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Finished Design

I am happy with how Ivy came out, although using lines rather than block colours like last year is hard since it is much easier to spot mistakes, especially with all of the extra detail. Still, it gets my point across and I enjoyed it. I think my one main thing to thing about next time is maybe the feet positioning and pivot point since that is not always something I think about an could help a lot. I also need to practice a lot more on doing 3/4 back views, but considering I almost never draw that angle, I think it cam out decently. I am glad I got the experience to make a turnaround with so much detail though, as it kept me checking my work a lot more and making full use of the rule guides in photoshop.

I probably shouldn't rush the hands so much - it would be good for me to collect reference and make some sheets for different styles of hands so that I am not stuck just flipping and editing front hands slightly. It still came out a lot better than last year's animation though, and I feel like my redesign worked for both practicality but keeping her still recognisable, so I am happy ith it.

Ivy Colour 2

I added more of the reddish purple which is one of the better looking colours on here - the only problem being that she never wears too much of that colour. I know that obviously in outfit changes for characters they can be very different very often, but I need to keep her recognisable.

I do actually like the lighter colours going on at the bottom, although I'm not sure that the lilac goes with the gold, and in the first iteration there is just a bit too much gold. I feel like the darker body is definitely more effective though - the contrast makes it look ten times better, and less parts of the design look over saturated.

More of the red/plum colour looks good, just not necessarily with her usual purples.

I think that these designs definitely look better, and the reddish colour looks great with the gold, especially the second design where there is a lot more white, making the contrast even better. My only concern now is that it still isn't quite Ivy's colours.

I tried slightly different shades for the last few, but heir contrast wasn't as good and I feel like I would need to do a lot more work if I was to go and completely change the gold to silver.

In the end, I went for more of an Ivy purple, but changed the gold to a slightly more orange shade to complement the added blue. Even though I still love the redder version of this, this design works way better for the character herself, and makes her a lot more recognisable.

Ivy Redisign 2

I tried adding a few more crosses but taking uot som of the extra shapes, this time thinking about just her original designs, but none of them worked too well - the third is slightly better but just from the shape I think it still looks a little too bondage-y and if this was a show that teenagers/pre-teens would watch, like the audience of Teen Titans, I am not entirely sure if that is appropriate - Raven from Teen Titans still had a leotard and a lot of skin showing but with the simplicity and the cape hiding her half of the time it looked perfectly fine; for a character with a whip, I'm not sure.

I tried moving parts of the design around until I had something that vaguely worked, although the whip is in the way a bit too much - which probably does mean that a simpler design is better if it also has a moving, detailed weapon to contend with.

I managed to simplify it to the point where I like it though, with a little more armour but still keeping Ivy's signature belts/straps and the jacket from her other design. I feel like, in the second to especially, there is still a little too much going on, but it is very nearly there.

These possibly look too simple, but wither way the mid section just isn't Ivy enough. I definitely liked the armored parts at this point, but I was also stuck on the color distribution as I tried to keep a lot of her usual colours going on. There are enough different sections that I could get some good amounts of contrast going on, but since I want to keep her jacket at least as accurately coloured as possible, this is a little tricky.

Ivy Redesign Part 1

For Ivy's redesign, I need to not only focus on the clothes she would be wearing but also on her body shape - I want it to be appropriate, and the sort of design that could be animated easily enough for a TV series- like the redesigning of characters from comic books to animated series' (i.e Teen Titans, Young Justice).

Game characters tend to have a lot of detail which is something I had to try to cut down; I am a big fan of a lot of smaller bits of detail anyway so my first few drawings had a lot extra. One of the things I wanted to do was add extra armor while keeping the criss-cross detail looking relatively similar, which wasn't the easiest thing to do.

I looked into another of Ivy's popular outfits - one that could have been designed to that it was at least acceptable. It's a shame, because it could have been a relatively nice outfit, an work lightly more for her history again. I was thinking that if I could combine this kind of outfit with more armor, then it would still look like Ivy but be more practical and believable.

