Redesigns in Current Media

Resigning older characters is a popular idea, especially in current franchises. This can be seen in my post about Tomb Raider earlier, but that isn't the only thing that has redone some characters.

One redesign that got a lot of controversy is that of Merida, from Brave.

Her design, changed to be a part of the Disney Princess line up involves giving her a skinnier waist, a slightly older, more feminine face and extra detail and accessories to add in a 'princess' look. Even her pose is more feminine, and it's understandable to want to make characters fit in to a line up, yes, but this is not Merida's character. She is not feminine, she is not a traditional princess, she rebels against that and that it one of the main points of her film; there is no point redesigning a character if you are going to remove a lot of what makes them that character, which is why there was so much outrage at this redesign.

Another recent redesign is Dora the Explorer.

She has been quite obvious aged up, which is fine if it for an older age, but what part of her new design says 'explorer'? Nothing does. She has been made more feminine with a lot more jewellery, and made her look like something out of a Barbie or Bratz series of dolls. This is almost a completely different character, and does not seem to relate to the show at all.

Ben 10 on Cartoon Network also made redesigns of the characters to make it suitable for an older fanbase.

The characters are still recognisable, and their design makes sense - you could realistically see the characters growing up into these new ones, and they don't contrast the characters' personalities or make them seem completely different. This design is effective, to the point, and is pretty accurate for the characters. It also meant that the show could go in slightly darker directions, and evolve.

The Teen Titans redesigns are something that I feel very conflicted about. Teen Titans Go! is a reboot of the original, for a completely new audience. It makes sense that the designs would be new, leaving the darker more teenager ones behind to hit a younger audience that will consume a lot more merchandise, which seems to be Cartoon Network's main aim nowadays. However, I do feel like the designs work. They are accurate and reflect the characters well, while still keeping a very cute, smaller style that makes for some very fun animation. I think that the design of the characters (and even the backgrounds) are good for the audience and are effective designs, so I can't be all that bitter about the remake.

This could be interesting - a redesign with a purpose, rather than just for the sake of correcting sexism in design. For example, the character Starfire in the two images above (tanned, red/pink hair) is extremely sexualised in the comics, and the animation makes a great new version of her wherein that is not the case. All of the personalities of the characters are changed slightly for the comics, but it works for the animation (as does other superhero adaptations like Young Justice), so this could be a way of improving some designs. I would still like to keep personalities as close as possible, but obvious with some characters who may act more on the sexuality, this would not work for a younger audience, and I think that it would be fun to aim redesigns at a similar audience to Teen Titans.

Oversexualised Characters

A few characters that are oversexualised that I could look at fixing;

Ivy (Soul Calibur) - outfit is not practical and uncomfortable, never mind the whole fanservice purpose. It should still be easy to move in and not give her so many uncovered/vulnerable areas.

Taki (Soul Calibur) - there is no way that she could fight like that; not only would her breast be very heavy, but without any support at all they would most likely be painful, and get in the way of her movements, which is very inconvenient for a ninja type character that relies on agility. It is extremely unprotective and bright, which makes her a huge target for enemies - not really something that characters in light or no armour go for.

Power Girl (DC Comics) - although she has been redesigned many times, so I would be less inclined to do this. Powergirl has similar powers to Superman, so she needs much less armour. Her outfit makes no sense, and the boob window is so unnecessary - again, that makes a huge target and the chest is really not the best place for a target. Considering her powers and how she fights, it would make a lot more sense for her arms to be the limbs that are uncovered, but that is not the case.

Snow White - not too sexualised as is but she is supposed to be an 8 year old,  with no romance involved so a redesign of her could be good. There is less that necessarily needs changing, like her age, although it could be interesting to look at other clothes from that time period etc.

I don't have to do a redesign though - I could look at these as 'what not to do', and create a couple of stronger, female characters that have depth and a less sexualised look. I think that I will do a bit more research before deciding on this though - I have a lot of option where character design is concerned.

Other Well Received Female Characters

Other iconic female characters in popular culture are few in number, but that does not mean that there aren't any.



Ellen Ripley, Alien, 1979

Ripley was possibly the first action heroine, and an actual female survivor of a horror film. She isn't the damsel in distress and she isn't rescued; she fights, and she survives. Ripley isn't sexualised at all - she has a practical outfit just like the males in the film, and she isn't portrayed in any sexual way - she is viewed just as most male characters are, which is one of the things that makes her so popular.

