Another thing that bogs the storytelling down is the lack of creative cinematography in TADC. I mean, think about it. It's not a 2D animated show - it's not harder to visualize and place characters in a 3D space. The show *is* 3D. They can place a camera and put it absolutely anywhere in the setting! The sky is the limit, so long as the image properly renders. (That being said, I have no experience with 3D animation, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm talking about the "viewers perspective" here).
They can change the depth perception, they can cheat the camera way more, there's so many 3D options to play with!
And yet the way it's blocked and storyboarded, it *looks* like a 2D animation on a limited budget. Shots are repeated many times, the choreography is mostly flat and uninteresting. It looks like the characters are on a stage/in a play, instead of navigating a truly 3-dimensional space. The most creative use of the camera was, I wanna say, the intermission sequence? And the shot with Pomni running down the distorted corridor.
Most of the time, the camerawork is just so flat and uninspired. Imagine how much more drama and emotion we'd actually feel if the camera was more creative with its placements. I'm not a film expert by any means, but I've been studying film for several years now, trying to teach myself. And the more media I watch, the more uninterested I become by flat camera-work. Maybe I should add some visual examples to this post later, but in the meantime, here's a video about the camera-work in "Better Call Saul". Better Call Saul is a beautifully evocative show with a powerful visual language. It's a masterclass in cinematography.
Seriously, give this a watch. It's only 5 mins.
(There's another good analysis of Better Call Saul's visuals, but that video is longer, so I'm recommending this video first).
EDIT: Forgot to mention lighting and colour composition. That's also important.
TADC has great *foreground* animation - the characters look great, everything is well rendered. But all this talent is wasted on a boring-looking show. The presentation style is very bland.
One of the strengths in Ave Mujica is how well the visuals complement the story being told. The fact that animation necessarily conveys part of its story through visual means seems like an obvious statement, but some productions are definitely better at it than others. If you're interested in learning about cinematography, the theatricality of Ave Mujica makes it a pretty decent starting point. It is never particularly subtle, as every narrative beat is accompanied by a strong visual device to emphasize it. The scene composition, the objects in it, and the lighting and coloring are deliberately chosen to complement mood reversals, the relationships between characters, or even consciously reference the narrative's literary inspirations. The clear intentionality in the production team's visual staging are really instructional in how these choices work to complement stories in general. I'll share a few neat examples below the break for spoiler containment.
The episode's opening scene is a wonderful illustration of how the production team handles the visual pacing for a narrative beat, and I'll talk about it here because it also sets the wider theme for the episode, which I'll come back to in a bit. Sakiko is about to be carted off to Switzerland on her grandfather's orders. The sheltered but smothering environment her grandfather has created for her are conveyed by the desaturated tones of the scene and the claustrophobic framing of the shots. She is protected from a storm, at the cost of her personal freedom. At the same time, she muses whether this is the fate that God has chosen for her.
When Sakiko makes it to the airplane stairs, we arrive at the narrative decision point of the scene. She can either submit to her grandfather's orders by boarding, or she can reject the fate that has been decided for her. She hesitates, musing "I'm always like this. No matter how much I struggle, no matter how much I fight, everything gets swept away by the raging current." Each step to remain sheltered, to remain controlled, are a reminder of the unhappiness that following her grandfather's instructions have created.
The scene's climax is reached when Sakiko makes the decision to reject her grandfather. Sakiko says, "I'm not getting on board." There is a short shot where she reaches her decision, a slightly longer shot of her hands clasped as if in prayer to find the resolve to follow through. There is a shot of an airplane flying away, symbolizing a departure without her, followed by the turbine wash blowing the umbrella out of her butler's hands. The sequence functions as a moment of divine providence. It answers the question posed as the decision point: a decisive no. Sakiko turns and runs before we cut to the series ending theme.
The decision to swap the running position of the ending and opening themes is itself an interesting narrative choice. Lyrically, the song is written from Uika's point of view, with a pastoral verse expressing a desire for Sakiko to come to her and goth metal chorus demanding a tight, everlasting bond between the two. The verse section is marked by visually spare images symbolizing the cast's loneliness, the bridge to the chorus accompanied by images of a mansion being demolished by flames, and the chorus conveying the various ways the cast feels trapped. Notably, the last shots are Uika reaching towards the light, a hand grabbing a sheet made into a rope, and then the Ave Mujica stage. Its placement at the beginning of the episode complements Sakiko's decision: she is irreversibly burning down the world her grandfather created to follow through with her lifetime commitment to the members of Ave Mujica.
