I feel like people are kind of missing the point, saying that BaM's redesigns are uglier. BaM deliberately overexaggerated their designs to make their point clear. Sure, I preferred the original squid girl, but the point of the exercise wasn't to make her more appealing, it was to show how shape language changes a design. Of course in a real character design you could pull back on that, maybe include some more circular shapes to combine "friendly" and "speedy", but BaM was starting at level 1 and showing how *one shape* can exaggerate a design. Ignore the grumbly comments, BaM. This video has been really helpful for me and I'm sure many other artists feel the same!
Even at the end they say that they have no idea of what makes a good character design, telling us that there isn’t only one way to design a character or definitive way to
I understand. My art got criticized so much i stopped showing people. Though i am trying to start digital amination to show people they cant make me stop drawing because they dont like my style
So what I learned from this is 1. Put a bunch of shapes together to make a silhouette 2. Make sure the silhouette has defined features to make it stand out 3. Color contrast is important on both the characters and the characters with the background 3. Make it somewhat simplistic but not too much 4. Exaggerate poses but again not too much 5. All kinds of body types are good 6. Draw more shapes to make more interesting characters 7. Draw line ups (with variety) 8. Use references 9. Also good palettes 10. Story is important when going with different styles
just keep in mind that they overexagurated shape language in this video to properly show it, You dont need to be a bunch of triangles smashed togheter. A good example of shape language is the wolf from Puss in boots the last wish. He has alot of triangles in his design without being over the top. Mostly, your design should have shapes, but not be made of shapes, if that makes sense
that's why sometime they have to give the character an aura when standing in a detailed setting, so the characters won't get consumed by the background
They made her look like an angry old lady! But I think that was the point by using the shape. Maybe if they used a different shape then she would’ve looked better
11:02 "lazy" I think this was a fantastic video on character design, but it should be noted that ideas, poses and color are different for different cultures! That image of the buddha is not meant to convey the state of someone whose lazy, but rather the buddha during his final days of life, before he entered paranirvana. and turning back to those buddhist ideas, it affects color, too! Red in our culture can signify danger or strong emotion, but in tibetan buddhism, red is a color of protection and compassion. We view blue as something meaning sadness, while for them blue is a color of wisdom. white = mourning, etc.
Hey lila thanks for clarifying that! We were not thinking of any religious meaning; mainly just the pose of the statue! But thank you for pointing that out we love to learn :)
In general, pure red is a very intense (and sometimes harsh) color, Which would only make sense for it to be used to convey danger or compassion, because both are very strong feelings! It’s used for stop signs or alarms because it’s eye catching, and why hearts are mainly colored red in advertisement. Other examples that red may signify to others are: anger, passion, blood, love, fire. Talking about colors and what they can represent or convey is such an interesting topic of mine!
2:48 conflates clarity of pose in silhouette with clarity of character in silhouette. There was nothing wrong with the character's silhouette before and was completely recognizable due to the tail, pointed arm bands, tentacles, and hat. I would wager that in a line up of silhouetted characters, she'd be distinct as is. the "fix" makes her pose more clear, but doesn't do much to define her character silhouette any more than before (and it makes her look a bit more alien, which slightly chipped away at her appeal). Her pose is also pretty unnatural looking now, as an added "bonus". And it's been mentioned in the comments plenty, but the "shape language" redesign completely butchered the appeal of the original design; so much so that I wouldn't call them the same character... if anything, it proved that combining shapes together can make a much more appealing character than dogmatically adhereing to a single shape. Just look at a few of the examples givin leading up to that redesign: Sonic in composed of triangles, and circles, the old man from up is mostly square but has a round nose, Wreck it Raplh is overly square but has rounded edges and a round jaw, Aku has almost no triangles in his head and is comprised of rectangles and circles, Batman has triangle eyes, but is mostly boxy with his jaw and shoulders, spiderman in the example is much more round than angular. The shape language bit completely missed the nuance for a dogmatic rule of shapes when it comes to character design. This entire video is kind of sloppy like that.
I agree. I want to believe they meant well, but any aspiring artist who takes this advice is probably going to end up in a worse spot for having done so. Every character given looked good in their own right, and yes polish was needed but there was still appeal. After they showed the "improved version" each character felt derivative. Cute dog princess becomes a princess Peach clone. Fun pirate captain girl becomes ugly sea witch. Smart lawyer and dumb demon become pretentious lawyer and ugly demon. Seriously, everything just became so darn ugly for the most part.
The second design reads waaaay more clearly. The first character is made up of more round shapes, making her looking cuter and more approachable, but then her expression and attire read "bad guy." The second design is very clearly meant to be a dangerous villain and unapproachable. By removing the rounded shapes, there is a much more obvious direction for what the character is supposed to be.
4:17 I actually like the original art better. It's gorgeous!! These principles are fantastic, but just because you don't follow them exactly doesn't mean your art won't be iconic/recognizable. You do you!
Remember that these examples are each literally just ONE WAY to follow these principles. Before getting too confident in your own way of doing things- especially if that way isn't getting you the results you want- remember there are literally countless ways to apply art principles that still count as following them exactly, so rather than give up on a teacher's method because you don't like the first result you see it getting (not saying you, the reader are doing that NOW, but still) ask yourself how you could do it better in applying it to your own design and see what results you get. Remember, if you have a goal you want to accomplish, and everyone you look up to for accomplishing that goal does certain things, if you want to succeed like them, (while it's not guaranteed to be true or guaranteed to work for you) odds are you'll have to do those things too, whether you like them at first or not. It's very satisfying to be told that you don't need to change, but if you want to change the results you're getting, then you probably do need to change something you're doing.
I guess the problem is that we didn't get enough character traits to be able to design the character to fit their personality. If the intention of the original artist was to make the character evil, the redesign succeeded. f the intention of the original artist was to make the character mysterious and kind, then the design failed. It all really depends on your intentions.
I feel like the redesign of the demon and human lost the whole idea of its comedic value. The original had the demon looked surprised while the human looks to the demon with a smug look as if the human managed to fool the demon. Now have the demon just focused on looking at his scroll while the human focuses on reading out loud from his book and it generates a sense of seriousness, which isn't bad at all. However, it takes away the comedic personality the original was trying to convey and plus the comedic value from the original focuses on the facial expressions, thus a full body wouldn't really be necessary. (Yes, I saw a comment that mentioned about this and I fully agreed.) However, I felt the idea of exaggerating the body shapes of both the human and demon does help improve the drawing in some aspects. A very nice contrast between the two, nonetheless.
@@mittycommitspizzatime92 3 words my friend 3 words "Plankton and mr krab hardcore coop Cock and Ball Torture (parachute, ball stretcher, kickings, hot)"
As an Eastern artist, I find Eastern and Western take different approach when it comes to animation. Eastern character design can be unanimous in body shapes(as you mentioned here), but they shine through exaggerated movement and animation. Western character designs are very shape oriented. So they have so many exciting wacky shapes, but when it comes to actual animation, they are really boring to look at with little exaggeration and depth to their movement. I think it boils down to how easier it is to figure out movements of a character that is unanimous or akin to average human body than super exaggerated stylized characters. Both do have their outliers tho. Like One Piece's exaggerated designs and Old Disney's magnificent and fluid animation.
I think its important to realize that this is a very HEAVILY STYILIZED art style. The points are good but you can bend them and take in the ones that will/can help you with YOUR own style. You don't have to change your style to fit this video or take every point extremely seriously. Also, some tips and tricks may not apply to you and your style. Thats okay. Remember! These are tips, not "you must do these things or else your art is terrible and your characters are terrible...etc etc"
@cloudyangeltv SAME the character i'm drawing is supposed to look like he would blend in irl which means no crazy hair or shapes so this video isn't helping much. .
I think the design changes completely changed the feel of the characters. Ok I just figured this out. The creators of this channel work in the television industry, so their “fixes” make sense for television but not entirely for the creator.
While this is good, I feel as if some of the redesigns missed the points of the intent of the original designs and cared more about making it marketable and not making it have actual fleshed out meaning
Well that's kinda what they're going for. They aren't really giving tips on how to make good original characters, they're giving tips on how to make characters that stand out, characters that are easily identifiable from the silhouette, characters that use specific shape language. But not of those are really all that important if you aren't intending for your character to be an icon, if your character looks good, like the first OC pirate chick, it doesn't need to follow any of the rules as strictly as they act as that just completely changes or removes the personality of the character.
@@Xecution099 they're not here to tell you how to make your characters, they're here to tell you the rules of icon. They're solid rules to make iconic characters, but if you don't want to market characters then you can break these rules. The redrawings in this video were kinda aiming for generic.
@@ArpeggioPegasus Just further presses the point that school is kind of pointless when there are those teachers who don't really teach anything in class themselves, instead only relying on textbooks or website for referencing the course curriculum. It all just matters only the discipline of the students who care to go to research beyond what's taught in the class.
Actually, Pinterest can be an amazing source of, not only art, but art advice. I find content just like the stuff in this video, and I find a lot of artists who show off their character design exercises, that have been drawn with a proper character design formula- really inspiring. But the thing is, you have to scratch the surface of art Pinterest if you really want to find the 'better' stuff. One click on an anime girl in cute clothes and it's all you'll see, unless you search for the other stuff.
Um... I think generally it's okay to use multiple shapes in a design! Just of a pie, majority of the slices (like 60-50%, but can depend on style) should be dedicated to one shape. Like Sora (who was in the video!!!); His design mostly consists of round circular shapes due to his clothing and face, but his famous keyblade consists of squares and his hair!!!!! Is literally full of triangles!!! If we dumbed it down to percentages instead of strict dedication to one shape, Sora would be around 60% circle, 25% square, and 15% triangle. It's also worth noting if themes contradict each other. That's okay! Especially if you want to make, like, a traitor character? Have them be all round and friendly and bright colored, but BAM and they're evil
Yep, in Joopies' video (which they recommended) mentioned about using a big iconic shape instead of sticking to just one. The percentage you wrote is how I'd see it. And for the last part, that contradiction is what makes it interesting yet effective. Their design *purposely* trick you to believe they're friendly and cute, making you automatically lump them into a design stereotype but turns out: They're not what they look like. Then again, design is subjective and it depends on the story or how you view it.
-------------------------- Timestamps -------------------------- Clarity: 0:28 Bad Character Design: 1:17 Silhouette: 2:27 Shape Language: 3:19 Palette: 5:25 Color=Story: 9:09 Pose: 10:48 Contrast: 12:24 Line Ups: 13:22 -------------------------- Note: -------------------------- Hope this helps! Please reply if I missed anything! Have a nice day! Thank you BaM Animations, this really helped! I am drawing(on paper) much better thanks to this video!
I'm a multimedia arts student and this video is literally EVERYTHING we've been studying for the first few semesters. I genuinely reference some of their philosophies because this is how it's taught to us as well, and I guess BaM makes it easier for me to remember. Art is genuinely subjective but I think the flak really comes from the idealism of Western animation lol. It's also important to note that these are character designs for animation. The redesigns are "improved" so that 1) it's easier to animate, 2) it's easier to advance the storyline, 3) it's easier to remember how to draw them when referenced. Shape language doesn't only convey personality but it's technical that we can actually reference to them when in-betweening, storyboarding, all that.
@@bloodymoon7315 i disagree. there’s no personality in the live action designs. nothing to make them stand out. they all end up looking like the same character.
@@brainsteroids8043 wooow watch the N words there Aaron, not just that I am not, but my nation saved 50k of you during WW2. Its a joke, know yore memes dude.
I want to point out that shape language doesn’t apply to just people. I mean, that’s evident in the clothing in the character design, but it can be used in A LOT of things. You could have a bouncy, round motorcycle, or a really square one that looks stable and safe, or a spiky triangular one that’s fast. If you want, the furniture in someone’s room could be full of shape language. Even more so, you can find rich shape language in the onomatopoeia found in Japanese manga. Shape can be applied to words too! Be creative and apply shape language to new things!
The dog princess redesign was a little bit TOO exaggerated, they changed totally the concept of what it was, changing completely the colours and remove the cape it had. Yes the colors were kind of exaggerated but they were completely changed instead of keeping the palette as similar as possible
I agree. The red cape and less round design gave the princess the vibes of a kind girl who was born into a monarchy but has medieval/Victorian gender standards forced on her. The redesign was almost too friendly and feminine with her round shapes and lack of cape. My guess on her personality eas confirmed when they showed the art of her gardening. She was wearing her nice dress while kneeling in the dirt and shoveling. That told an entire story from that one picture alone. In the new design, the shovel implied a similar story, but her actions spoke louder than her design and i couldn't tell if she was kneeling in dirt because she is so round. The color values on the redesign were indeed better though imo
15:44 simultaneously the best joke this channel has ever made, and the worst, since I was planning to show this video to my art teacher. Not anymore, lol.
@Diego Haro your animation teacher must be really cool then xd One of the two animation teachers we have looks like he is in his 20's when actually he's almost 40 xD
Listen, this is so valuable, like disgustingly valuable. In 100 years these principles will still be essential, like they were 100 years ago too. P.S. thanks for the shout out my boys
'like *disgustingly valuable* ' I felt that😂😂😂 I should have been taking notes but I was too eager to know what the whole video was about😂😂 I'll need to watch it again properly now
Hmmm... I wouldn't bet my last cent on it. The cultral meaning about shapes are subject to change over time. Those tips might be valuable *TODAY*, but in 100 years? People might see in round shapes the impersonation of death and epidemics and a pointy triangle as nothing else than nachos by then...
The problem is, you use an extremely cartoony, almost non-humanoid artstyle. These principles almost only work with very cartoony drawings, and taking most of the details doesn't make it more recognizable and it makes its palette smaller.