The Legend of Korra is an animated series for Cartoon Network that features not only a lead female character, but a lead PoC bisexual female character. This is huge for a children's animated show, and really makes Korra stand out from other characters. Not only that, but she is written very well - she has agency, she does what she wants without worry about what other people thinks she should do. She can be loud and boisterous, but is a female character that, even in 'bossy' moments, would never be referred to as a 'bitch', like many loud and decisive female characters are. She is kind, with high moral standards despite her main role being as a fighter, making her a more rounded character. Her design is age appropriate and again practical - it is in no way sexualised, and shows her heritage. Korra is one of the most thought out lead character in animated TV, female or male, and will no doubt influence a lot of future female characters.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a show that already had in interesting premise before the character Buffy is introduced; there is always a strong, almost superhuman being in the world at any one time to take on the evil all by themselves, and this is always a woman.

Buffy, at first glance, is a very feminine, stereotypical cheerleader. Except this changes when we find out that she burned down her last gym, and she has superhuman strength - she is not any ordinary girl. Usually super feminine characters do not get to be physically strong - strong characters are usually much more buff/butch, and action hero-esque. Buffy does not look like or act like this, with every outfit being what a teenage girl life Buffy could and would pick out for themselves. (This isn't to say that everything about the show and premise is inherently feminist, but that is unrelated to what my practical piece is about).

Lightning is the lead character on Final Fantasy XIII, and I find her to be an interesting character - not least because she takes the role of the strong, stoic character that you rarely see female characters take, let alone lead ones. Through out the series she begins to break down the walls that make her seem more of an 'ice queen', and this development continues throughout the game, although it doesn't change her personality much. She has a very practical outfit, and although she does show a fair bit of skin, on the whole, her outfit does not look sexual, nor is she usually ever posed or shown as a sexual or idealised character, making her design work really well.






When thinking about the redesigns I might want to do for my practical project, I want to keep in mind how/why these designs work so well, and what makes them stand out from other female characters. I need to make sure that I definitely get enough personality into the characters I redesign, and present them in a way that isn't stereotypical, sexualised or out of character.
















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what characters could be redesigned?

Lara Croft

Lara Croft has been redesigned many times since her debut in 1993. As the character has developed, so have her designs, showing us how she has gone from sex symbol to realistic, believable character - who is still just as badass as the original.

I think that if I choose to do redesigns for my practical, I will use this as reference, to see how a lead, iconic character can be changed so much yet remain so recognisable. Not many other franchises have brought their characters through such a transformation - at least, definitely not their female characters. I should look at what other characters are as popular or iconic as Lara and focus on how they could be redesigned.

Some of the original inspiration from Lara Croft was Tank Girl and pop artist Neneh Cherry - at least, once she was decided to be a girl. The original character was male, and somewhat similar to Indiana Jones, but Jeremy Smith, the co-founder of Core Design, the studio in charge of Tomb Raider said that this was too unoriginal. Lead Graphic Artist Toby Gard then changed the character to a female, with which he could then counter female stereotypical characters with, although as the series went on and produced a film franchise, this was not completely avoidable. Gard left the studio after the 'marketing which represented Lara in a way that was nothing like her character'. 

Years later, as Tomb Raider was losing momentum, Tomb Later: Legend (2006) was released. The series was developed by Crystal Dynamics instead, with Gard returning to the franchise for the first time since the original was released. This brought back everything that made Lara popular, and brought much more personality into it rather than the over done caricature that the character had become.

The 2013 reboot looked drastically different because of the technology of gaming engines, but both the game and design were well received, and the new Lara Croft was a believable starting point for the well known character.

The studio were unsure at first because of the few lead female characters in the industry, but he probably isn't regretting their decision now.

Censorship

As animations in the western world are primarily made for children, there are always concerns for what exactly you can and can't show them. Among these are violence and sex/sexuality which are legitimate concerns when it comes influences on the children who may be watching the show.

The anime One Piece was censored quite a lot when editing for American viewership, with some of the changes being quite entertaining in the end.

It makes sense that blood, guns and cigarettes would not be something that people do not want children to see, but that ended up with some scene of One Piece having rubber knives, fighting someone off with sweat instead of blood, and lolly pops at dramatic moments.

Other shows, like Tom & Jerry even end up banned because of the violence in them. Looking back, it does have a lot of violence for a 20 minute childrens's show, but it is still dubious whether it actually affects childrens' views - this is a cat and mouse, which automatically makes it more objective, and less realistic, but it can be argued that children would ignore that since the animals generally act like people.