That imagery neatly cues up the next part of the episode, which establishes a bond between Hatsune/Uika and Sakiko. I won't go into as much detail here, but there are a few neat things this segment does with visual metaphor, framing, and color that I would like to talk about.
There is some really neat visual symbolism in the rose garden scene where Sakiko first encounters Hatsune. This setting is established as Hatsune's world, so it reflects her landscape. Sakiko's appearance poses them on opposite sides of the frame, and this division is mirrored by the colors of roses present. Hanakotoba, the Japanese language of flowers, is a useful key to this frame composition: red roses symbolize love, pink roses symbolize trust/confidence/happiness, and yellow roses symbolize jealousy. Hatsune's decision to leave Tokyo and give up on Sakiko is symbolized by her trimming the red roses from the trellis, and the pink roses that surround her could be interpreted as something like self-confidence in her decision to do so. The mix of all three colors on Sakiko's side of the frame represent the turbulent whirl of jealousy, trust, and affection Hatsune feels towards Sakiko.
When Sakiko announces herself, she first calls for "Uika", causing Hatsune to drop the roses and begin running. It is the invocation of her "true name", Hatsune, that brings her to a halt. This is the moment where she, like Sakiko at the airport, needs to commit to her decision. Here, the framing emphasizes Sakiko's pull on her. A single, prominent red rose at her shoulder visually outweighs the pink roses behind her. The trellis of red roses, her love, shrinks into the background to converge on Sakiko, the villa, and the yellow roses. To stack the cards in her favor, Sakiko begins picking up the dropped roses, and holds them in a way that symbolizes she has received Hatsune's love. When Hatsune says that they shouldn't be together, Sakiko firmly commits by saying, "I'm not going back". The final shot conveys Hatsune, almost free of her love, with multiple paths ahead of her in a slightly less colorful world. Behind her, there is only one path leading to Sakiko and the Togawa villa, brighter, more well-tended... and deterministic.
Although Sakiko manages to pull Hatsune back into her orbit, the ensuing conversations still have an underlying sense of tension to them. Hatsune and Sakiko are never shown directly looking at one another. The framing of these scenes use a variety of head-on close ups, shot/reverse-shots with the back of one character's head, low-angle shots at hip level, or wide shots that show them from a distance. The production team does everything but show the characters making eye contact while talking, intentionally creating a sense that they're talking at one another, not to one another. This decision also makes perfect sense in context: Sakiko is refusing to accept Hatsune's feelings of guilt and unworthiness, and Hatsune refuses to accept Sakiko's offer of forgiveness. This approach drags on so long - nearly ten minutes of runtime - that it begins to feel a little uncanny.
This tension continues to escalate until it's suddenly broken by the words Hatsune has desperately wanted to hear the whole time: "Our destinies are one. Didn't you give me your life?" After this point, the framing emphasizes their reactions to one another.
The unease created by the framing is emphasized further by the use of color in this episode. When they're shown together, the colors come across as slightly off - dark and muddy, even sickly. Before Hatsune accepts Sakiko's offer, the color choices are intense but desaturated. The color choices in these scenes might be conveying a sense of the darkness that Hatsune feels about her deception. After Sakiko makes the final decisive break with her grandfather to embrace "happiness" with Uika/Hatsune, there's a pale greenish tint to some scenes and an unnatural warmth to others. It suggests that there's still not something not quite right with their relationship.
I think the sickly lighting in the "happy" section loops back around to the central narrative theme of the episode, which constructs the idea that Sakiko is playing God. Her rejection of the fate God - her grandfather - decided on is echoed at the end with her declaration, "I have come to realize there is no need to meekly accept fate. There is no God. So, I will become God myself." There are little messianic overtones throughout the episode, like the shot of her bandaged feet to emphasize her suffering, the extended sequence of her accepting Hatsune's "sin" of betrayal (Uika even referring to herself as Judas in the lyrics of KiLLKiSS), and the direct references to resurrection in her script for the new Ave Mujica show. She has decided to become the master of her own fate, and in so doing, the fate of Ave Mujica's members.
