What makes a character's design good or bad?

>>3029891
a good silhouette

Their design should fit their identity and tell you something about the character's personality/profession

Adding 50 fucking belts doesn't make for good character design though. Unless it's Jinx.

For stylized females:
>Good
>visible tits
>visible buttcheeks
>visible pussy

>Bad
>no visible tits
>no visible buttcheeks
>no visible pussy

If you think I'm being epic and don't believe me, go look at games with huge character rosters and see which characters are the most popular/successful. (Hint: it's the ones with nice tits, ass or pussy)

File: flclrobot.png (222KB, 493x512px) Image search: [Google]

222KB, 493x512px

it needs to look cool

File: rundll32_2017-06-20_00-43-52.png (182KB, 452x464px) Image search: [Google]

182KB, 452x464px

This fucker's a handsome rogue. I could tell because every aspect of his design indicates that he's a handsome mother fucking rogue.

File: 1427352502621.png (1MB, 850x1195px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 850x1195px

>>3029902
Nice try pal, but flat's the only way to go.

Character with one specific memorable feature and the rest falling in line.
Samus's giant shoulders and visor are instantly recognizable anywhere, even in silhouette form
It's how you make shit iconic.

>>3029891
Different things to different people. So heavily subjective it's not even funny.

Generally, a good design is one you like. Other people might agree with you.

A great design is one that casts as wide a cultural net as possible, reflecting the desirable traits of whatever culture you're pandering to wants. That's it.

Don't make characters with too many details or feature creep. Just 1 or 2 minor details with one very easily recognizable feature (e.g. Star Wars with curly Leia hair, Chewbacca fur, giant black vader suit)

>>3029891
If you gave your character a plain hairdo and wardrobe, could they still be immediately recognizable out of a crowd of people with equally plain taste in fashion?

>>3029891
I think good character considers the character's environment, their purpose within the story, the audience for that story, and that character's traits. It's why certain series can't get away things that others can't.
I also think you end up with a bad design when you try and be original and that's it. All the good character designers I know take elements from things they like to create characters. Almost like that great artists steal quote.

You have to consider the art style and direction of the game. A boss from Dark Souls would not look good in a game such as Disney Infinity. (Most) Dark Souls bosses have good designs, but when thrown in a different universe, all of a sudden the Dark Souls boss looks "bad" because no part of it accurately reflects the goal of the art direction. However, when judging a character based solely on itself in a vacuum, one can just look through the lens of basic design principles and ideas and call it "good" or "bad".
But as with all lenses, there is distortion. This distortion can be represented by taste, trends, time-period, art-style, genre, audience, mood, environments, etc. For example anime has a certain set of guidelines in order for it to be considered "anime," but even then those guidelines could be challenged.

Overall, I'd say what makes a good design is whether or not the audience has to do the work or not.
If I have a girl holding a modern weapon with an augmented leg dressed in neon colored civil war attire mercilessly killing a rabbit with a hook for a hand. None of it makes sense. There's too many "unique" ideas and too many genres being tapped into.

A girl dressed in confederate civil war attire holding a musket with a peg leg mercilessly killing a pet dog in front of a family clearly shows the audience who exactly this character is.

Some ideas to follow
Does it fit in this particular universe?
Does it have a balance between form and function?
Does this design make sense within itself (Friendly things including round shapes, etc)?
Does it read from a distance (I could recognize a sword and differentiate it from a baseball bat pretty far away)?
Is the silhouette interesting/too busy?
Is there a balance between detail and general ideas in the design
Does the audience have to do any of the work?

>>3029891
Those chaps get me every time I see them

>>3029891
Basically youre making a tulpa of sorts so it should come alive just like a tulpa until you cant control it anymore

The design doesnt matter outside of its context, Ive created characters who are nothing more than a shadow blob but they started to take on thier own life until I was seeing them everywhere and took my sanity

>>3029948
What iconic characters would even pass that test outside of extremely stylized ones whose very body shape is already iconic like Mickey or Mario? I mean, even if you took a character as iconic as say Cloud or Link, you shaved off their hair and put them in casual clothes, how could anyone tell who they are?

>>3029891
why do japanese just make thingss with armor and clothing design

>>3029897
Jinx is an awful design desu

>>3029907
he didnt say anything about size you dumbass , etna still has visible tits and ass

>>3029907
>torso is literally deformed in order to show tits, ass, AND pussy
Yeah you sure proved me wrong.