I feel like a lot of people forgot about the disclaimer: character design is subjective. If you don’t like their redesigns, that’s totally cool! These are, however the steps to creating a recognizable and iconic character, and if that’s not your goal, that’s all good. You don’t have to do any of this, but they are really helpful suggestions and offer some guidance.
yeah i think some might have missed that. The author ( i guess) is talking about being iconic, not every character should be iconic. unless you wanna make the next mickey mouse or something.
@@AbdallahTeach absolutely. not everyone wants to create a kids cartoon character that will be recognizable for the next 50 years. subtlety and realism could work in a visual novel, for example, where you wouldn't think of proportional human bodies looking like monochromatic circles
Not really. The redesign at 4:14 doesn't even accomplish any of the things the narration claims it does, let alone make it look better. The silhouette isn't any more distinctive, and the triangle shape motif doesn't come through even if I know to look for it. If they hadn't told me she was supposed to "instantly read as a dangerous femme fatale" I would have no idea what they were going for at all.
I feel like this gave some very good advice, but nearly every design they had just didn't feel... right to me. Like, they just felt... really stereotypical to me. And every design I saw strayed far from what the original designs were going for. Other than that, they have some really good advice that works.
I agree! Their tips are really good, but I didn't like their versions of other's character designs, they just didn't appeal to me! I managed to find these tips relevant for me only when they used characters from Disney and other franchises as examples!
I think what’s important to remember is that they are not setting hard rules on art. Art does not really have solutions and so this is more of a suggestion or introduction to the tools that are used by pro-artists.
@@Lumberjack_king yeah for me the character lost depth, the original character seemed like a 3-D character who will have arcs and conflicts while the redesign felt like a stereotypical character with a story arc/plot you could guess easily
Coming back to this video a few years after first watching it and wow, I regularly use more of the design advice from this 20 minute video than from an entire semester of animation class. *I'm not joking.*
so, a couple things to start off, yes, i am aware that this video is over a year old now, and that this comment will likely just get lost in the sea of more liked comments. that's fine, it's not like i'm saying anything revolutionary in this comment, just speaking my mind now. before i get into the brunt of it, i would say this video is a fairly good video if you're going for the style it proposes. it goes over good and basic theories that at least seem stable. it presents what feels like a good reason that mainstream media characters are so popular at the beginning of the video it was stated that good and bad character design is subjective, dependent on context, viewer, etc. completely, 100% agree. in most cases, when a character is first made, it seems like good character design to its creator. the creator's view on the design on the character is entirely subject to change, but that's sorta off-topic for what i'm getting at here. my point is, first it was stated as subjective, then for the rest of the video it was treated as objective "so marth, what's your main problem with the points the creators bring up?" it's entirely focused on making a character a. basic and b. unique. while in some cases this works well, for example some of the media referred to in the video, in others it doesn't quite work as well. imagine a tv series whose setting is a dystopian future focused around uniformity. i would argue that to better illustrate this bleak timeline, the characters follow this uniformity with their basic design. however, once you get further than skin-deep, you start learning more about these characters and their widely different personalities despite their concretely uniform designs. an excellent example of media in which uniqueness would not work well basicness is bland. yes, this is vastly more of an opinionated point than the last one, but i would argue that basicness is bland. it discourages adding small details that give a glimpse into a character's head, their past, their personality. perhaps the original design for a character includes a watch given to them by their deceased grandfather or a necklace with an intricate pendant signifying their religion. from what this video says, it would seem like to make the character better, you would have to remove these keepsakes, essentially stripping away an important piece of a character's personality some of the redesigns in the video seem fairly ignorant to the intended designs i felt from the originals. the fish pirate at the beginning originally gave me a tomboy antihero vibe while her redesign just felt like the antagonist's slut. the sparkledog princess seemingly lost all personality and became furry princess peach. the character that the video creators shat on at the beginning went from (inspect it yourself, you'll see what i mean) divine ruler of casinos to some basic cardfighting magician man one last issue i had with the video (which, mind, is extremely nitpicky) is that with many of the redesigns, important aspects of the characters where mirrored. before i receive comments telling me that all of the mirroring is intentional and part of the redesigns, i point toward the sparkledog princess. the redesign and the finished piece are inconsistent after i finished the video, i decided to scroll through the comments to see if people had caught the things i had caught, and a comment by Clean Water clenched my heart and nearly squeezed a tear from my eye: "me who found a style and feeling confident in art, actually likes a lot of the drawings now I make after video: oh.." this video, i fear, will tell passionate artists that their work is shit, and to make it good they need to stick with what's mainstream. tl;dr, while this video can be useful, please don't let your passion die because you differ from the norm. keep making what makes you happy.
thank you for this comment! i really have just started drawing and i find it fun, and i tried to not watch tutorials online to avoid swaying my own experience and making it harder to enjoy. i understand this video was meant to be for ppl who want a career in this, but still they had so many points that really took all the fun out of the character designing i do.
@@doopyman the redesign was literally just a princess peach copy. you can even see them "referencing" her in the new design. aside from the color scheme, which i agree should be a bit tweaked, the original design is far better imho
The redesign of the fish lady... egh. Did you guys just forget the human form is made up of multiple shapes, or...? Like what else are you supposed to do with a torso in that pose than two rectangles - not even that, rhombuses, basically the halfway between rectangles and triangles. Everything about the redesign's proportions look uncomfortable to exist in, and your read of the character was incredibly different than the shape language already being used. Perhaps the circles in the body represented a soft nature, and the triangles in the clothing represented a more bold attitude, eh? Also silhouettes aren't quite as important as this makes them out to be. A good design should be readable in silhouette when they're posed for it, but not every pose has to look like your character is posing for a camera, arms outstretched to the sides. Especially in more realistic works you're gonna have to let them overlap to do basic things like hold a cup of coffee or sit cross-legged, and doing that doesn't negate the readability of the design whatsoever. We have lines and color for a reason, with good use of them you won't need to have an interesting silhouette 100% of the time. They also oversell the importance of palettes by being dishonest in the presentation of them. They present the palettes of casts, not individual characters, arranged in the order they appear vertically, even repeating them sometimes like with Bert and Ernie. That's not a palette, you've basically just stretched the characters really wide and then cut out a slice of each. If you showed me the yellow and red of Winnie the Pooh without the extra yellow underneath to make the red look like a shirt, that would tell me nothing.
I sorta feel like they ruined the cartoony style of that drawing and made it worse in my opinion. The facial expression just doesn’t look right and pose is a tad off.
Well he comes out and says that despite all his experience and knowledge... he doesn't have a perfect magic recipe for success: only guidelines to help make things more likely to work out. Don't like the style? That's always gonna happen. The real point was to achieve certain goals with the character so that it could be animated. The previous character was, frankly, too complex. I think you ARE right though and that character wasn't done being worked on.
I disagree with 2:13, a characters personality or role doesn't need to be on their sleeve. Just look at fosthers home for imaginary friends. You got humble looking blue, but he has a massive personality. You also got edward, who looks like a mean evil being, but is really a crybaby. Character and looks don't need to be directly connected.
I agree with you, except I think what the guys who did the video actually did wrong was leave out a piece of information that should have been in the sentence. I think they should have said "Everything about that character [THAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SEE IN THEM] should be understood visually, in one second or less." That would cover all the subversion, too, and a lot of other things that got kinda left out but I'm sure they knew.
I would presume that the personality gives the character a desire to dress in a certain manner, his own "perfect" outfit in his mind that is supposed to represent what he wants to be. Now this can be compromised however depending on how unlucky the character's environment cat get, on how much he is prevented from getting that "perfect" outfit and what he's forced to wear instead. You can even go as far as giving him the outfit he desires, but he just happens not to fit in very well, or even look awkward in it, but he probably wouldn't care.
Its appealing to do it both ways. In the classic Disney movies, you can tell almost right away what side a character is on and what their personality is. In Disney's Pixar films, the bad guy is often presented as someone the main character trusts, so its an intresting surprise when the character gets exposed.
Why would your animated character be a realistic human who lives on a regular house, when he can be a yellow sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea? That is what my teacher once said to me.
"This fan-submitted artwork is good but has a few problems that makes it look bad, so we will fix a few of those!" *proceeds to change their entire personality, artstyle and shape*
I honestly think that's good. I'm an artist myself and I would rather have a "Good job but this is horrible let's fix it together" than a "yeah it's cool." then nothing more. We need criticism to improve don't we. Edit: Coming back to this I realized how much this character was changed. The original design surely gave it a pleasing look, the new one does seem way too different. A way too strong change to the original charm the character gave.
@@oldchannelawhellnah yeah, but that doesn't mean one must mutilate your characters to appease some assholes online. The original fish girl was fine, they had no right to turn it into a cubist monstocity.,
@@themadoneplays7842 I mean yeah but if I'm not wrong that was just an example of how simple shapes can completely change a character, I'm not sure if they were actually suggesting these changes for the original design
@@oldchannelawhellnahThat's not a fix. It's a do-over. That's like if you went to the doctor with a broken arm and his solution was to amputate the arm and attach a prosthetic.
To people who prefer the original drawings: a lot of what these guys are saying comes from an animation point of view where the character needs to be redrawn and recognized in a variety of circumstances, rather than just a piece of art. Most of what they are saying stands true for both circumstances, but that might be why you don’t lie the redraw.
I completely rolled over the animation part of their intro and outro I was wondering why everything was feeling kinda off! I was just about to comment that i don’t like the redesign but still consider their advice good, now i know why i was feeling like that, i don’t like their style because it’s made to be repeated and plain, i was wondering why it was getting a bit more boring in the redesign, they are professional animators, not particularly illustrators, so i really appreciate their Advice and examples as animation advice now, instead of plain drawing or pure design
I'd say this was true for me for only the first one. The redraw is great and gives off a much more recognizable vibe, but I also really like the original for it's complexity and keeping the round features. Imo, so long as you use no more than 2 different shapes in the design and balance them, the character design can still look good. Like how in the first one, the body had rounder features and the clothes were pointier. Even then, there were still some curves in the clothing and sharp edges in the body, making for a seamless combination of the shape language. If both shapes were in stark contrast, they'd clash and start to not make sense.
I mean I think the remade drawings improved some of the aspects but they were too different, so that they’re kinda missing the original vibes people were trying to give
Also important to mention that they aren't saying draw exactly like them but to take notes from aspects of their art and apply it to your style. Use consistent shapes, make sure your colours compliment one another instead of competing to be more dominant and exaggerated proportions and facial expressions can add to comedic effect.
You know, something about this video always bothered me, but I couldn’t figure out what. Now I know: you’ve left out the most important part of character design: the purpose. This video really only focuses on the appearance or style of a character design without considering who the character is or what their purpose is. At the beginning you list important things for a character design: silhouette, palette, and exaggeration. And yet you don’t even talk about intention or personality or character. In the redesigns, it seems your only concern is on the technical and the theory, and you just throw out the character, purpose, and soul. For god’s sake, a femme fatale is meant to be dangerously sexy, not just dangerous! It’s like no consideration was put into the actual communication of concepts and ideas and everything was just theory. You took the character out of the character designs!
I completely agree with you, but I don’t think the video is bad by any means. Any person who learns from this video and ends up being a good artist because of it will also know about what your comment pointed out. Art is a skill that in part develops with the person that makes it. To oversimplify things, imagine it like a video game where you can level a character’s stats. In order to learn how to use a knife in the kitchen to properly cut ingredients, you need to level up things like hand-eye coordination, patience, observation. Obviously this sort of thing isn’t something you can numerically measure I’m just giving a crude example because it’s the same for art. And art is unique because there isn’t a specific stat level up requirement, multiple different kinds of combinations of stats will help you make art, the difference being is that the kind of art you make will be different. That’s how styles are born, and they even touch on this in the video itself. Grave of the Fireflies’s story would be a horrible fit in South Park’s art style if your goal is to deeply emotionally resonate with the audience, because otherwise you just insulted the tragic history of another nation which, to be fair, South Park is notorious for being very crude and offensive so no new lines have been broken here haha. They definitely could have presented the re-designs in a different light though, since the title and wording within the video passively implies that the re-designs are objectively better based on a guideline forged from observations of other good character designs. Your takeaway from the video shouldn’t be the improved designs, it should be “there isn’t a rule for what makes a design good or bad, it depends on the story you want to tell and the style you want to tell it in, here are some common similarities between good character designs, make of it what you will”.
This. Absolutely this. This video bugged me a lot when i first saw it, and this comment made me realize why. The designs seem to loose all personality/change it completely. For example in the dog princess one, the character went from being a seemingly impressionable and positive princess, to being another generic cheery princess.
I've seen a lot of people saying in the comments "I didn't like this redesign" when actually the purpose of the video is not to make likeable characters or prettty ones, its purpose is to teach how to express a certain personality or feeling in a character so it's easy to understand at a first glance to the viewer, it's almost obvious you aren't going to like some of the designs, especially the "villain" ones
okay but that's not why people are mad, they're mad that in the video they're saying this is a bad character design but instead of fixing the design (which btw is a different art style) they change the design of the character completely from what looks to be a mysterious heroine to a complete Cruella Deville type of villain. Also that whole color theory nonsense and the fact that they basically say if it's not the way they like it or the art style they use it's "bad design" when art style is a huge factor and different designs resonate with different people, for instance a lot of people in the comment section liked the pirate girls original design so saying it's bad when it's objectively not insults everyone who likes that design.
it's the hair and face, I think. the remake loses the sort of young, stubbornly headstrong yet kind at heart vibe I'm getting. definitely because of the lack of circles, a blend of triangles and circles would have been much better imo. it's a good design and a good demonstration, but it's not the same character as the original.