I still didn't want to leave her original most iconic outfit behind though, so I tried a lot more armor on that first - again, with too much detail, but I just don't want to change her character too much from the original.

This lead me to some slightly more simplified versions (which were helped by the different design/body types I tried). I decided that the crossing around her waist would work best for keeping the main parts of her design, and the armor I could just combine with her other in game design as above.  If I was designing this for another games rather than an animation, I would be tempted by the first design on the above page - I think it works as a combination of everything I am trying to do without being too different, but that would definitely not be fun to animate, so my design needs to be simpler.

Analysis: It's a Man's (Celluloid) World

It's a Man's (Celluloid) World: On-Screen Representations of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2013 is a report by Martha M. Lauzen, Ph.D. (Public Communication, University of Maryland) of representation and statistics involving women/female characters in popular 2013 films. While I have found it very useful reading for my essay, I do not feel that this piece of text is as effective as it could be.

The report is comprised of mostly statistics - specific statistics, that compare different years so that we are not just getting these numbers out of context - for example, "Females comprised 29% of major characters, down 4 percentage points from 2011, but up 2 percentage points from 2002." While this is all great information, and tells us a lot about the state of the film industry right now, their statistics could do well to have a lot more discussion involved, for example why this may have changed between years, and speculation of how it may change in the future. There are less solid points than would have been expected from a report. On the one hand, the viewer is free to make whatever opinions and thoughts they want to about the statistics, which could be useful for those choosing to stay more objective, but this report has to potential to work extremely well to show exactly how big the problem is, but doesn't.

There is even a diagram of percentages of female to male characters in the report which shows the huge gap between both genders even better than reading through a page full of statistics, but only facts rather than points are made, which makes me feel that this report is lacking a little too much. Obviously it's purpose is to inform rather than persuade, but even just creating that discussion and speculating on what this information actually means, and how it could be used to help the industry would make for a much more informative piece.

The article itself does get it's point across that there is a huge gap between the percentage of genders in certain roles though, and even goes on to show how they are portrayed, like "Male Characters were much more likely to have work-related goals than personal life-related goals (75% vs. 25%). In contrast, the goals of female characters were split more evenly between work-related and personal life-related goals (48% vs. 52%)." It is certainly one of the more in depth reports that I have seen statistic wise, rather than just showing us the percentage of protagonists that are female compared to male; even if almost 50% had been female now, that does not necessarily mean things have improved. If all of those characters were portrayed in the same way, then that would arguably be worse than half of that number of protagonists who all act in diverse ways.

It also tells us the percentage of males to females as leaders in films, with a staggeringly low number of females in and kind of leading role - which again tells us a lot more about the perception of females in the film industry, and the sort of ideas/assumptions that many film goers will end up with. Another downside of the report, however, is that is does not specify whether this is in regards to the top 100 films in 2013 in America as opposed to the whole world, which could potentially yield different results. Since it is not clarified, it could be said that it would mean the world in general, but then a lot of articles written in America are aimed at Americans, and so go under the assumption that their readers would assume that the report is talking about American films only. If it is in fact regarding all films in the world (though a lot of the highest grossing ones would still then be very likely American as they tend to be released in many more places in the world), another interesting point in the topic could be in which countries do the films have more female characters as opposed to males.

All in all, the report was informative and did what it was supposed to do which was give facts. It would benefit from some sort of discussion or conclusion of the facts, but it is a piece worth considering when it comes to the topic of binary gender representation. The last criticism that I have is that though the writer obviously comes from a place concerned about the representation of gender if film (Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film), there are no obvious sourced noted in this report, which means that not all information can be verified, and therefore may not necessarily be valid or correct.

Soul Calibur: Seong Mi-Na

For my redesign, I wanted to consider the character of Seong Mi-Na; though her design is not one of the worst ones in Soul Calibur, Still, her promo art also uses poses that most male heroes would never be seen in, and her outfits aren't exactly the most practical for fighting.