Ave Mujica consciously styles itself after Gothic literature. Within that literary framework, the decision to play God often marks the start of a terminal descent into madness. This descent into madness is often accompanied by the narrative point where the protagonist accepts the tragedy of their fate, surrendering their happiness to the inevitability of their own hubris. The letter Sakiko writes to Tomori at the end of the episode has an air of finality to it, echoing the Gothic protagonist severing the relationship to the one they truly desire. Sakiko's Faustian bargain for the lives of the Ave Mujica crew is the hubris she invited, her fate is to nurture them in perpetuity at the cost of her own happiness, as hinted by the lines in the script Nyamu is reading.
Again, the staging drives some of these points home. The first hint that something is awry is where Uika and Sakiko are laying together in Uika's loft. Their moment together is first interrupted by Umiri bringing band business to their attention. Her text comes at the exact moment the background music shifts to its outro. As Uika gets up to make coffee, she tells Sakiko she loves her, at which point the music cuts out completely. Although we see Uika's earnest intentions conveyed through her face, Sakiko's internal dialogue is telling. She stares up at the ceiling and says "Even if I turn away from fate, from the world, nothing will change. This little world will eventually come to an end, like waking up from a dream in the morning. Suddenly, and without warning." The camera then cuts to the pair of coffee mugs, established earlier in the series of symbolic of their relationship, as Sakiko says, "This smell, I hate it."
There is also a wonderful pair of mirrored shots in this episode, one of Sakiko playing in the Togawa garden with Uika, the other with her looking out the window as she praises Tomori's strength. The first shot symbolizes Sakiko's connections to her mother (the doll and piano) while showing the two splashing water on one another behind multiple barriers (the window, the garden fence). The second shot shows Sakiko looking outside wistfully from the piano, and placing her on the other side of the barrier from Uika. She closes her letter to Tomori with, "I may not be able to do it like you do, but I will protect my band in my own way."
Taken as a whole - the unnatural coloration of their scenes together, the coffee monologue, and this paired shot function to highlight Sakiko's position as a Gothic protagonist. Her romantic overtures towards Uika are less a matter of her true feelings (which seem directed at Tomori) than they are a necessity to uphold her end of the bargain for Ave Mujica. Sakiko is performing a necessary act to coax Uika into a cage to keep watch over her fate as a member of Ave Mujica. The artifice of Sakiko's relationship with Uika doesn't make it any less real, but it does make it clear that it is not the fate she would have chosen for herself.
I honestly have no idea how to wrap this all up. Maybe one last point, not related to the visual presentation but tying the narrative points of playing God and tragic fate together, is the Gothic concept of corrupting blood. Hatsune's monologue in episode 11 suggests that the power of the Togawa family is matrilineal, as Sakiko's father and grandfather are both "adopted" into the family by marriage. This stages both the act of playing God (the power of a Togawa to force the creation of Ave Mujica) and the tragic fate that follows from that power. Her rejection of her grandfather is accompanied by the statement that he's the only one of them scared of the Togawa family. This makes sense, as her grandfather's position within the family can be jeopardized, but Sakiko's position as the true heir cannot. Her embrace of her bloodline and its corrupting influence comes at the end of the episode, when she reminds her old manager who she is: "Oblivionis of Ave Mujica - Togawa Sakiko". She off the carrot of the lead member of a top-selling stage act, but doesn't hesitate to show the stick of old money connections and power.
Sakiko's challenge to her ex-manager leads neatly into placing the opening theme at the end of the episode. Its placement symbolizes the permanent return to the managed madness of Ave Mujica's stage act, its members trapped in a funhouse mirror of their own identity constructed through Sakiko's manipulations.
I was replaying this scene from 9th October 2024 (episode directed by Séan Healy) for the gazillionth time and because I had the sound turned off it became quickly apparent how the visual direction conveys the scene's evolving narrative and shifting temperament as Lisa and Carla struggle to reach some sort of resolution.
Just prior to this, we saw that Carla's desperate for them to talk about their Moment from the previous night, while Lisa is clearly reticent to address it but gives in at the other woman's persistence. She gestures for them to move into a different, more private, room.
From the moment Carla and Lisa enter this room, we don't see them within the same frame - even when they enter, Carla walks out of frame before Lisa enters the shot.
As they converse, they're both siloed within their own individual frames. It couldn't be clearer that in this moment they are at odds, divided. Framed apart, there's a disconnect between them. Vertical lines in the set design add to the feeling that they're partitioned from one another.