This video has been so important to me, despite not wanting to be a professional in art and just treating it as a hobby, I always rewatch this whenever I make a design and it's been such a helpful guide to make my work look a lot better!
I scrolled all the way down through the comments just to find someone who said this! I personally use tracing paper to amend this issue (not a 100% fix, but it can make things a lot more balanced when it's supposed to be), but I do all my art by hand rather than digitally, so I don't have the fancy techniques like photoshop, so when it gets down to the illustration portion of a design, I only have 1 chance to get the color down right, because there's no take backs afterwards 😅
@ ALL 3 OF YOU, LOL XD I hold the paper up to a light and turn it around to see it flipped and it helps me catch lots of mistakes. You can also take a picture with your phone and flip that. And the mirror works, too, like Catalina said! I really like to scan works in progress also because then I CAN digitally reverse it, and it also allows me kind of save a backup of the lineart and stuff. If I REALLY botch the coloring phase, then I can throw that away, then trace my finished lines by loading the scanned lineart, putting a clean piece of paper up to my computer screen and then tracing over them to get them all back. Sure, I have to do the inking again, but at least I don't have to start all over if I ruin the coloring. To an extent, you can do an extra layer even with traditional drawing if you have a computer or something else to use as a light table.
Honestly, I feel the character design at 2:50 is pretty solid, although I understand the criticism towards it. I just don’t like the ‘improved’ version that much....
There were some really good tips in here, with a lot of good information, but I felt like many of the redesigns ended up with things lost in translation, or completely changed the intent of the original drawings. I liked the original design better for the pirate, after they defined the silhouette more, but I think they lost a lot of the personality of the character when they completely redefined her. She went from looking like a fun, some what lovable villain who probably has a lot of flair and charismatic ego (sort of a Don Carnage ala Duck Tales remake) to a rather generic, sexy female pirate villain who probably only barks cold orders to her crew and leaves you wishing there was more to her character. They also got rid of a lot of the simple, yet interesting details that made her fun to look at. The new design has an interesting face, but the rest of her details leave it looking bland and forgettable. The Dog design is adorable though. But I wouldn't have given her a crown and elements that look quite so much like Princess Peach. The shape is good, but she looks like she goes to the same dress maker. XD The demon one is more striking in it's technical appearance, but I think the joke kind of got lost.... The big demon doesn't look stupid, he looks like a smart guy trapped in the body of a weight lifter. The expression of being perplexed is gone. The man also now no longer looks smug and like he's enjoying the demon's bafflement, but only looks like he's dictating from the book. Instead of a man stumping a demon, they are now a duo of a demon and human team pouring over demonic legislature. xp
I guess they did this as examples, like, when you want to make the character look like somehing an people thinks another thing from them. Also, in the draw of the devil and the guy you can see that at least it keeps some of the original one: the devil trying to understand what he's reading and the guy looking more smart than the devil
I don't think a lot of things in his video were very helpful like shape language should not be something that you have to use with every character maybe with some characters but not with all characters like what the pirate girl you're completely correct they basically took her design found it down the old it and then Stripped Away anything that made her unique it just made a carbon copy of pirate characters, idk i feel like they purposely did things just to match with their opinions of what we should be using in art are like with shapes triangles always being associated with evil villains and cuz they have sharp edges and squares always being associated with Bruce and dumb down buff characters and circles always being happy and go lucky well just take a look at Cartman from South Park Cartman is a bad character who's basically just a circle with legs and is a horrible person but yet he's a circle with legs and there might be characters out there that have more pointed edges and sharp edges like a triangle but could be very soft people and there could be characters out there that are modeled after squares that are actually very intelligent
I guess the purpose is to teach you some very useful visual design tools. Here, they only exagerrated more common features to illustrate common archetype-fitting, but you can play around with it by emphasizing any feature that is important for defining the character. There is more to it than just the tools they mentioned: for example, there is also an additional S "shape", sort of resembling a snake, that one of the character enhancements they had in the lineup used. Yet, the principles they convey in teaching you this give you more control to enhance your character and understanding the impact simplicity/complexity will have on your end viewer. Essentially, exagerration/simplification is a good way to communicate one or two main idea about the character, then play around with it in the story by augmenting that characteristic (character shape matches function, for clear reading) or contradicting it (making a "book doesn't match it's cover" argument, sort of like with Hunback of Notre Dame). The second one is clearly riskier, because if you don't make it an essential element of your story, you risk bringing in too much detail and obfuscating the main points of your story. It should only be done for dynamic, complex, or thematic characters. Otherwise, simplicity reigns supreme. On the other hand, if some feature is a key point to your story, then it can be a really fun thing to play around with or embed subtle messages inside. Like with the pirate: her triangles indicated her as a villain, but the circles/curves indicated that she also has a softer side too. Balancing the two gave a more nuanced impression, that could be tackled in whatever story she appeared in: maybe deadly or villaneous one moment, forgiving or merciful the next. Or maybe the message is reversed: she is often kind, but contains hidden edges inside, a quiet, sharp power, that reveals itself in serious moments. I do, however, agree that a lot of their modifications changed the message or spirit of the characters, but they did that for a purpose: they were "simplifying" the shape/color principles they knew by only showing us a few simplified key elements, in order to make them more easily understandable to us. And, funnily enough, this "simplicity" idea was exactly the message they were trying to pass down to us. It's cool when form matches function, and this is a concept that crops up in virtually any form of communication. Though ofc, you can see the downsides here. There's a reduced ability to pass on complicated messages. And yet, the message is likely to be recieved and remembered better for its simplicity. It's all a tradeoff. A cartoon tends towards greater simplicity of characterization; large books like Robin Hobb's tend to express complexity focused around a few central ideas. Which one you prefer depends on your point, and your medium. Since visual design forms only one argument for your characterization, there are a lot of tricks you can pull in combo with your storyline/backstory in order to develop a good, solid character. tldr: Simplicity has it's role, but has tradeoffs with portraying naunce. The video only shows basic principles in order to give you more tools in expressing your characters/story via visual design. Your actual story is what defines the actual purpose of that visual design.
Makes me think of that scene in Dead Poets Society where they rip out the first chapter of the textbook. Nothing wrong with following the strict rubric the author proposed to add style, but upholding it as the only valid option robs an artist of unique creative potential and individual expression.
This is one of my favorites methods 1. Try to think of an object or thing 2. Make it to a humanoid with some of the "thing" features 3. Add backstory and personality to them 4. Done and done
4:15 Most of this video I agree on, it's really helpful. But for the "improved" drawing, it just kind of feels like they got rid of a lot of character in the original artwork. Sure, trying to stick to one shape to make it look better is fine, but they just.... took so much of the good stuff out.
Not only that, but look at how fucked the anatomy is on the rework, it goes from "yeah, this is a little weird but I've seen enough rule34 for it to make sense" to "Yeah, her leg is broken" and "You totally forgot about the bottom half and drew it later, didn't you?". That's not taking into account how they made a phantom of the opera mask into face paint and bracers into glvoes.
They did give quite a few good tips, just not everyone will go with an exaggerated, cartoony style. I prefer going with a more anatomically-fitting type of style.
Rhaynebow Not just hair, but other design elements (facial, costume, and props most notably) are ways you can plus up a ‘meh’ human-proportioned design into a stellar one. One Piece’s Luffy & Hunter X Hunter’s Gon are good examples of that philosophy. (Luffy has a lean muscular build with messy short black hair & wears a long sleeved red cardigan, yellow sash, oversized blue trousers with cuffs & a round brim straw hat. Gon has long, spiky black green tipped hair and his usual outfit is composed of a oversized green jacket with red trim, white tank top, oversized green short shorts, and green laced boots.) The point being is you can apply the principles of good, readable character design to whatever it is you’re cooking up, and the principles of caricature & shape value can still be applied to designs with “conventional” human proportions. Keep the basics to heart, you know?
Also with some genres of anime they go into chibi form where they literally have the same body, or even just an oval of their face pops into the screen to scream at something that's just been said, so the hair needs to be iconic to serve that purpose so when its only their floaty head in a speech bubble you still know it's them
I also noticed that detail some time ago. Unfortunately, since then I can't look at anime/manga-styled artwork without feeling of same-face-syndrome shoving into my brain. I heard that in the past it was done intentionally so studios could reuse same shots, frames and designs for different animes (because of low budget) and over time it just became heavily fused with the genre itself. Not sure, if that true, it's just a random story.
I genuinely love how well they snuck in that one drawing around 15 mins in, to the point literally no one so far in comments have even considered that being something to laugh about 😂, all seriousness, as a upcoming artist and animator, these are very helpful tips, I had a similar idea but this really helped me open my mind to variety of how to start off and points I never thought of, so awesome, to anyone also viewing this, goodluck, we both have alot of stress to go through ;---; thanks for helping, thanks for readIng 🤣
Nah it’s the most replayed part lol. Ppl just have a lot of criticism about the points made in the video that they’d rather talk about that over whatever the hell my eyes bore witness to
Something i discovered is how the GTA games managed to make the main characters recognisable with only using clothing. Like you can recognize cj by his white tank top and blue jeans, tommy with his tropical jacket and jeans, claude with his black jacket and green pants, niko and his tracksuit, ect.
I mean, I never do it either and that's not something I ever seem to have an issue with. Usually, your characters are intentionally leaning to a side anyway.
@@Rodrigo-br8qe i usually try to draw the frame of their body an of how i want them positioned and then follow that frame as closely as possible when fleshing them out
To people who didn't like the video/redesigns: I just want to remind that the name of the channel is BAM *animations*. This video, just like everything else on this channel, should be understood in context of western animation art tradition. If your goal is not animation, it's only natural that some of advices might be not usable!
The redesigns are amazing, I don't know what you people are so butthurt about! They're unique, original, dynamic, VERY expressive and convey a whole STORY and PERSONALITY of the characters. Plus, they're all in a TV animated shows style, since both of the guys work on the TV shows, so keep that in mind. They really reminded me of an old school cartoon network style that I really miss nowadays - exaggerated, saturated and almost grotesque features. I honestly loved them so much that I laughed out loud a few times just by looking at the design, and that tells a lot! You may not like the style of the redesigns, since that's up to your likings but you can't deny that they're very STRONG designs. And that is true that they work best in animation, although in my opinion all of the submitted original designs were weak, regardless of whether they were destined to be in the animation or just an illustration. (I'm a 3rd year animation student)
@@barbara9631 I'm also a 3rd year animation student and I'm not going to make anyone feel bad for liking the redesigns. I just don't like them and feel they're very generic and boring and don't really have a sense of charm to them. I also still stand by a different comment I've made where instead of titling this "good vs bad character design" they should have instead title it "design theories and how they change your character" which would then eliminate any reason why anyone would get angry at the redesigns since it's not about how it's better than the original, but instead how colour/shape theory can change it and possibly better give the character the feeling you want it to represent.
I remember I designed a character for my DnD campaign and I showed the character to all my friends and all of them loved the design and character itself. it was my first attempt at designing a character in a long time so it was a very nice feeling!
You know what's terrifying, is when someone has an over-detailed character like the example for a bad character design, and they can animate it super well anyway- Like bruh, who has the time foR THIS
Making characters easy to read can make character development and surprise villains difficult to make. It makes characters a little less interesting because then there isn't as much to learn about them that would surprise or exite the viewer.
I came back to this a while after I first saw it, and I still don't like the redesigns (of the squid captain and the dog princess especially). The advice is well meaning and shouldn't be disregarded just because they made some mistakes, but I'm not going to pretend I don't see a bad character redesign. Lesson to be learned: Everyone makes mistakes, even professionals. Make sure to learn from your mistakes.
2:50 they actually down graded the character design for this one at least in my opinion. The character looked like a warrior Disney princess which was awesome then making it overly triangle made the character look generically evil and plus it just looks weird
They said in the video "I will try making this character with only as many triangular shapes as possible". They redesigned it once in the sillhouette and it was fine. The second time they redesigned was just to explain exaggeration with shape language.
I feel like that wasn’t the point of the re-design. The first time they just showed how to make a more clear silhouette, and in the second they used it as an example of how to improve shape lenguage. The person who submitted the drawing will take that knowledge and change the shapes to what fits to they’re character. If they are suppose to be a villain they might take the triangle route, or if it’s a warrior more squares, and so on and so forth. The redesigns that they do in the video serve more as an example on how to apply the techniques, so that people watching can take that and use it to what fits best to they’re specific character and they’re style.
To be honest, I feel like you misrepresented the character's personality at 4:14 , especially in her face. She's clearly meant to be elegant despite her clothing design. No just dangerous. In fact, you didn't really go into detail about characters who are more subtle and not western in style despite briefly mentioning it. Your own style conflicts quite heavily with that one. You should of looked at fighting games as they do an excellent job with character in a variety of styles. Anyways it's important for people to not dehumanize their character in their attempt to make a good design, not all designs are products, even if your art isn't as consumable there might be different draws. This is still good advice, but don't break your own characters trying to replicate it. Micky Mouse is profitable and recognizable, that doesn't make him interesting.
Yeah I didn't understand it either, they say don't use stereotypes or tropes or it'll give you a boring design, but then they make this character into a stereotypical female pirate.
Honestly the whole vid itself contradicts the whole "art is subjective" thing and more about them lowkey saying their views are right and yours is wrong... When I saw that "redesign" I kind of knew to take a lot of their advice with a whole lot of salt.