 Her description from the Soul Calibur Wiki is:


"Mi-na had always been surrounded by weapons, many of which she learned to use quite well, even surpassing her father with the wol-do. However, her looks led the local boys to kiss her and call her more than a striking girl, an image supported by her father who wanted her to settle down and marry a suitor, preferably Hwang Seong-gyeong, whom Han-myeong had personally wanted to adopt into the family. Facing increasing incursions from Japanese raiders, a coast guard was quickly formed and led by Yi Soon Shin, her father's childhood friend, with Mi-na desperate to join in the ranks; but she was barred from joining on account of her gender."

I feel like, from her history, this could make Seong Mi-na less inclined to dress femininely, or at least dress so that she would receive less male attention. I want to explore more traditional martial arts wear from South Korea, where she is from, in the late 16th century which is where the game is set. I want to keep her recognisable though and parts of her outfit intact so that I am not ust creating a new character loosely based off of her.

She is also supposed to be 5"4 and 106lbs - which is completely not what her promotional art suggests in the slightest, I don't think that 106lbs is realistic at all, even for her height, not with the muscle she would have from wielding a halberd and fighting. This is something I will have to consider when thinking about her body type.

A few notes about Korean clothing in the Joseon dynasty:

"In the 16th century, garments were generously oversized rather than tailored to individuals, apparently because an abundance of fabric was a way of displaying one's wealth and status."

"t was in the 17th century that clothes became tailored to their wearers. Upper garments shrank, and clothes took on a more practical aspect using only the necessary amount of fabric. Some scholars say this was brought about by the economic squeeze the country suffered during the successive invasions by Japanese forces under Hideyoshi Toyotomi in the 1590s and the Manchu Qing Empire in 1637."

I couldn't find as many pages as I wanted to on Korean warrior wear - a lot were out of context or spanning many centuries, so I thought that I would have a quick look as some of the other Korean characters from Soul Calibur.

The other Korean characters take less influence from traditional Korean wear than expected, which means that I could under a few less limits if I go more for making sure that Seong Mi-Na's redesign fits the game more than having complete historical accuracy.

I think I will focus on thinking about making her outfit more practical and less feminine and exploring more action poses so that she is portrayed more as a hero character and less of a 'token sexy female' character if I choose to redesign her.

Soul Calibur: Ivy

Ivy from Soul Calibur has arguably one of the most controversial character designs out there and is one of the worst offenders when it comes to practical armour.

She is one of the most used characters when it comes to promoting the Soul Calibur series, which has caused problems before; the North American packaging had to cover up Ivy's breasts for the obscenity of it - not that it has stopped any other inappropriate ads about her.

As if that wasn't enough to show how much her character is all about being sexy, in the story she, along with all of the other females, have to be relatively young to be in the game. A lot of the other female characters have been replaced with younger versions, but Ivy stays the exact same, with the excuse of alchemy and black magic - there's no way that could have an older lady being the mascot for the game, now is there? All of the other males in the game have aged as expected, and have not been replaced by younger characters at all.
If her backstory did involve being a dominatrix or a sex worker, then there would be a slight bit more justification for it - although not a whole lot. Her wiki is as follows: 

"The House of Valentine was once one of the most wealthy families in London. Isabella 'Ivy' Valentine had been raised with love by her parents. However, her father, Earl Valentine, was driven insane by his pursuit for what was called the "Key to Eternal Youth." By the time of his death, his efforts to search for immortality had drained his family's fortunes and left one of London's most distinguished families in ruins. As if to pursue her husband into death, the Countess fell ill and passed away soon after Earl Valentine's death. This left Ivy as the sole surviving member of the Valentine family." ...


"To honor her father, Ivy chose to become an alchemist and investigate Soul Edge." ...


