BUTTONS!
Agent Blank is a Senior Observer at DOMA, which is a government agency, she should be a role model when it comes to dressing professionally. Instead, she looks like this.
Conclusion:
Agent Blank either has a terrible trailor and barber, or she is sloppy when it comes to her appearance, and must be doing her job hella good to have become a Senior Observer.
Disclaimer‼️ I am not a professional designer in anyway. These are just my opinions and if you like the original designs that is a-okay and more power to you!
So I found out about the Hundred Line Defense Academy from a repost tweet and checked it out only to find that most of the designs are alright… well except for two. Two of the designs we’ve seen so far were either so bad or so awkward that I felt the urge to redesign them complete with design comments.
Closeups + extra comments + earlier outfits I was struggling with under the cut ✨
Darumi’s original design is the one I actually outright hate. There’s just too much going on (the blue hair that awkwardly goes from black to blue at the top, the bows, the weird face tattoos, the striped sweater with bright red patches randomly thrown on, and the random pins??)
Plus the colors are just an eye sore (bright light blue, bright pink for the eyes, dark blue for the sweater, and strong red for chocked and patches????)
She also gives me vibes of being made in a test tube to be the fan favorite
Not only that but we have only seen two lines of dialogue from her we’ve seen (as of making this post) are just like- groan worthy
I went with the black with bright colors to try and make the whole “bright” colors thing work without making it as much of an eyesore
Anyways I feel like I strayed too far from the original in my redesign. I could’ve stuck to the blue color scheme a bit more instead of making her mostly black and pink. Oh well, it is what it is. I at least improved the colors a bit and still made the design fit her personality which is what matters
Kako’s original design is better to me than Darumi’s. It’s more awkward that outright bad
Again, the colors are a bit weird, but unlike Darumi’s original colors, the original colors could work. Light lilac, crimson red, navy, and white could work. The problem is the placing. By making Kako’s hair light lilac and uniform crimson red, that makes her mostly liliac and red which classes a lot. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the red uniform because it stands out so much instead of her face
However, unlike Darumi, another complaint I have is that Kako just looks like two Danganronpa characters smashed together (which is a fair complaint in my opinion because Kodaka made Kako AND Danganronpa and it’s in the same art style). She has a light lilac hair and purple eyes, which makes her look like Kyoko Kirigiri and a VERY similar outfit to Maki Harukawa (there’s a few differences like how Maki has a white bow with tiny red dots, a striped collar, and infinity pin and how Kako’s uniform is a dress and Maki’s is a shirt and skirt). Like at the very least they could have changed the uniform colors and eye colors
It took me until finishing Kako’s ref up to realize this, but the mini buns and extra strands of hair could work because they are kinda similar to Sailor Moon, and I dig her design. Though Kako’s hair is still off to me despite that for a reason I can’t pin down
Anyways I ended up making my redesign closer to her original design because her original design wasn’t as bad as Darumi’s and because I felt like I needed to balance things out since I made Darumi too far from the original I think
Alright that’s all I got commentary wise. Here’s some work in progress stuff for outfits that I ended up not going with
Hope this was a fun read through, for those interested
These are the same zelda. It's cool to see the design of zelda from alttp get a final design, where they have a clear idea of who zelda is. Her design from albw is beautiful, and I love it. It isn't to say her old design isn't bad. It still feels zelda if that makes sense. I think what helps the blue design a lot are the little hair pieces that flip outwards to give her her silhouette. She feels more down to earth with the lack of gold on her. Overall it's a simple but solid design. It's cool to think that after the events of alttp, at some point zelda changed and it is reflected in her more regal appearance. Gives her a more human feel knowing she isn't stuck in the same outfit forever.
I know there's a problem with making black characters too gray, but not every gray toned character is black-coded. I know this is random to just throw at you, but I saw someone say that one character had to be intended as black or brown, but said character honestly looked like white person gray tone to me
This may or may not affect your judgement, but it affected mine. Said person did refer to themselves as white, so then I was doubly questioning "what reason did you have for assigning blackness onto this character?"
For me it depends a lot on the artstyle, especially if white in this context means like, powder-pale.
But like you said, even if that were the case, gray is a color that holds such a consistent theming in terms of what it represents in visual art that it's already suspect when it's used for skin tone, and doubly so when applied to characters deliberately written as analogous to non-white people.
Gray is washed out, lacking in warmth. It's metal, manufactured and sterile. Gray skies imply bitter moods. Gray hair portends death and ailments, or weakness.
Unless it's applied to made up creatures/races who it works for, it's odd at the foundation to give it to a human, just so they aren't lightskinned compared to others in the cast.
It's why one issue I have with some of FE Fates' character design is how Niles and Benny have darker skin, but washed out. On one level, yes, Nohr is without sunlight, so it makes sense but 1) Rinkah doesn't fair too much better and 2) the rest of the Nohrians aren't too pale to complement that fact, given they are just barely paler than the lighter skinned Hoshidans.