>>3030249
Because in anime all bodytypes and faces are usually the same, at least within the bounds of that given story. SO they have to make do with character designs using hair and clothes instead.

>>3029902
What about guys?

>>3029891
this guy looks so retarded, from the crossbow on his arm that he never uses to his pants that show his underwear, like wtf is that if youre gonna show underwear do it on the female characters

>>3030206
It's as easy as not doing sameface anime shit. Physical differences of the face and body don't have to be 'extremely stylized', just visible.

File: OE1sU.jpg (114KB, 829x709px) Image search: [Google]

114KB, 829x709px

>>3029891
you just gotta feel it man

File: mothycyber.jpg (53KB, 707x786px) Image search: [Google]

53KB, 707x786px

I made this guy a long time ago i guess it came out ok

>>3029897
This is the best answer. Designs need context for one. A design that is good for something, might be awful in a totally different context. Second, design should always tell a story. You need to convey personality with your design. Like >>3029905 pointed out. Your audience has to be able to instantly tell a lot about that character's personality just by looking at them. This is also why boring characters result in boring or generic designs. To DESIGN an interesting character, you must first WRITE an interesting character, and the design should then follow suit. Remember, design is problem solving. This is why context and purpose are so important. What good is a solution without a puzzle?

Finally, some tips, silhouette is a great tool. A strong silhouette helps make a character more identifiable. Best example of this is Goku, more accurately his hair. This is an area where Japan tends to be very strong in, as they often push silhouettes to ridiculous extremes, and why absurd characters like Goku, Yugi, Ash, Spike, etc.... are all do memorable. The second element I think is important, and one in which Japan tends to be much weaker in, is Readability. This breaks into two things, one is the use of solid colors to identify key areas (best example of how to do this is in Street Fighter), which make those parts easy to read. While also creating a CONTRAST between detail and simplicity. Too much simplicity leads to a boring design, too much detail leads to there being too much clutter. The key comes in knowing where to place certain more detailed accessories and design elements to draw the eye to, but also help your character stand out. Things like Mickey's buttons, Cloud's Shoulder pad, etc... Subtlety is key. Look at Ryu's design in SF for example, and how much detail that conveyed character what put into him. Things like the torn sleeves, the bushy brows, the red headband, the bright red gloves, etc... Ryu is Ryu, he's not a generic karate man.

>>3032538
So is that an example of a good design or a terrible one?
I think it's horrid, but with weebs who knows.

File: 2806412-sf4_ken_ryu_illust.jpg (135KB, 700x1100px) Image search: [Google]

135KB, 700x1100px

>>3034531
I also wanna add, cause they're often overlooked, gesture and body language are SUPER important. How your character carries themselves, how they express themselves, how they move about, and walk. How they STAND, are all just as important as the design, the clothing articles and color schemes you chose.

You need to give a lot of thought into how you're going to pose your character, and ensure that any unique personality quirks or traits they might have are emphasized by the various elements if the design, and this includes body language, as in our day to day, we're very keen to nonverbal communication, thus, our brains are finely tuned to read subtle cues from body language.

Just looking at these two designs:
>>3032538
>>3029891

and some of their biggest problems are boring poses. Neither pose conveys ANY character at all. In fact, both could essentially be the same character, as there is truly very little to differentiate them.

Now compare these to Ryu and Ken, two characters that are essentially dressed the same, but subtle things such as making Ryu's sleeves torn, giving Ken blonde hair, and the different ways in which the characters pose, go a long way in distinguishing the two. One look at both of them, and you can instantly tell a lot about each separate character. Meanwhile these two, they're both very easy to confuse.

>>3034473
Damn you did a good job on making a pretty solid and cool character though I'm not sure about those wings desu

>>3030701
exactly the same criteria

File: 1360894342m_SPLASH.jpg (36KB, 406x360px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 406x360px

Exposing a dudes upper thigh is a surefire way to make a design bad.

>>3029897
Pretty much. A character's visual design is supposed to communicate stuff, to provide information about the character. The better the design the less you have to convey through narration or dialogue.

>>3029905
sauce??

>>3034774
it's pretty good design if he's supposed to be a space prostitute

>>3034544
yeah coulda made them more mothlike

Blind leading the blind

>>3035604
what did he mean by this