@@EldarWarlock123 That's the vibe I kinda got. They were pushing really hard with "this is the only correct character design philosophy because it's the one I like"
In my opinion, I don’t think they were *telling* the viewer to do anything. The grain of salt is true, they’re going with severe exaggeration so the concepts are easy to follow. What I got from this video was the demonstration of proven tools and how it helps make designs and concepts look professional and iconic. Even the Daisy Dog didn’t seem to match the eleganza of the original. Their stylization just served as an example. In the case of our pirate, they didn’t read her personality before choosing the dominant shape. They were showing HOW the dominant shape can create a personality. Some characters, however, are genuinely inbetween. The fact that she had both circles and points made her a lot like Sonic(who also has these two conflicting shapes)- a little on the hasty side, but with an approachable touch. ---- EDIT; The advice in the video is by no means perfect, but helps when solidifying what you WANT out of your design. While these two can’t predict what you want and they’re giving marketability advice, it’s up to you to make a distinction on what you’re aiming for, versus how these ideas can be used to enhance it or make it better.
2:11 I wouldn't agree on that. Story is more interesting when there is no clear indicators of good and bad character. In real life, people often look similar, and bad looks like evil while evil looks like good.
Yeh. If you can't instantly tell what someone is like, it will make them more invested and make them want to know more about this character and what they are like. It dosent make them look stereotypical.
Agree, take Kyubey from Magica Madoka for example. Kyubey is a white fur cat with a long twintail hair with yellow ring at both of the twintail and owns red eyes. Even his lefimotif was sounds so precious And Kyubey was the villain of the anime
Agree, take Kyubey from Magica Madoka for example. Kyubey is a white fur cat with a long twintail hair with yellow ring at both of the twintail and owns red eyes. Even his lefimotif was sounds so precious And Kyubey was the villain of the anime
Although I do have to say you missed a lot of what the original artists were trying to tell about their characters. Like the puppy princess for example originally looked like a kind hearted, soft spoken, emo princess who didn’t take shit from no one. And ur design game a more prissy Polly pocket “I do nice things to be ladylike and ‘righteous’” vibes. Which I think was mostly in the way you drew her hair to be more puffy like the evil sisters from Cinderella.
I don't see the original puppy princess as that, i saw them the same way except now the character looks less "like a mess", specially with the background where she is lost. But i can agree about the pirate girl
I agree with Gonza over there. The original feels just a bit of a mess too for me, and the redesign feels suitable. I thought at first that they're going for boyish princess too at first, but then I realize that they might just going for a standard pretty princess like the redesign is going for too, and the less puffy dress is more of a mistake than a choice.
"Animation can be more powerful than live action." Disney: *I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that.* EDIT: y'all need to calm down in the replies, this was literally just a joke about how Disney's recent movies have all been live action
@Max the point is that the live Disney movies today still suck even with the animations. It's not an animation movie if the movie isn't fully animated.
@@owlismyfavouritecolorflame2325 I agree. A movie must be good enough to attain successful revenue. If the movie sucked, it will have terrible revenue.
@@tvoovm7254 maybe its sarcasm but its not what i said, what i said is the aladdin remake made 500 million dollars, basically disney has a stupid amount of cashcows and as long as pretentious critics and stupid children who may or may hot be pretentious buy tiquests, we will get more Also avatar
Agree. I liked the original middle east one cause it was bouncy. Now it looks like generic nickelodeon lol. It's nice. But it just lost the artist style
@@ButWhyMe... Basically...think about it like it technically is, they took surface level art tropes used on, mostly, simplistically designed characters, shoved them into more complex designs, and exaggerated them until it hardly resembled the original design For instance, the first design became a geometric nightmare and what you'd probably think is a scrapped 90's Disney villain, when that wasn't the point The second design literally used Princess Peach as a base, and it showed in the final design! He got rid of their cape, changed their art style, and made their dress comically poofy...when the point was supposed to be color separation, and then proceeded to essentially call the old ones "bad designs" (by the title) and their redesigns *better* (also by the title)
I mean, I feel like they put more effort in saying their designs are *objectively* better than the contrary, which feels very..."non-artsy" anyways, yea?
Designing a character doesn't mean morphing and changing the art style of the original character completely, the squid girl actually looked normal before being turned into a person who looked like they just got their 4th round of plastic surgery for the day.
I feel like people are kind of missing the point, saying that BaM's redesigns are uglier. BaM deliberately overexaggerated their designs to make their point clear. Sure, I preferred the original squid girl, but the point of the exercise wasn't to make her more appealing, it was to show how shape language changes a design. Of course in a real character design you could pull back on that, maybe include some more circular shapes to combine "friendly" and "speedy", but BaM was starting at level 1 and showing how *one shape* can exaggerate a design.
Ignore the grumbly comments, BaM. This video has been really helpful for me and I'm sure many other artists feel the same!
TBH Everyone have different ways or tips or tricks on How they make their character I guess
Then they probably shouldn't have said the new design was meant to be the improved version.
Still, advice was good.
Ah, manipulation at it's best.
Even at the end they say that they have no idea of what makes a good character design, telling us that there isn’t only one way to design a character or definitive way to
I understand. My art got criticized so much i stopped showing people. Though i am trying to start digital amination to show people they cant make me stop drawing because they dont like my style
"Let's take a look at bad character design."
Me: *questions every character I've ever drawn*
Fiddle Flixx I felt the same
Joseph O'Malley same
Fiddle Flixx same ;-;
*me looks at my DnD person*
:(
Mood
"Green is gonna give you a feeling of safety"
Ah yes shrek makes me feel very safe
to be fair
he DOES actually make me feel safe
i'm being completely unironic here
He feels safe in his green swamp maybe?? 😂
@@ponponpatapon9670 honestly you're a legend for saying that
Mad respect bro
But of course Shrek makes you feel safe. Shrek is love. Shrek is life.
*Shrek is love Shrek is life flashbacks*
8:26 yes Elmo comes across as dangerous and sexy
His old voice actor especially...OOF.
I don't know about you but I find Elmo to be quite *Menacing*
E. Norma Stitz lol you HAD to say it 😂🤣😅
Don’t he though?
@@erfanthered9801 He knows were you live
Character design is very subjective! That's so important to remember when designing.
winged canvas!! hiii i love ur videosss
@@KIKURAsky Awwe, thanks!
oh! a wild wingedcanvas appeared
EXACTLY !!
"Characters rarely stand in a bright white room"
Me: *laughs in traditional art sketchbook*
*cries in never uses colors*
It is so true
@@SocksWithSandalsEnjoyer haha same :')
@@kyleag86 i thought i was the only one-- hi 😌♥️
also in gravity falls, which the onscreen characters are from, one of the most epic scenes takes place in a bright white room.
"Red might feel dangerous and sexy."
Elmo: *hi*
Chaos Controlled
Elmo: “Elmo loves you! Hahaha!”
Some person: “Damn Elmo, you’re such a player 😳😏”
It's like the cursed photo meme.
elmo in hell = danger
elmo on bed= sexy
damn, that's accurate.
exactly
*draw Elmo holding a bloody knife behind you.*
*E-ELMO KUN*
"Green is gonna give you a feeling of safety"
**Looks at Hulk*
he protects the city
@@lapiswolf2780 Exactly
@@lapiswolf2780 violently...
@@adaliawright6891 In the same way that *Godzilla* does! ^_^
Creeper
So what I learned from this is
1. Put a bunch of shapes together to make a silhouette
2. Make sure the silhouette has defined features to make it stand out
3. Color contrast is important on both the characters and the characters with the background
3. Make it somewhat simplistic but not too much
4. Exaggerate poses but again not too much
5. All kinds of body types are good
6. Draw more shapes to make more interesting characters
7. Draw line ups (with variety)
8. Use references
9. Also good palettes
10. Story is important when going with different styles
just keep in mind that they overexagurated shape language in this video to properly show it, You dont need to be a bunch of triangles smashed togheter. A good example of shape language is the wolf from Puss in boots the last wish. He has alot of triangles in his design without being over the top. Mostly, your design should have shapes, but not be made of shapes, if that makes sense
The odd one is out: Ya sure?
Are you trying to be sardonic? Im asking seriously?
@@LS-ti1rz nah, at least I don't think I was
"That's my art style-san"
Shots fired lol
Is this som kind of personal attak or somthing??
@Mather The only way to learn is to acknowledge the call-out and change
Sounds like it is a slap to the face SPECIALLY dedicated to weebs
Lol
@Mather If you are never constructively critisized in your art, how will you see your mistakes?
“Characters rarely stand in a bright white room”
Manga artist: _Yeah, about that..._
why do you think they say "rarely"?
Yeah but mangas aren’t colored oof
that's why sometime they have to give the character an aura when standing in a detailed setting, so the characters won't get consumed by the background
They use value
@@uhgooditskay5429 and why do you think they say RARELY? lmao
"Color tells the story"
Manga: *allow me to introduce myself*
allow me to intoduce you Nosferatu
Land of the lustrous, ah yes
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure:
let's get *Funky*
Yes
Let's turn that language on it's head
The character reveal at 4:10 was a sin to my eyes compared to the original drawing, it felt like I was staring into the sun.
LMAO 😂 "my eyes!!"
IKR?
They made her look like an angry old lady! But I think that was the point by using the shape. Maybe if they used a different shape then she would’ve looked better
they gave her the "plastic surgery gone wrong" look
@@inferno__boi... Fr
"Triangles give off dangerous and edgy feelings"
Phineas: *MMMMMMMMMPH*
Ikr
He was a dorito boy
She said: 'Watcha Doin?'
ua-cam.com/video/aosWoTbEUmw/v-deo.html
@@drawnwithlove3499 a....avril lavigne fan?
There will always be exceptions and this rule is no exception. Best to find the value in the generalizations.
"while red might feel dangerous and sexy"
* Looks at Po from teletubbies *
* Po from teletubbies looks back at you and nods *
*wiggles eyebrows*
He's dangerous tho
@@smileyfacegr6691 po is a girl
@@franciscop.garcia9931 Woops! 😫
Also, why did I say _he_ when I meant _they_ ? I never wandered if the teletubbies had genders or not 😶
11:02 "lazy" I think this was a fantastic video on character design, but it should be noted that ideas, poses and color are different for different cultures! That image of the buddha is not meant to convey the state of someone whose lazy, but rather the buddha during his final days of life, before he entered paranirvana.
and turning back to those buddhist ideas, it affects color, too! Red in our culture can signify danger or strong emotion, but in tibetan buddhism, red is a color of protection and compassion. We view blue as something meaning sadness, while for them blue is a color of wisdom. white = mourning, etc.
Hey lila thanks for clarifying that! We were not thinking of any religious meaning; mainly just the pose of the statue! But thank you for pointing that out we love to learn :)
@@BaMAnimation it's no problem! I know not a lot of people know that, nor did I until I started looking into buddhism.
In general, pure red is a very intense (and sometimes harsh) color, Which would only make sense for it to be used to convey danger or compassion, because both are very strong feelings! It’s used for stop signs or alarms because it’s eye catching, and why hearts are mainly colored red in advertisement. Other examples that red may signify to others are: anger, passion, blood, love, fire. Talking about colors and what they can represent or convey is such an interesting topic of mine!
@@Zhxta that's very true. I was speaking more in terms of color meaning than color function, but you're right, red is a very intense color!
2:48 conflates clarity of pose in silhouette with clarity of character in silhouette. There was nothing wrong with the character's silhouette before and was completely recognizable due to the tail, pointed arm bands, tentacles, and hat. I would wager that in a line up of silhouetted characters, she'd be distinct as is.
the "fix" makes her pose more clear, but doesn't do much to define her character silhouette any more than before (and it makes her look a bit more alien, which slightly chipped away at her appeal). Her pose is also pretty unnatural looking now, as an added "bonus".
And it's been mentioned in the comments plenty, but the "shape language" redesign completely butchered the appeal of the original design; so much so that I wouldn't call them the same character... if anything, it proved that combining shapes together can make a much more appealing character than dogmatically adhereing to a single shape.
Just look at a few of the examples givin leading up to that redesign: Sonic in composed of triangles, and circles, the old man from up is mostly square but has a round nose, Wreck it Raplh is overly square but has rounded edges and a round jaw, Aku has almost no triangles in his head and is comprised of rectangles and circles, Batman has triangle eyes, but is mostly boxy with his jaw and shoulders, spiderman in the example is much more round than angular. The shape language bit completely missed the nuance for a dogmatic rule of shapes when it comes to character design.
This entire video is kind of sloppy like that.
I agree. I want to believe they meant well, but any aspiring artist who takes this advice is probably going to end up in a worse spot for having done so.
Every character given looked good in their own right, and yes polish was needed but there was still appeal. After they showed the "improved version" each character felt derivative.
Cute dog princess becomes a princess Peach clone.
Fun pirate captain girl becomes ugly sea witch.
Smart lawyer and dumb demon become pretentious lawyer and ugly demon.
Seriously, everything just became so darn ugly for the most part.
I think they did make it clearer but her character was skewed and essence became something different.
Wow it’s almost like people see art differently than you, mind blowing I know.
The second design reads waaaay more clearly. The first character is made up of more round shapes, making her looking cuter and more approachable, but then her expression and attire read "bad guy." The second design is very clearly meant to be a dangerous villain and unapproachable. By removing the rounded shapes, there is a much more obvious direction for what the character is supposed to be.
@@Bobathan20 Wow it's almost like there is no bad art even though there are shit tons of them
4:17 I actually like the original art better. It's gorgeous!! These principles are fantastic, but just because you don't follow them exactly doesn't mean your art won't be iconic/recognizable. You do you!
Samme
I agree
Remember that these examples are each literally just ONE WAY to follow these principles. Before getting too confident in your own way of doing things- especially if that way isn't getting you the results you want- remember there are literally countless ways to apply art principles that still count as following them exactly, so rather than give up on a teacher's method because you don't like the first result you see it getting (not saying you, the reader are doing that NOW, but still) ask yourself how you could do it better in applying it to your own design and see what results you get.