Censorship can also be used for humor as well- for example, in the Simpsons, this scene used censorship very well for some funny moments.

even if the censorship itself wasn't a part of the funny moment, it would still be needed because it airs early enough for viewers to catch; despite the humor, the Simpsons is still considered to be a family show, and they may get away with a lot more than kids cartoons do, they still need to be careful, as opposed to later shows for an exclusively older audience such as South Park and Family Guy.

People will always have different ideas on the topic on censorship, and it is important to think over every aspect of it. What one person may think children will be influenced by, another may completely disagree, making it more important to consider what exactly is airing.

Despite the amount of violence still in children's show though. there is still a lot of dispute on the topic of sexuality (although Legend of Korra, Adventure Time and Steven Universe slowly seem to be changing that). It is controversial when any characters display some slightly more obvious act of being not-straight, claiming that children do not need to be shown any aspect of sexuality that early, yet many, many shows show children having crushes on and even kissing other characters of a different gender. Another point is that it does make shows harder to air at time in other countries (i.e Russia) that could potentially be a big source of income for the company, there there a lot of conflicted feelings and interests there especially for companies wanting to promote diversity. Legend of Korra ended up airing on the internet instead of on TV for it's final episode showing hints of bisexuality for two of the main female characters, and whether that was because of the controversy or not is unknown, but it is still a topic that needs considering when thinking about what to show children.

Female Characters Done Right (Comics)

Despite the horribly designed fanservicey characters ever popular in comic books, new characters and newer redesigns are helping to give us some much better, complicated and realistic designs within the superhero world.

Original

Redesign

Captain Marvel, a character from a much more military, sensible background wears a modest outfit that actually makes sense for the job, and doesn't distract her while fighting. It is still skintight without being revealing, and is much more reminiscent of your typical male superhero costume (see: Captain America)

Ms Marvel is a new character - in fact, she is the first muslim character to have their own book in Marvel (and most probably in all mainstream comics). Her design even more had to be modest because of her culture, and I feel like this design captures that well. Again it is practical, yet feminine and it also stands out from a lot of superhero costumes.

Original

Redesign 1

Redesign 2

Scarlet Witch has had a redesign that definitely deviates from the original. Her design works especially well for her change of role from an outright superhero/occasional villain to a more of a mother/mentor figure in Young Avengers. She also has a slightly more casual version (second redesign) in the Avengers comic where her primary role is a hero. This has much more personality in it than her old one and even being a dress, it is much less sexualised than a lot of other superheroes in the past would have been.

Redesign

The original Batgirl designs were never quite as bad as a lot of other female characters in comics, apart from being a very shiny black catsuit. The recent redesign is still an extreme improvement, and extremely practical, yet fashionable which does work well for the character. I feel like this is a great direction for superhero designs to go into, and it would be great if there were more like that.

These are all much more practical and more importantly, much more like the sort out outfit a female superhero would pick to wear. Who wants to worry about keeping your chest in place when fighting crime? 

Design in Superhero Comics

I am going to have a look at superheroes for part of my practical project, since character design is something I would like to look at and there is definitely a lot to look at in terms of female superheroes.

In all entertainment, female characters and female character design is lacking, but not many can even compare to comic book designs;

The writing, design and poses are beyond bad - disrespectful, unrealistic and ridiculous. Luckily not all designs are this bad, but these are characters that are very common on comic book covers, and are some designs that most probably influence newer artists. Doing some redesigns and making these characters much more interesting is something I could potentially do for the practical part of my project, and make these characters actually believable.

Practical Ideas

TO WHAT EXTENT ARE STEREOTYPES PREVALENT IN CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN ANIMATION AND IS THIS A POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE THING

What may I like to do?

- Character design
- expressions
- turnarounds (animated?)
- action poses
------------------> would all be good for portfolio and practice for the future.
Research;
Popular female chars in film, animation etc
Big films of 2014/big male chars ------ genderbend popular male characters as a start?
What females chars work?
Which don't?
Other redesigns that people have done?
Making female stereotypes 'better'? ---->>> how?


- Look at outfits, style of drawing, poses, situation etc. What could make a character more complex, and how could I do that? What sort of characters do I want to look at? Are there any that work well apart from their design?

Could the turnaround actually be animated? -----> How much time would I have for that, is it realistic?

* 3 designs count as substantial? 3 x 4 pages = 12 finished pages of character sheets plus development. Could I do this?