"Filled with rage and despair, Ivy vowed to avenge the death of her father by using all of her knowledge to destroy Soul Edge. Ivy realized she needed to create a weapon powerful enough to destroy Soul Edge. Her knowledge led her to successfully create a weapon capable of shifting back and forth from a whip to a sword. This weapon was merely mechanical though, and Ivy believed the only thing which could stand against a living weapon is another living weapon. She attempted to use alchemy and her own blood to give the sword life, but all attempts were unsuccessful.
Finding her alchemic skills useless, she turned to studying ancient sorcery. Every midnight, she would attempt summoning rituals, hoping to call upon a being who would grant her sword life. With every failed attempt, Ivy became more desperate and angry"...

None of this so far gives her any particular reason to dress a certain way, and even surely her upbringing contrasts with her style of dress - a noblewoman would not dress as a dominatrix, and there is nothing here to suggest that she is rebelling against her family which wold be one flaky but almost acceptable excuse. In fact, it's the exact opposite - I would say that she would be more likely to honor her family if anything, and I do not think that that sort of clothing style does in the slightest.

One of her alternate outfits, however, does actually make sense.

Here, you can actually tell more about her history and demeanor than her standard outfits. This is more practical, even if still isn't the most armor she could have, but it makes sense as an outfit for female in every day life. Of course there is a lot less fanservice - not that she doesn't look any less busty - so it is likely to be used less often, but the fact that she even has an outfit like this is slightly more redeeming. The pose still isn't the best, but compared to the few above and her other usual ones, it is an improvement.

I would like to make a more practical version of her usual outfits as they are a lot more iconic and easier to identify, but I will keep the one above in mind as possible inspiration.

Links and Ideas

Links, thoughts and ideas dump for reference;


http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2012/02/21/she-has-no-head-no-its-not-equal/


- many superheroes have been done already (young justice) - may be harder to re-do b/e too much material already to draw from

- games - soul calibur is obvs bad, would be interesting to attempt to change them though


In two sequels of fighting games Soul Calibur and Tekken that take place several years after the original issue, recurring male characters were allowed to age but all female characters were kept the same age or replaced by their daughters.[34]


In their 2005 study, Dill and Thill distinguish three major stereotypical depictions of women in gaming: (1) sexualized, (2) scantily clad, and (3) a vision of beauty.[35] The study revealed that over 80% of women in video games represented one of these depictions. More than one quarter of female characters embodied all of the three stereotypical categories at once. Dill and Thill also note that another prevalent theme with which women were depicted was a combination of aggression and sex, referred to as eroticized aggression.

According to Dietz, women are often depicted in stereotypical roles that typically pertain to sexuality in which the woman focuses upon beauty/physical attractiveness.[36]


IVY [soul/cal] ---->>> long rnge so fair enough however has a solid mission to destroy people b/c soul edge, stealth/infiltration is wholly not needed and social stuff is not a part of her story at all - makes no sense tod ress like this? More practical, protective, but still with the mysterious, evil edge that she has b/sttory.


+ make practical - not necessarily have to teenagerise?


---> rebecca one piece - even just as research


----> morrigan dragon age; it's not like she's even a sexual character?


+borderlands isn't too bad with it tbh


action hero peach etc?


seung mina


"Mi-na had always been surrounded by weapons, many of which she learned to use quite well, even surpassing her father with the wol-do. However, her looks led the local boys to kiss her and call her more than a striking girl, an image supported by her father who wanted her to settle down and marry a suitor, preferably Hwang Seong-gyeong, whom Han-myeong had personally wanted to adopt into the family. Facing increasing incursions from Japanese raiders, a coast guard was quickly formed and led by Yi Soon Shin, her father's childhood friend, with Mi-na desperate to join in the ranks; but she was barred from joining on account of her gender."


----- > makes sense to be more like mulan, to go for less sexualised/feminine clothes?


- look at the characters in context first; do they make sense? Eg if they use their body as a weapon then fair enough.

Rebecca - research some paintings of actual female warriors; Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret, Also Spain's history of women - that is her setting, even if the time isn't really a thing - maybve look up our legit age of pirates?