Remember, if you have a goal you want to accomplish, and everyone you look up to for accomplishing that goal does certain things, if you want to succeed like them, (while it's not guaranteed to be true or guaranteed to work for you) odds are you'll have to do those things too, whether you like them at first or not. It's very satisfying to be told that you don't need to change, but if you want to change the results you're getting, then you probably do need to change something you're doing.
Ikr they both look so differend. I don't care if the first one is "incorrect", I like it more.
I guess the problem is that we didn't get enough character traits to be able to design the character to fit their personality. If the intention of the original artist was to make the character evil, the redesign succeeded. f the intention of the original artist was to make the character mysterious and kind, then the design failed. It all really depends on your intentions.
"triangles give off dangerous and edgy feelings."
the play button: e d g y n o i s es
bill cipher: my time has come
I feel like every polygon is edgy but thatsjustmeidunnoman
what about phinease? from phinease and ferb.
AAAH DORITO SCARY
My mind when I hear triangles: *Bill Cipher and Peridot*
A great way to make your character look dangerous is to;
A. Make them out of triangles.
B. GIVE THEM A BIG ASS SWORD.
About B, *thinks about Cloud from FF7*
@jonevat 77 when I see him in smash I’m like “oh shit” so it’s accurate
Pyramid head.
Pyramid Head.
All i can think of is Lio fotia
I feel like the redesign of the demon and human lost the whole idea of its comedic value. The original had the demon looked surprised while the human looks to the demon with a smug look as if the human managed to fool the demon. Now have the demon just focused on looking at his scroll while the human focuses on reading out loud from his book and it generates a sense of seriousness, which isn't bad at all. However, it takes away the comedic personality the original was trying to convey and plus the comedic value from the original focuses on the facial expressions, thus a full body wouldn't really be necessary. (Yes, I saw a comment that mentioned about this and I fully agreed.)
However, I felt the idea of exaggerating the body shapes of both the human and demon does help improve the drawing in some aspects. A very nice contrast between the two, nonetheless.
Red: dangerous and sexy
Mr Krabs - *Hey ladies~*
Lol
“WELL THESE CLAWS AINT JUST FOR ATTRACTING MATES!”
@@mittycommitspizzatime92 3 words my friend 3 words
"Plankton and mr krab hardcore coop Cock and Ball Torture (parachute, ball stretcher, kickings, hot)"
Scarlet Witch: Hi
are u feeling it now mr krabs
15:44 imagine people on this zoo like:
oh, he is drawing the animals! thats so cool! what is this looking li- oh my god
Estevão Ucceli it’s call yiff...
Yiffinhell
I really hope there was no children in that zoo...
Limom3 yes there is. Only that the location was switched before it showed the drawing...
@@Eepop_stuffs that subreddit declined so much in quality so now it's just gone down to "haha furman bad".
Visit r/furry instead!
Triangle: Edgness, danger, intensity
Show's Bill Cypher whose literal character design is a corn chip XD
Ikr XD
I think that corn chips feel pretty dangerous when they stab the roof of my mouth when I bite into them
Crevettola even worse when it gets stuck in your gums
#verifyvenuz
Do you mean Razzle Dazzle Dorito?
As an Eastern artist, I find Eastern and Western take different approach when it comes to animation. Eastern character design can be unanimous in body shapes(as you mentioned here), but they shine through exaggerated movement and animation. Western character designs are very shape oriented. So they have so many exciting wacky shapes, but when it comes to actual animation, they are really boring to look at with little exaggeration and depth to their movement. I think it boils down to how easier it is to figure out movements of a character that is unanimous or akin to average human body than super exaggerated stylized characters.
Both do have their outliers tho. Like One Piece's exaggerated designs and Old Disney's magnificent and fluid animation.
I agree.
I think its important to realize that this is a very HEAVILY STYILIZED art style. The points are good but you can bend them and take in the ones that will/can help you with YOUR own style. You don't have to change your style to fit this video or take every point extremely seriously. Also, some tips and tricks may not apply to you and your style. Thats okay. Remember! These are tips, not "you must do these things or else your art is terrible and your characters are terrible...etc etc"
thank you 🤦 too many butthurt ppl missing the point of the vid
@@NoName-ug3yw fr, coming back here and seeing more negative comments is eh, valid but i still enjoy the tips
True. There's was alot of valuable points in the video like their advice in making the character sheet like a roller coaster is great.
I'm having such a hard time designing bc my art style isn't so stylized but more semirealistic 😭
@cloudyangeltv SAME the character i'm drawing is supposed to look like he would blend in irl which means no crazy hair or shapes so this video isn't helping much. .
"Check your backgrounds, characters don't normally stand in a white room"
My characters: *laughs in asylum*
LOL XD
My characters: *drinking coffee in a staff room in hell* "hm?"
Honestly I have a some characters that are just black and white, honestly idk how I’ll make a sillhouette of it
what about Pocoyo..
@ISABELLA ABALOS let's sent u a letter, to come back home to play
Shape language be like: the death star is your friend!
Ah yes the planet destroying sphere is my friend
HAHA XD
everyone, go hug an electrode!
This comment is sponsored by the Imperial propaganda division.
The Death Star ain’t a character tho
I think the design changes completely changed the feel of the characters.
Ok I just figured this out. The creators of this channel work in the television industry, so their “fixes” make sense for television but not entirely for the creator.
Even in television. I mean if the character completely misinterprets what the creator was going for to the audience that just is counterproductive.
While this is good, I feel as if some of the redesigns missed the points of the intent of the original designs and cared more about making it marketable and not making it have actual fleshed out meaning
Well that's kinda what they're going for. They aren't really giving tips on how to make good original characters, they're giving tips on how to make characters that stand out, characters that are easily identifiable from the silhouette, characters that use specific shape language. But not of those are really all that important if you aren't intending for your character to be an icon, if your character looks good, like the first OC pirate chick, it doesn't need to follow any of the rules as strictly as they act as that just completely changes or removes the personality of the character.
Dude that's literally the point of the channel.
Ladies and gents, the point
@@SugarHue "not making it have actual fleshed out meaning
" is the point? Then why would i watch this channel
@@Xecution099 they're not here to tell you how to make your characters, they're here to tell you the rules of icon. They're solid rules to make iconic characters, but if you don't want to market characters then you can break these rules.
The redrawings in this video were kinda aiming for generic.
"...and that doesn't mean just browsing through Pinterest"
this is a callout
Tbh I feel attacked
You know what's funny ? My art teacher used to tell us to go on Pinterest every single time we attended her classes. She never taught us anything.
@@ArpeggioPegasus Just further presses the point that school is kind of pointless when there are those teachers who don't really teach anything in class themselves, instead only relying on textbooks or website for referencing the course curriculum. It all just matters only the discipline of the students who care to go to research beyond what's taught in the class.
Actually, Pinterest can be an amazing source of, not only art, but art advice. I find content just like the stuff in this video, and I find a lot of artists who show off their character design exercises, that have been drawn with a proper character design formula- really inspiring.
But the thing is, you have to scratch the surface of art Pinterest if you really want to find the 'better' stuff. One click on an anime girl in cute clothes and it's all you'll see, unless you search for the other stuff.
Your right? Huh~
Um... I think generally it's okay to use multiple shapes in a design! Just of a pie, majority of the slices (like 60-50%, but can depend on style) should be dedicated to one shape. Like Sora (who was in the video!!!); His design mostly consists of round circular shapes due to his clothing and face, but his famous keyblade consists of squares and his hair!!!!! Is literally full of triangles!!!
If we dumbed it down to percentages instead of strict dedication to one shape, Sora would be around 60% circle, 25% square, and 15% triangle.
It's also worth noting if themes contradict each other. That's okay! Especially if you want to make, like, a traitor character? Have them be all round and friendly and bright colored, but BAM and they're evil
exactly ur the best comment yet
Yep, in Joopies' video (which they recommended) mentioned about using a big iconic shape instead of sticking to just one. The percentage you wrote is how I'd see it.
And for the last part, that contradiction is what makes it interesting yet effective. Their design *purposely* trick you to believe they're friendly and cute, making you automatically lump them into a design stereotype but turns out: They're not what they look like.
Then again, design is subjective and it depends on the story or how you view it.
Double in Megaman X is a good example of that; though his second form is a lot more pointy and wiry.
"red gives you dangerous and sexy"
me: if red is sexy, than why is shrek _green?_
Wyntryx 😦😦😦😦😦😦😦😦😦😦😦😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐 I won’t say anything about your personal fetish
😂
K-arooni Seruce its a joke theres no way..
@@k-arooniseruce3140 people don't actually think shrek is sexy bro. It's a meme. We still love shrek though
Cause he lives
in
a
frickin
Swamp
When you showed the characters in just cubes of colors I felt that
That’s my art style
Aishi Ayano lol
Then you probably haven't heard of...
*Just Shapes & Beats.*
--------------------------
Timestamps
--------------------------
Clarity: 0:28
Bad Character Design: 1:17
Silhouette: 2:27
Shape Language: 3:19
Palette: 5:25
Color=Story: 9:09
Pose: 10:48
Contrast: 12:24
Line Ups: 13:22
--------------------------
Note:
--------------------------
Hope this helps! Please reply if I missed anything! Have a nice day!
Thank you BaM Animations, this really helped! I am drawing(on paper) much better thanks to this video!
What about 15:43
This is very helpful, thank you!
@@mr.purpleboi5921 We don't talk about that one.
@@mr.purpleboi5921 Uh... we... uh... don't like that drawing
@@mr.purpleboi5921 yas
I'm a multimedia arts student and this video is literally EVERYTHING we've been studying for the first few semesters. I genuinely reference some of their philosophies because this is how it's taught to us as well, and I guess BaM makes it easier for me to remember.
Art is genuinely subjective but I think the flak really comes from the idealism of Western animation lol. It's also important to note that these are character designs for animation. The redesigns are "improved" so that 1) it's easier to animate, 2) it's easier to advance the storyline, 3) it's easier to remember how to draw them when referenced.
Shape language doesn't only convey personality but it's technical that we can actually reference to them when in-betweening, storyboarding, all that.
“Or extroverted” *proceeds to show picture of jesus*
Brazil being extroveted actually makes sense
**proceeds to show picture of Jesus T-posing*
@@vixenkarma5670, Why of course he's T-Posing given Jesus's overpowered dominance!
Jesus is as most extroverted as you can get
*Face palms*
They really called out how the original lion king was better lol
This one? - - - > 15:43
@@plaguedoki27 my eyes...
@@plaguedoki27 yo.... why..
It was xD although the live action designs in that part was good it's just the emotion was gone do to the lack of expression.
@@bloodymoon7315 i disagree. there’s no personality in the live action designs. nothing to make them stand out. they all end up looking like the same character.
Red = dangerous and sexy
Red tetris piece: oh yeah
please stop you are scaring me
Fingy Stingy this comment is cursed
Oh no it’s the square cool aids man
Kool aid Man be like
I recently downloaded Tetris during this season of quarantine we're in. lol
15:44 THE WAY MY JAW DROPPED AFTER SUCH A FAMILY FRIENDLY VIDEO
lol, same fr
Lmao wasn't expecting that. It came out of left field
FR
FR!!!
And he was standing in the fricking zoo 😭
15:43 I looked away for a second and actually got startled when this popped up. I think you triggered my "fight or flight" response...
It triggered my flametrower instinct....
Flight
h
y
@@Kalorag Neo Nazi filth.
@@brainsteroids8043 wooow watch the N words there Aaron, not just that I am not, but my nation saved 50k of you during WW2. Its a joke, know yore memes dude.
"Is your character feminine, or masculine?"
Araki: Yes.
BlueberryBoy 11 Araki: Not sure but watch them p o s e
koichi pose
Your next line will be:"iS ThAt A JOjO ReFErEnCe?"
I THOUGHT THE SAME THING HAHA
@Social Life w-we a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-also don't t-t-talk like th-this in r-real life
I want to point out that shape language doesn’t apply to just people. I mean, that’s evident in the clothing in the character design, but it can be used in A LOT of things. You could have a bouncy, round motorcycle, or a really square one that looks stable and safe, or a spiky triangular one that’s fast. If you want, the furniture in someone’s room could be full of shape language.
Even more so, you can find rich shape language in the onomatopoeia found in Japanese manga. Shape can be applied to words too!
Be creative and apply shape language to new things!
The dog princess redesign was a little bit TOO exaggerated, they changed totally the concept of what it was, changing completely the colours and remove the cape it had. Yes the colors were kind of exaggerated but they were completely changed instead of keeping the palette as similar as possible
exactly and the colours were meant to be like that on the original one and the colours don't look bad either
i love how you worry about the dog princess when this monstrosity of the fish lady redesign exists
I agree. The red cape and less round design gave the princess the vibes of a kind girl who was born into a monarchy but has medieval/Victorian gender standards forced on her. The redesign was almost too friendly and feminine with her round shapes and lack of cape.
My guess on her personality eas confirmed when they showed the art of her gardening. She was wearing her nice dress while kneeling in the dirt and shoveling. That told an entire story from that one picture alone. In the new design, the shovel implied a similar story, but her actions spoke louder than her design and i couldn't tell if she was kneeling in dirt because she is so round.
The color values on the redesign were indeed better though imo
You guys need to read the pinned comment
@@NovaTheScreechingDragon lol fr
"Animation can be more powerful than Live Action"
Oh yeahh Disney Must Learn from this guy, so they can stop doing that damned Reboot.
Too bad the rat's brain is rotten and only serves to be the slave of China
15:44 simultaneously the best joke this channel has ever made, and the worst, since I was planning to show this video to my art teacher. Not anymore, lol.