Carla sits down, placing them at different height levels and suggesting a subtle power differential - the ball is very much in Lisa's court... and she's refusing to play with it. There's no over-the-shoulder coverage shots to create a sense of intimacy or understanding between them while they talk - this isn't intimate; it's awkward. For now once Carla is seated, the camera remains static and at a medium distance from the two women, allowing us to see their body language. Lisa, with her hands in her pockets, is trying her best to appear aloof. Carla gesticulates as she tries to get a handle on what's happening between them.
Neither woman is able or willing to be fully open about what they want, so they talk around their feelings for the first few exchanges of dialogue. But then Carla delivers a timely reminder that they're friends, and she doesn't want their friendship to become collateral damage. As she speaks, the camera now begins to gradually move in on her.
They're still not on the same page ("we had a moment, and now the moment's gone," "yeah...," "you straight birds, honestly") but as the camera continues to slowly move in closer to each of them, we start to hope that some kind of common ground can be established. Carla, now almost in close-up, reiterates her desire that their friendship not suffer, reminds Lisa that her divorce papers arriving had left her feeling vulnerable, offered as an explanation for her behaviour the previous night.
And now, when we cut to Lisa, suddenly she too is in close-up.
She visibly softens, and makes a concession that puts them on more level ground, admitting to her own recent vulnerable state.
When we next cut to Carla, the camera angle has changed a little so that she's more face-on. She pleads with Lisa for them to draw a line under the whole situation, to which Lisa agrees, and then when Carla stands, we see why the camera has moved position now they have reached some sort of accord.
As she moves, the camera shifts with her into an over-the-shoulder position from behind Lisa, and finally, for the first time since they entered the room, they're both shown in the same frame - just.
Carla continues to appeal to Lisa, Lisa smiles, and with crisis averted Carla audibly exhales. With an awkward thumbs-up, she passes Lisa, and we see them framed together - reunited - as they both leave the room in another medium shot.
Of course there is plenty more awkwardness and unspoken feelings and swerving one another to come - as we soon see in the following scene - but for now the important outcome is that their friendship has been saved, and can live to develop into something else another day.
This body of work reimagines post-impressionist expression not as nostalgic style but as a living, queer emotional language.
Rather than illustrating gay relationships through narrative scenes, these paintings embody the emotional architectures — yearning, rupture, tenderness, euphoria — that shape queer life. Emotion is treated not as theme or subject but as material: brushstroke, color, rhythm.
Queerness in this work is not located only in subject matter (two men in intimacy) but in the very structure of the paintings:
Fluid boundaries between figures and environment reflect relationality over rigid identity.
Luminous, symbolic palettes (pink, gold, silver, deep shadow) break from naturalism to celebrate emotional truth.
Non-linear emotional phases resist traditional narrative arcs, mapping queer experience as a cycle of struggle, healing, and liberation.
By centering emotional visibility, chosen connection, and the refusal of fixed form, the work queers expressive painting itself — expanding it into a space where feeling is not illustrated but inhabited.
In this world, as in queer life, emotion is the medium.
So, maybe a bit too vague but how do you go about designing a character?
Within the context of game development, there's usually two ways to approach this. In the first, you start with the character design and then design the rest of the game around the character. This is usually how some licensed titles are built - the licensed property drives the kind of game it is, so the character design is also driven by the license. The second method is to figure out the kind of game you want to build and then design characters to fulfill certain roles within that game. Most games with multiple playable characters/classes/roles, especially multiplayer games, fall into this category. We often need to differentiate how each playstyle works at a glance, which means the character needs to showcase that playstyle visually. We tend to use the second character design approach for NPCs as well, since we design with their supporting roles in mind. Here's an example.
Early on, Pharah in Overwatch was supposed to be "Rocketman" - a flying character that shoots rockets. Visually, this character needed to immediately show all players that he/she flies and shoots rockets. Thus, the concepts here all involve some kind of wings and flame trails to evoke the flying, and large-barrel tube-shaped weapons that evoke the look of rocket launchers. Note which major features remain in her final design.
The way a character looks and moves should convey a lot of information to the player. Consider these two monsters from Monster Hunter World - which of these monsters do you think feels faster than the other just by looking at them?
Character design is about conveying the important information about the character to the player visually. This can mean strength, speed, weaknesses, relevant abilities, the character's role, and so many other things. Designing a character is usually about figuring out all of the things you want to convey about the character, and then figuring out how to show that in a cohesive way visually. Consistency in visual representation across character design, environment design, item design, and all the other elements across the entire game becomes a visual language that we designers use to convey information to the player.
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