You poor soul. You probably could have stopped at around the 14 minute mark since the point was already sold
OoPs
Our animation teacher showed us this video when we started learning about Character creation, we all laughed when that appeared
@Diego Haro your animation teacher must be really cool then xd
One of the two animation teachers we have looks like he is in his 20's when actually he's almost 40 xD
Fak i was gonna send this to My freakin family
Listen, this is so valuable, like disgustingly valuable. In 100 years these principles will still be essential, like they were 100 years ago too.
P.S. thanks for the shout out my boys
So... Any thoughts you have in mind?
'like *disgustingly valuable* ' I felt that😂😂😂
I should have been taking notes but I was too eager to know what the whole video was about😂😂 I'll need to watch it again properly now
v a l u e
no incorrect.
This video is a very puddle deep approach to semiotics and the video makers own art is complete shite.
Hmmm... I wouldn't bet my last cent on it. The cultral meaning about shapes are subject to change over time. Those tips might be valuable *TODAY*, but in 100 years? People might see in round shapes the impersonation of death and epidemics and a pointy triangle as nothing else than nachos by then...
The problem is, you use an extremely cartoony, almost non-humanoid artstyle. These principles almost only work with very cartoony drawings, and taking most of the details doesn't make it more recognizable and it makes its palette smaller.
I feel like a lot of people forgot about the disclaimer: character design is subjective. If you don’t like their redesigns, that’s totally cool! These are, however the steps to creating a recognizable and iconic character, and if that’s not your goal, that’s all good. You don’t have to do any of this, but they are really helpful suggestions and offer some guidance.
Big pp
yeah i think some might have missed that. The author ( i guess) is talking about being iconic, not every character should be iconic. unless you wanna make the next mickey mouse or something.
@@AbdallahTeach absolutely. not everyone wants to create a kids cartoon character that will be recognizable for the next 50 years. subtlety and realism could work in a visual novel, for example, where you wouldn't think of proportional human bodies looking like monochromatic circles
Yeah ngl this video makes me feel like my characters need to be abstract in order for them to be good
Not really. The redesign at 4:14 doesn't even accomplish any of the things the narration claims it does, let alone make it look better. The silhouette isn't any more distinctive, and the triangle shape motif doesn't come through even if I know to look for it. If they hadn't told me she was supposed to "instantly read as a dangerous femme fatale" I would have no idea what they were going for at all.
“Red might feel dangerous and sexy”
Me: “sees a figure of lighting McQueen”
_I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE_
What about Clifford 😳
Mr Krabs tho 👀
*K A C H O W*
__TOO LATE__
Mr krabs i- 😳😳😳
I feel like this gave some very good advice, but nearly every design they had just didn't feel... right to me. Like, they just felt... really stereotypical to me. And every design I saw strayed far from what the original designs were going for. Other than that, they have some really good advice that works.
I feel the same way and I think that's why these tips don't stick with me as well
I agree! Their tips are really good, but I didn't like their versions of other's character designs, they just didn't appeal to me! I managed to find these tips relevant for me only when they used characters from Disney and other franchises as examples!
I think what’s important to remember is that they are not setting hard rules on art. Art does not really have solutions and so this is more of a suggestion or introduction to the tools that are used by pro-artists.
exactly the octo pirate felt the most off to me because it lost all subtlety
@@Lumberjack_king yeah for me the character lost depth, the original character seemed like a 3-D character who will have arcs and conflicts while the redesign felt like a stereotypical character with a story arc/plot you could guess easily
Coming back to this video a few years after first watching it and wow, I regularly use more of the design advice from this 20 minute video than from an entire semester of animation class. *I'm not joking.*
so, a couple things
to start off, yes, i am aware that this video is over a year old now, and that this comment will likely just get lost in the sea of more liked comments. that's fine, it's not like i'm saying anything revolutionary in this comment, just speaking my mind
now. before i get into the brunt of it, i would say this video is a fairly good video if you're going for the style it proposes. it goes over good and basic theories that at least seem stable. it presents what feels like a good reason that mainstream media characters are so popular
at the beginning of the video it was stated that good and bad character design is subjective, dependent on context, viewer, etc. completely, 100% agree. in most cases, when a character is first made, it seems like good character design to its creator. the creator's view on the design on the character is entirely subject to change, but that's sorta off-topic for what i'm getting at here. my point is, first it was stated as subjective, then for the rest of the video it was treated as objective
"so marth, what's your main problem with the points the creators bring up?"
it's entirely focused on making a character a. basic and b. unique. while in some cases this works well, for example some of the media referred to in the video, in others it doesn't quite work as well. imagine a tv series whose setting is a dystopian future focused around uniformity. i would argue that to better illustrate this bleak timeline, the characters follow this uniformity with their basic design. however, once you get further than skin-deep, you start learning more about these characters and their widely different personalities despite their concretely uniform designs. an excellent example of media in which uniqueness would not work well
basicness is bland. yes, this is vastly more of an opinionated point than the last one, but i would argue that basicness is bland. it discourages adding small details that give a glimpse into a character's head, their past, their personality. perhaps the original design for a character includes a watch given to them by their deceased grandfather or a necklace with an intricate pendant signifying their religion. from what this video says, it would seem like to make the character better, you would have to remove these keepsakes, essentially stripping away an important piece of a character's personality
some of the redesigns in the video seem fairly ignorant to the intended designs i felt from the originals. the fish pirate at the beginning originally gave me a tomboy antihero vibe while her redesign just felt like the antagonist's slut. the sparkledog princess seemingly lost all personality and became furry princess peach. the character that the video creators shat on at the beginning went from (inspect it yourself, you'll see what i mean) divine ruler of casinos to some basic cardfighting magician man
one last issue i had with the video (which, mind, is extremely nitpicky) is that with many of the redesigns, important aspects of the characters where mirrored. before i receive comments telling me that all of the mirroring is intentional and part of the redesigns, i point toward the sparkledog princess. the redesign and the finished piece are inconsistent
after i finished the video, i decided to scroll through the comments to see if people had caught the things i had caught, and a comment by Clean Water clenched my heart and nearly squeezed a tear from my eye:
"me who found a style and feeling confident in art, actually likes a lot of the drawings now I make
after video: oh.."
this video, i fear, will tell passionate artists that their work is shit, and to make it good they need to stick with what's mainstream.
tl;dr, while this video can be useful, please don't let your passion die because you differ from the norm. keep making what makes you happy.
thank you for this comment! i really have just started drawing and i find it fun, and i tried to not watch tutorials online to avoid swaying my own experience and making it harder to enjoy. i understand this video was meant to be for ppl who want a career in this, but still they had so many points that really took all the fun out of the character designing i do.
🧀 here cheese because ur cool
🥖 have this bread with the cheese you got from tiger kat
hihi hello
🍅have some tomato for the bread and cheese so that you can make a sandwich
“Characters rarely stand in a bright white room”
UA-cam animators: I’m about to end this men whole career
Lmao
Bruh,love ure two faced life
Yup i do that all the time :')
*I d o t h a t*
AS AN ANIMATOR THIS HAD ME CRYYYYING ✋🏻😂
man... i loved everything they said but when they were recreating their fan s work, yeaah.... i connected more to the fan drawings than the reworks
"I fixed your art work!11!"
-Them, probably
@@doopyman the redesign was literally just a princess peach copy. you can even see them "referencing" her in the new design. aside from the color scheme, which i agree should be a bit tweaked, the original design is far better imho
"art is subjective" and them contrasting it on the context of "it's my style -san"
@@lamptabled they just put her in a a cute Mario artsyle, by your logic daisy and Luna aren’t seperate characters compared to peach
@@pearlchinasa1770 daisy's orign is literally just a recoloured peach lmao
15:43 this geniunly made me gasp, I did'nt expect him draw that 🤣
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
IKR LIKE WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?
SAME LIKE WTF
@Daboypurplhart “Gotcha!”
@Daboypurplhart Why are you so mad about it? "Oh no a penis, scary..."
The redesign of the fish lady... egh. Did you guys just forget the human form is made up of multiple shapes, or...? Like what else are you supposed to do with a torso in that pose than two rectangles - not even that, rhombuses, basically the halfway between rectangles and triangles. Everything about the redesign's proportions look uncomfortable to exist in, and your read of the character was incredibly different than the shape language already being used. Perhaps the circles in the body represented a soft nature, and the triangles in the clothing represented a more bold attitude, eh?
Also silhouettes aren't quite as important as this makes them out to be. A good design should be readable in silhouette when they're posed for it, but not every pose has to look like your character is posing for a camera, arms outstretched to the sides. Especially in more realistic works you're gonna have to let them overlap to do basic things like hold a cup of coffee or sit cross-legged, and doing that doesn't negate the readability of the design whatsoever. We have lines and color for a reason, with good use of them you won't need to have an interesting silhouette 100% of the time.
They also oversell the importance of palettes by being dishonest in the presentation of them. They present the palettes of casts, not individual characters, arranged in the order they appear vertically, even repeating them sometimes like with Bert and Ernie. That's not a palette, you've basically just stretched the characters really wide and then cut out a slice of each. If you showed me the yellow and red of Winnie the Pooh without the extra yellow underneath to make the red look like a shirt, that would tell me nothing.
I sorta feel like they ruined the cartoony style of that drawing and made it worse in my opinion. The facial expression just doesn’t look right and pose is a tad off.
I think theyre trying to focus on a certain shape, and exaggerate it. But I do agree with your points too.
Well he comes out and says that despite all his experience and knowledge... he doesn't have a perfect magic recipe for success: only guidelines to help make things more likely to work out. Don't like the style? That's always gonna happen. The real point was to achieve certain goals with the character so that it could be animated. The previous character was, frankly, too complex. I think you ARE right though and that character wasn't done being worked on.
@@trustmeits610pm2 yea your right everyone has a different perception of art.
Bruh, thank you for calling that "redesign" out. The original one was pretty decent, but whatevah-the-fuck they made was... an abomination.
I disagree with 2:13, a characters personality or role doesn't need to be on their sleeve. Just look at fosthers home for imaginary friends. You got humble looking blue, but he has a massive personality. You also got edward, who looks like a mean evil being, but is really a crybaby. Character and looks don't need to be directly connected.
I agree with you, except I think what the guys who did the video actually did wrong was leave out a piece of information that should have been in the sentence.
I think they should have said "Everything about that character [THAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SEE IN THEM] should be understood visually, in one second or less."
That would cover all the subversion, too, and a lot of other things that got kinda left out but I'm sure they knew.
I would presume that the personality gives the character a desire to dress in a certain manner, his own "perfect" outfit in his mind that is supposed to represent what he wants to be. Now this can be compromised however depending on how unlucky the character's environment cat get, on how much he is prevented from getting that "perfect" outfit and what he's forced to wear instead. You can even go as far as giving him the outfit he desires, but he just happens not to fit in very well, or even look awkward in it, but he probably wouldn't care.
I agree ^^
Its appealing to do it both ways. In the classic Disney movies, you can tell almost right away what side a character is on and what their personality is. In Disney's Pixar films, the bad guy is often presented as someone the main character trusts, so its an intresting surprise when the character gets exposed.
I feel like this kind of contrast makes a character even more interesting!
Why would your animated character be a realistic human who lives on a regular house, when he can be a yellow sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
That is what my teacher once said to me.
I loved this comment so much I read it at least three times.
simpsons?
@@Timsturbs *Yellow humans xD
That's a great point, you should make sure to repeat it to as many growing artists as you can!
Möhinder Pictures he lives on a pineapple? Interesting
I thought he lived inside a pineapple
"This fan-submitted artwork is good but has a few problems that makes it look bad, so we will fix a few of those!"
*proceeds to change their entire personality, artstyle and shape*
Dam
I honestly think that's good.
I'm an artist myself and I would rather have a "Good job but this is horrible let's fix it together" than a "yeah it's cool." then nothing more.
We need criticism to improve don't we.
Edit: Coming back to this I realized how much this character was changed. The original design surely gave it a pleasing look, the new one does seem way too different. A way too strong change to the original charm the character gave.
@@oldchannelawhellnah yeah, but that doesn't mean one must mutilate your characters to appease some assholes online. The original fish girl was fine, they had no right to turn it into a cubist monstocity.,
@@themadoneplays7842 I mean yeah but if I'm not wrong that was just an example of how simple shapes can completely change a character, I'm not sure if they were actually suggesting these changes for the original design
@@oldchannelawhellnahThat's not a fix. It's a do-over. That's like if you went to the doctor with a broken arm and his solution was to amputate the arm and attach a prosthetic.
To people who prefer the original drawings: a lot of what these guys are saying comes from an animation point of view where the character needs to be redrawn and recognized in a variety of circumstances, rather than just a piece of art. Most of what they are saying stands true for both circumstances, but that might be why you don’t lie the redraw.
I completely rolled over the animation part of their intro and outro
I was wondering why everything was feeling kinda off! I was just about to comment that i don’t like the redesign but still consider their advice good, now i know why i was feeling like that, i don’t like their style because it’s made to be repeated and plain, i was wondering why it was getting a bit more boring in the redesign, they are professional animators, not particularly illustrators, so i really appreciate their Advice and examples as animation advice now, instead of plain drawing or pure design
I'd say this was true for me for only the first one. The redraw is great and gives off a much more recognizable vibe, but I also really like the original for it's complexity and keeping the round features. Imo, so long as you use no more than 2 different shapes in the design and balance them, the character design can still look good. Like how in the first one, the body had rounder features and the clothes were pointier. Even then, there were still some curves in the clothing and sharp edges in the body, making for a seamless combination of the shape language. If both shapes were in stark contrast, they'd clash and start to not make sense.
I mean I think the remade drawings improved some of the aspects but they were too different, so that they’re kinda missing the original vibes people were trying to give
Also important to mention that they aren't saying draw exactly like them but to take notes from aspects of their art and apply it to your style. Use consistent shapes, make sure your colours compliment one another instead of competing to be more dominant and exaggerated proportions and facial expressions can add to comedic effect.
Yeah they improve certain aspects of their design, but they also threw the characters into a completely different art style.
"Make Friends"
Ouch... I don't think I can do that...
yes
you
can
@@MoffinMouse Well thank you
Keep at it man
You know, something about this video always bothered me, but I couldn’t figure out what. Now I know: you’ve left out the most important part of character design: the purpose. This video really only focuses on the appearance or style of a character design without considering who the character is or what their purpose is. At the beginning you list important things for a character design: silhouette, palette, and exaggeration. And yet you don’t even talk about intention or personality or character. In the redesigns, it seems your only concern is on the technical and the theory, and you just throw out the character, purpose, and soul. For god’s sake, a femme fatale is meant to be dangerously sexy, not just dangerous! It’s like no consideration was put into the actual communication of concepts and ideas and everything was just theory. You took the character out of the character designs!
Well said
Yes! Thank you!
thank you! this is true!
I completely agree with you, but I don’t think the video is bad by any means. Any person who learns from this video and ends up being a good artist because of it will also know about what your comment pointed out. Art is a skill that in part develops with the person that makes it. To oversimplify things, imagine it like a video game where you can level a character’s stats. In order to learn how to use a knife in the kitchen to properly cut ingredients, you need to level up things like hand-eye coordination, patience, observation. Obviously this sort of thing isn’t something you can numerically measure I’m just giving a crude example because it’s the same for art. And art is unique because there isn’t a specific stat level up requirement, multiple different kinds of combinations of stats will help you make art, the difference being is that the kind of art you make will be different. That’s how styles are born, and they even touch on this in the video itself. Grave of the Fireflies’s story would be a horrible fit in South Park’s art style if your goal is to deeply emotionally resonate with the audience, because otherwise you just insulted the tragic history of another nation which, to be fair, South Park is notorious for being very crude and offensive so no new lines have been broken here haha. They definitely could have presented the re-designs in a different light though, since the title and wording within the video passively implies that the re-designs are objectively better based on a guideline forged from observations of other good character designs. Your takeaway from the video shouldn’t be the improved designs, it should be “there isn’t a rule for what makes a design good or bad, it depends on the story you want to tell and the style you want to tell it in, here are some common similarities between good character designs, make of it what you will”.
This. Absolutely this.
This video bugged me a lot when i first saw it, and this comment made me realize why. The designs seem to loose all personality/change it completely.
For example in the dog princess one, the character went from being a seemingly impressionable and positive princess, to being another generic cheery princess.
“Green is gonna give you a feeling of safety”
*shows kermit and shrek on screen*
LOL
Well who's even scared of those two?
Shrek is daddy 😫
**Sad Piccolo noises**
I've seen a lot of people saying in the comments "I didn't like this redesign" when actually the purpose of the video is not to make likeable characters or prettty ones, its purpose is to teach how to express a certain personality or feeling in a character so it's easy to understand at a first glance to the viewer, it's almost obvious you aren't going to like some of the designs, especially the "villain" ones
ANormalUser thank you for commenting this
Agree. The purpose of this channel is to learn and discuss together.
Thank god someone else gets it
okay but that's not why people are mad, they're mad that in the video they're saying this is a bad character design but instead of fixing the design (which btw is a different art style) they change the design of the character completely from what looks to be a mysterious heroine to a complete Cruella Deville type of villain.
Also that whole color theory nonsense and the fact that they basically say if it's not the way they like it or the art style they use it's "bad design" when art style is a huge factor and different designs resonate with different people,
for instance a lot of people in the comment section liked the pirate girls original design so saying it's bad when it's objectively not insults everyone who likes that design.
The fact that we have to have people actually say this is somewhat sad.
4:17 hmmm I personally like the original more.
Yeah It doesn't click at all, I feel circles would have been better
I think they were just trying to make a point but didnt come out to great
it's the hair and face, I think. the remake loses the sort of young, stubbornly headstrong yet kind at heart vibe I'm getting. definitely because of the lack of circles, a blend of triangles and circles would have been much better imo. it's a good design and a good demonstration, but it's not the same character as the original.
It maybe style of art too, look at Avatar: The Last Airbender
I Burst out laughing every time I see the new design, it's just so different from the org it caught me off guard.
“We associate yellow with joy and happiness”
Hm yes DIO is very happy and joyful
I mean, he laughs often
@@hypnoskales7069 true
Colour theory seems to take less priority compared to character designs
Spongebob
i mean he did look like he took joy in making johnathan and jotaro's lives hell
This video has been so important to me, despite not wanting to be a professional in art and just treating it as a hobby, I always rewatch this whenever I make a design and it's been such a helpful guide to make my work look a lot better!
channel: *talks about layers, flipping the canvas etc.*
Me: *laughs in sketchbook*
I scrolled all the way down through the comments just to find someone who said this! I personally use tracing paper to amend this issue (not a 100% fix, but it can make things a lot more balanced when it's supposed to be), but I do all my art by hand rather than digitally, so I don't have the fancy techniques like photoshop, so when it gets down to the illustration portion of a design, I only have 1 chance to get the color down right, because there's no take backs afterwards 😅
Its always useful to use a mirror for this!
Put your sketch in front of a Mirror to check de proportions
@ ALL 3 OF YOU, LOL XD
I hold the paper up to a light and turn it around to see it flipped and it helps me catch lots of mistakes. You can also take a picture with your phone and flip that. And the mirror works, too, like Catalina said! I really like to scan works in progress also because then I CAN digitally reverse it, and it also allows me kind of save a backup of the lineart and stuff. If I REALLY botch the coloring phase, then I can throw that away, then trace my finished lines by loading the scanned lineart, putting a clean piece of paper up to my computer screen and then tracing over them to get them all back. Sure, I have to do the inking again, but at least I don't have to start all over if I ruin the coloring.
To an extent, you can do an extra layer even with traditional drawing if you have a computer or something else to use as a light table.
Congratulations! You got a various tips and tricks from artists up here! Cool tips you guys! 👌👌
Me: Laughs in MS Paint.
Honestly, I feel the character design at 2:50 is pretty solid, although I understand the criticism towards it. I just don’t like the ‘improved’ version that much....
It looks a lot like sly cooper art to me
Help the improved neck 😭🙏
There were some really good tips in here, with a lot of good information, but I felt like many of the redesigns ended up with things lost in translation, or completely changed the intent of the original drawings.
I liked the original design better for the pirate, after they defined the silhouette more, but I think they lost a lot of the personality of the character when they completely redefined her. She went from looking like a fun, some what lovable villain who probably has a lot of flair and charismatic ego (sort of a Don Carnage ala Duck Tales remake) to a rather generic, sexy female pirate villain who probably only barks cold orders to her crew and leaves you wishing there was more to her character. They also got rid of a lot of the simple, yet interesting details that made her fun to look at. The new design has an interesting face, but the rest of her details leave it looking bland and forgettable.
The Dog design is adorable though. But I wouldn't have given her a crown and elements that look quite so much like Princess Peach. The shape is good, but she looks like she goes to the same dress maker. XD
The demon one is more striking in it's technical appearance, but I think the joke kind of got lost.... The big demon doesn't look stupid, he looks like a smart guy trapped in the body of a weight lifter. The expression of being perplexed is gone. The man also now no longer looks smug and like he's enjoying the demon's bafflement, but only looks like he's dictating from the book. Instead of a man stumping a demon, they are now a duo of a demon and human team pouring over demonic legislature. xp
I guess they did this as examples, like, when you want to make the character look like somehing an people thinks another thing from them. Also, in the draw of the devil and the guy you can see that at least it keeps some of the original one: the devil trying to understand what he's reading and the guy looking more smart than the devil
I don't think a lot of things in his video were very helpful like shape language should not be something that you have to use with every character maybe with some characters but not with all characters like what the pirate girl you're completely correct they basically took her design found it down the old it and then Stripped Away anything that made her unique it just made a carbon copy of pirate characters, idk i feel like they purposely did things just to match with their opinions of what we should be using in art are like with shapes triangles always being associated with evil villains and cuz they have sharp edges and squares always being associated with Bruce and dumb down buff characters and circles always being happy and go lucky well just take a look at Cartman from South Park Cartman is a bad character who's basically just a circle with legs and is a horrible person but yet he's a circle with legs and there might be characters out there that have more pointed edges and sharp edges like a triangle but could be very soft people and there could be characters out there that are modeled after squares that are actually very intelligent
I guess the purpose is to teach you some very useful visual design tools. Here, they only exagerrated more common features to illustrate common archetype-fitting, but you can play around with it by emphasizing any feature that is important for defining the character. There is more to it than just the tools they mentioned: for example, there is also an additional S "shape", sort of resembling a snake, that one of the character enhancements they had in the lineup used. Yet, the principles they convey in teaching you this give you more control to enhance your character and understanding the impact simplicity/complexity will have on your end viewer.
Essentially, exagerration/simplification is a good way to communicate one or two main idea about the character, then play around with it in the story by augmenting that characteristic (character shape matches function, for clear reading) or contradicting it (making a "book doesn't match it's cover" argument, sort of like with Hunback of Notre Dame). The second one is clearly riskier, because if you don't make it an essential element of your story, you risk bringing in too much detail and obfuscating the main points of your story. It should only be done for dynamic, complex, or thematic characters. Otherwise, simplicity reigns supreme.
On the other hand, if some feature is a key point to your story, then it can be a really fun thing to play around with or embed subtle messages inside. Like with the pirate: her triangles indicated her as a villain, but the circles/curves indicated that she also has a softer side too. Balancing the two gave a more nuanced impression, that could be tackled in whatever story she appeared in: maybe deadly or villaneous one moment, forgiving or merciful the next. Or maybe the message is reversed: she is often kind, but contains hidden edges inside, a quiet, sharp power, that reveals itself in serious moments.
I do, however, agree that a lot of their modifications changed the message or spirit of the characters, but they did that for a purpose: they were "simplifying" the shape/color principles they knew by only showing us a few simplified key elements, in order to make them more easily understandable to us.
And, funnily enough, this "simplicity" idea was exactly the message they were trying to pass down to us. It's cool when form matches function, and this is a concept that crops up in virtually any form of communication.
Though ofc, you can see the downsides here. There's a reduced ability to pass on complicated messages. And yet, the message is likely to be recieved and remembered better for its simplicity. It's all a tradeoff. A cartoon tends towards greater simplicity of characterization; large books like Robin Hobb's tend to express complexity focused around a few central ideas. Which one you prefer depends on your point, and your medium. Since visual design forms only one argument for your characterization, there are a lot of tricks you can pull in combo with your storyline/backstory in order to develop a good, solid character.
tldr: Simplicity has it's role, but has tradeoffs with portraying naunce. The video only shows basic principles in order to give you more tools in expressing your characters/story via visual design. Your actual story is what defines the actual purpose of that visual design.
Makes me think of that scene in Dead Poets Society where they rip out the first chapter of the textbook. Nothing wrong with following the strict rubric the author proposed to add style, but upholding it as the only valid option robs an artist of unique creative potential and individual expression.
I find the face in the octogal's redraw really creepy. Just. Giant puffy lips? yech.
This is one of my favorites methods
1. Try to think of an object or thing
2. Make it to a humanoid with some of the "thing" features
3. Add backstory and personality to them
4. Done and done
HEY, THATS WHAT I DO TOO!
4:15 Most of this video I agree on, it's really helpful. But for the "improved" drawing, it just kind of feels like they got rid of a lot of character in the original artwork. Sure, trying to stick to one shape to make it look better is fine, but they just.... took so much of the good stuff out.
Yessss
Nah the improved is way better
@@hollysoup445 to you, maybe it is
They didn't even leave the fuckin shading in.
Not only that, but look at how fucked the anatomy is on the rework, it goes from "yeah, this is a little weird but I've seen enough rule34 for it to make sense" to "Yeah, her leg is broken" and "You totally forgot about the bottom half and drew it later, didn't you?". That's not taking into account how they made a phantom of the opera mask into face paint and bracers into glvoes.
They did give quite a few good tips, just not everyone will go with an exaggerated, cartoony style. I prefer going with a more anatomically-fitting type of style.
same.
as the video says. you dont have to have a cartoony artstyle for it to be recognizable
I go with aaauh anime style c:
Same, I always want to make it more realistic
Though they did mention even if in those realistic style. They have those principles in mind.
Aah, THAT’S why anime characters always have weird hair! It’s to compensate for the bland body shapes!
And why superheros have colourful and over the top outfits.
Rhaynebow Not just hair, but other design elements (facial, costume, and props most notably) are ways you can plus up a ‘meh’ human-proportioned design into a stellar one. One Piece’s Luffy & Hunter X Hunter’s Gon are good examples of that philosophy. (Luffy has a lean muscular build with messy short black hair & wears a long sleeved red cardigan, yellow sash, oversized blue trousers with cuffs & a round brim straw hat. Gon has long, spiky black green tipped hair and his usual outfit is composed of a oversized green jacket with red trim, white tank top, oversized green short shorts, and green laced boots.) The point being is you can apply the principles of good, readable character design to whatever it is you’re cooking up, and the principles of caricature & shape value can still be applied to designs with “conventional” human proportions. Keep the basics to heart, you know?
#NotAllAnime
Also with some genres of anime they go into chibi form where they literally have the same body, or even just an oval of their face pops into the screen to scream at something that's just been said, so the hair needs to be iconic to serve that purpose so when its only their floaty head in a speech bubble you still know it's them
I also noticed that detail some time ago. Unfortunately, since then I can't look at anime/manga-styled artwork without feeling of same-face-syndrome shoving into my brain.
I heard that in the past it was done intentionally so studios could reuse same shots, frames and designs for different animes (because of low budget) and over time it just became heavily fused with the genre itself. Not sure, if that true, it's just a random story.
I genuinely love how well they snuck in that one drawing around 15 mins in, to the point literally no one so far in comments have even considered that being something to laugh about 😂, all seriousness, as a upcoming artist and animator, these are very helpful tips, I had a similar idea but this really helped me open my mind to variety of how to start off and points I never thought of, so awesome, to anyone also viewing this, goodluck, we both have alot of stress to go through ;---; thanks for helping, thanks for readIng 🤣
i was just about to talk bout that to lol
I was looking for a comment talking about that furry art
yeah, i was thinking AINT NO WAY THEY JUST DREW LION NSFW
Nah it’s the most replayed part lol. Ppl just have a lot of criticism about the points made in the video that they’d rather talk about that over whatever the hell my eyes bore witness to
"Red might feel dangerous and sexy"
*Red Lego brick* : *plastic noises*
10/10 anal beads
Plastic noises LMAO
Something tells me there are a lot of these
Moists plastic
especially dangerous. especially
Yo that Turkish guy who made that cast of characters has some really cool looks! Especially the edited version looks like a show I’d love to watch.
I liked the original design best, it reminds me of old youtube animations, it feels very "corect"
Yes
This pose gives out extroverted feelings:
*Immediate T-pose*
Something i discovered is how the GTA games managed to make the main characters recognisable with only using clothing. Like you can recognize cj by his white tank top and blue jeans, tommy with his tropical jacket and jeans, claude with his black jacket and green pants, niko and his tracksuit, ect.
“i’m never going to flip the canvas while i draw so everything will be awkwardly leaning to one side” i feel personally attacked
I mean, I never do it either and that's not something I ever seem to have an issue with. Usually, your characters are intentionally leaning to a side anyway.
Lmao and i *just* found out you can do that
I draw on paper, do I have to make a copy on the back or?
@@Rodrigo-br8qe i usually try to draw the frame of their body an of how i want them positioned and then follow that frame as closely as possible when fleshing them out
@@Rodrigo-br8qe For people that care to do it, they usually check with mirrors.
To people who didn't like the video/redesigns: I just want to remind that the name of the channel is BAM *animations*.
This video, just like everything else on this channel, should be understood in context of western animation art tradition.
If your goal is not animation, it's only natural that some of advices might be not usable!
I don't think the redesigns are bad designs, but I do think that some of them don't really match the visual characterization of the originals.
I study animation, and to be quite honest I feel that the redesigns are mostly atrocious.
The redesigns are amazing, I don't know what you people are so butthurt about! They're unique, original, dynamic, VERY expressive and convey a whole STORY and PERSONALITY of the characters. Plus, they're all in a TV animated shows style, since both of the guys work on the TV shows, so keep that in mind. They really reminded me of an old school cartoon network style that I really miss nowadays - exaggerated, saturated and almost grotesque features. I honestly loved them so much that I laughed out loud a few times just by looking at the design, and that tells a lot!
You may not like the style of the redesigns, since that's up to your likings but you can't deny that they're very STRONG designs. And that is true that they work best in animation, although in my opinion all of the submitted original designs were weak, regardless of whether they were destined to be in the animation or just an illustration.
(I'm a 3rd year animation student)
@@barbara9631 I'm also a 3rd year animation student and I'm not going to make anyone feel bad for liking the redesigns. I just don't like them and feel they're very generic and boring and don't really have a sense of charm to them. I also still stand by a different comment I've made where instead of titling this "good vs bad character design" they should have instead title it "design theories and how they change your character" which would then eliminate any reason why anyone would get angry at the redesigns since it's not about how it's better than the original, but instead how colour/shape theory can change it and possibly better give the character the feeling you want it to represent.
@@hysterical5408 yes I couldn't agree more with you you've said
15:43 now that's the high art i'm studying to achieve
ua-cam.com/video/OEWnG5d3Ua0/v-deo.html
Wtf...
you like stories by AD? ua-cam.com/video/9dc11Yu3M_Y/v-deo.html
dayum, did ur art teacher/professor accidentally play this?
btw, at 15:41 tilt ur head to the left of ur screen, u will see the "thing"
I remember I designed a character for my DnD campaign and I showed the character to all my friends and all of them loved the design and character itself. it was my first attempt at designing a character in a long time so it was a very nice feeling!
You know what's terrifying, is when someone has an over-detailed character like the example for a bad character design, and they can animate it super well anyway-
Like bruh, who has the time foR THIS
Why did that just remind me of a lot of Vivsiepop's animations-
Clever Cat she has a team but it would probably still suck
SpookySpider what would suck? The animation?
@@hoolcheel2572 Not the animation. The animation process.
Sir Pentious actually looks painful to animate.
Making characters easy to read can make character development and surprise villains difficult to make. It makes characters a little less interesting because then there isn't as much to learn about them that would surprise or exite the viewer.
keebo my beloved
Keebo!! :0
I genuinely wish i knew thiz 3 years ago, cause man that really hindered my skills :(
Man, you know you did something if a legit robot critiqued your tips.
anime fans on their way to justify being terrible at everything
4:14 Looks like an example of a character you'd like (on the left) vs the fan-art of said character you always find (on the right).
Thr right one haunts me XD
I came back to this a while after I first saw it, and I still don't like the redesigns (of the squid captain and the dog princess especially). The advice is well meaning and shouldn't be disregarded just because they made some mistakes, but I'm not going to pretend I don't see a bad character redesign.
Lesson to be learned:
Everyone makes mistakes, even professionals. Make sure to learn from your mistakes.
2:50 they actually down graded the character design for this one at least in my opinion. The character looked like a warrior Disney princess which was awesome then making it overly triangle made the character look generically evil and plus it just looks weird
Agree, and it's kinda off and not resemble the original design ESPECIALLY the face
They said in the video "I will try making this character with only as many triangular shapes as possible". They redesigned it once in the sillhouette and it was fine. The second time they redesigned was just to explain exaggeration with shape language.
they also made no attempt at matching the style which made it look off
I feel like that wasn’t the point of the re-design. The first time they just showed how to make a more clear silhouette, and in the second they used it as an example of how to improve shape lenguage. The person who submitted the drawing will take that knowledge and change the shapes to what fits to they’re character. If they are suppose to be a villain they might take the triangle route, or if it’s a warrior more squares, and so on and so forth. The redesigns that they do in the video serve more as an example on how to apply the techniques, so that people watching can take that and use it to what fits best to they’re specific character and they’re style.
She looked like a hero of the story and then ALL OF A SUDDEN she's bad
To be honest, I feel like you misrepresented the character's personality at 4:14 , especially in her face. She's clearly meant to be elegant despite her clothing design. No just dangerous. In fact, you didn't really go into detail about characters who are more subtle and not western in style despite briefly mentioning it. Your own style conflicts quite heavily with that one. You should of looked at fighting games as they do an excellent job with character in a variety of styles. Anyways it's important for people to not dehumanize their character in their attempt to make a good design, not all designs are products, even if your art isn't as consumable there might be different draws. This is still good advice, but don't break your own characters trying to replicate it. Micky Mouse is profitable and recognizable, that doesn't make him interesting.
Yeah I didn't understand it either, they say don't use stereotypes or tropes or it'll give you a boring design, but then they make this character into a stereotypical female pirate.
Honestly the whole vid itself contradicts the whole "art is subjective" thing and more about them lowkey saying their views are right and yours is wrong... When I saw that "redesign" I kind of knew to take a lot of their advice with a whole lot of salt.
@MissyMona Wow, that last bit about Micky Mouse was really well said. Thank you for the good advise.
@@EldarWarlock123 That's the vibe I kinda got. They were pushing really hard with "this is the only correct character design philosophy because it's the one I like"
In my opinion, I don’t think they were *telling* the viewer to do anything. The grain of salt is true, they’re going with severe exaggeration so the concepts are easy to follow. What I got from this video was the demonstration of proven tools and how it helps make designs and concepts look professional and iconic. Even the Daisy Dog didn’t seem to match the eleganza of the original. Their stylization just served as an example. In the case of our pirate, they didn’t read her personality before choosing the dominant shape. They were showing HOW the dominant shape can create a personality. Some characters, however, are genuinely inbetween. The fact that she had both circles and points made her a lot like Sonic(who also has these two conflicting shapes)- a little on the hasty side, but with an approachable touch. ---- EDIT; The advice in the video is by no means perfect, but helps when solidifying what you WANT out of your design. While these two can’t predict what you want and they’re giving marketability advice, it’s up to you to make a distinction on what you’re aiming for, versus how these ideas can be used to enhance it or make it better.
2:11
I wouldn't agree on that. Story is more interesting when there is no clear indicators of good and bad character. In real life, people often look similar, and bad looks like evil while evil looks like good.
Yeh. If you can't instantly tell what someone is like, it will make them more invested and make them want to know more about this character and what they are like. It dosent make them look stereotypical.
Agreed
Agree, take Kyubey from Magica Madoka for example. Kyubey is a white fur cat with a long twintail hair with yellow ring at both of the twintail and owns red eyes. Even his lefimotif was sounds so precious
And Kyubey was the villain of the anime
Agree, take Kyubey from Magica Madoka for example. Kyubey is a white fur cat with a long twintail hair with yellow ring at both of the twintail and owns red eyes. Even his lefimotif was sounds so precious
And Kyubey was the villain of the anime
@@stalloneandrew9961 or Nui Harime from Kill la Kill, who appeared sweet and innocent and turned out to be terrifying
I feel like every damn art shouldn’t look like Cartoon Network
them: go outside to gather reference!
People in quarantine: hm.
*_hm._*
I’d like, but you have 69 likes.
*I hadn't considered that*
TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWOOOOOOO
that line aged *horridly*
"Go Outside"
Covid-19: No, No I don't think you will
@ISABELLA ABALOS I d o n t h a v e a b a c k y a r d. What shall I resort to
@@FinnValentineB ....a.....a balcony....?
@@FinnValentineB your roof
@@pokaay3163 well I think the people who live above me would be mad. But hey, I guess it'd be payback for how loud they always are
@@FinnValentineB WINDOW :D
Although I do have to say you missed a lot of what the original artists were trying to tell about their characters. Like the puppy princess for example originally looked like a kind hearted, soft spoken, emo princess who didn’t take shit from no one. And ur design game a more prissy Polly pocket “I do nice things to be ladylike and ‘righteous’” vibes. Which I think was mostly in the way you drew her hair to be more puffy like the evil sisters from Cinderella.
Finally! I found this comment
Well at least to me in the original artwork she didn't really look like a no nonsense type gal.
I don't see the original puppy princess as that, i saw them the same way except now the character looks less "like a mess", specially with the background where she is lost. But i can agree about the pirate girl
I agree with Gonza over there. The original feels just a bit of a mess too for me, and the redesign feels suitable. I thought at first that they're going for boyish princess too at first, but then I realize that they might just going for a standard pretty princess like the redesign is going for too, and the less puffy dress is more of a mistake than a choice.
I think you're projecting-
out of all the art tip character design videos, I learned the most from this one. thank you for sharing your skills and knowledge to us noobs
"Animation can be more powerful than live action."
Disney: *I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that.*
EDIT: y'all need to calm down in the replies, this was literally just a joke about how Disney's recent movies have all been live action
@Max the point is that the live Disney movies today still suck even with the animations. It's not an animation movie if the movie isn't fully animated.
Yeah but its not supposed to be good, its supposed to make money
@@owlismyfavouritecolorflame2325 I agree. A movie must be good enough to attain successful revenue. If the movie sucked, it will have terrible revenue.
@@tvoovm7254 maybe its sarcasm but its not what i said, what i said is the aladdin remake made 500 million dollars, basically disney has a stupid amount of cashcows and as long as pretentious critics and stupid children who may or may hot be pretentious buy tiquests, we will get more
Also avatar
1k likes but only 5 replies
15:37. That's when I realized, this is mission impossible for me.
So U just wasted 15 min of ur life , man ... that’s lame
You could create something unique, based on not having friends tho.
Good and Bad experiences can be inspirations to create a character or a story.
Same😭
They "improved" some chars straight into corporate art valley. Nice
I can see how the remake loses its original design/meaning, but how is it corporate?
Agree. I liked the original middle east one cause it was bouncy. Now it looks like generic nickelodeon lol. It's nice. But it just lost the artist style
@@ButWhyMe... generic
@@ButWhyMe... Basically...think about it like it technically is, they took surface level art tropes used on, mostly, simplistically designed characters, shoved them into more complex designs, and exaggerated them until it hardly resembled the original design
For instance, the first design became a geometric nightmare and what you'd probably think is a scrapped 90's Disney villain, when that wasn't the point
The second design literally used Princess Peach as a base, and it showed in the final design! He got rid of their cape, changed their art style, and made their dress comically poofy...when the point was supposed to be color separation, and then proceeded to essentially call the old ones "bad designs" (by the title) and their redesigns *better* (also by the title)
I mean, I feel like they put more effort in saying their designs are *objectively* better than the contrary, which feels very..."non-artsy" anyways, yea?
Designing a character doesn't mean morphing and changing the art style of the original character completely, the squid girl actually looked normal before being turned into a person who looked like they just got their 4th round of plastic surgery for the day.
“It’s just my style!” Says every 12 year old amateur artist
Fr they made her look like levi jed murphy
Yeah like I thought the drawing was really good but then they turned her into a bunch of triangles
@@MM-pv5tpwhen did they say that?
@@MM-pv5tp Yeah but that doesnt mean you have to turn every character into a cubist nightmare. It's fine to mix shapes when creating characters.