Oh hey, guess who I’m gonna be drawing this month

Claire you are spending too much damn time designing background characters who are not the primary focus of this piece

STOP IT

(Source: costumecommunityservice, via mukuo)

shoomlah:

mukuo:

characterdesign101:

welcome to character design 101, where six instances where it hasn’t happened don’t change the fact that disparate stylization does happen and it doesn’t matter because here we (in spite of the rather broad url) largely talk about video…

Character designers are culpable.

To act as if character designers and concept artists are all innocent bystanders is extremely naive- that’s where your argument falls apart.

I know hundreds of character designers out there who’re considered the cream of the crop in both the industry and the community as a whole, but they’re shit at designing women.  That means they’re shit at designing roughly 50% of characters.  Inexcusable, but they get a free pass, and so the cycle is perpetuated at every stage in the pipeline- concept artists, modelers, ADs, producers and execs should all be held accountable for contributing to the problem.

Not every designer is out there fighting against rampant sexism and racism in game design.  Granted, some of us pick our battles so we can like to fight another day, but a lot of designers out there either 1) do not care, or 2) are completely unaware of the problems they’re further prolifierating.

Nitpicking women vs. nitpicking men

And again, you completely missing what I’m saying- I don’t get my male characters picked apart.  They’re tweaked, sure, but they’re passed up the chain without nary a word, especially in regards to their sex appeal and fat distribution.  Female characters, on the other hand, experience far more deliberation.  I am talking months of e-mails sent back and forth, after an equivalent male character was designed in a matter of weeks- even when these characters are based on real people, real human beings who exist and have been 3D scanned, they still end up molding the woman towards some perfect, unattainable ideal.

Sexism isn’t just perpetuated by rapists, racism isn’t just perpetuated by the KKK, and homophobia isn’t just perpetuated by the Westboro baptist church.  This shit runs deep, and saying “it’s out of our hands, it’s just marketing so it isn’t a problem we need to address” is a damaging oversimplification.

(Source: costumecommunityservice)

mukuo:

characterdesign101:

 

welcome to character design 101, where six instances where it hasn’t happened don’t change the fact that disparate stylization does happen and it doesn’t matter because here we (in spite of the rather broad url) largely talk about video games

There’s far more than six, darling. If you largely talk about video games then why was the character design from the comic book artist anymore valid? I like how you realised you were wrong, and ran back to cut the vastness of your initial complaint. xD

Besides, the orcs and trolls, in WoW are broadly built powerful humanoid females, the dwarf females in Dragon Age: Origins are portly and short. All the females in psychonauts were warped and vastly changed, and all the girls who weren’t princess zelda - the love interest - in all of the Zelda games were these weird vastly different women.










; like I said previously, its not the fault of character design, its simple marketing. Females in games are predominantly the love interests of the male character(s) and are supposed to be attractive to their audience, which is predominantly male.

The male figure isn’t changed much either, honestly. For every fat guy sidekick in the world there’s a fat woman sidekick or some other bodily variant for characterization. The majority of male designs are large shouldered buff guys or small shouldered buff guys, this disparate stylization is definitely something you’re imagining. Males get vastly larger shoulders as much as a female character might get vastly bigger breasts and/or hips which, even if you don’t like it, is stylization.

Both genders are equally kept at safe proportionate formula for marketing purposes, like I said before.

My problem with what you’re saying is that its a specific attack on women. Which it is not, nor is it a problem with character design as a whole.

As someone who works in the industry, your take on this problem is complete bullshit.  Also, don’t immediately dismiss discussions of sexual dimorphism in WoW that have been discussed regularly for the past eight years.

So, the games industry examples you cite are (not counting the broken links):

1. Ellie from Borderlands - created specifically to combat the issue at hand, and a character design already addressed and lauded by the blog you’re arguing with
2. Shiek, who is very much the exception to the rule as a character couched in androgyny and cross-dressing
3. Dragon Age: Origins character creation, and modded character creation at that

Look, I have to deal with this nonsense every day.  I have to deal with producers and art directors nitpicking a female character’s body to the point of optimum sex appeal.  [INSERT FEMALE CHARACTER HERE] is too hippy, her features are too broad, can we make her skin lighter, why isn’t she more feminine, but she should have heels, etc, etc.  And I work at a company that is generally pretty good about this sort of stuff!  The fact that I still see it, the fact that I go home from work with migraines trying to argue with these people, shows that there’s a significant problem in the industry.

Also, stop parroting OH THE AUDIENCE IS PREDOMINANTLY MALE diatribe.  Not.  Goddamn.  True.  Even if that was the case, the idea that everything in the media needs to appeal to a particular group’s personal sexual preferences is just boring, lazy, and irresponsible.  I consume a ton of media that doesn’t turn me on, and yet I live to fight another day.  Lord knows how I do it.

 -Claire, who works at Microsoft for god’s sake.  We know the power of good marketing.

(Source: costumecommunityservice)

Quick little doodle of Claire from Questionable Content while I was working on a bigger piece- just needed to step away and paint something a little more mindless to freshen up my hand.

Quick lunch study of this photo to loosen myself up while working on bigger pieces.

arrestedwesteros:

Buster: I never thought I’d miss a hand so much.

Out on a Limb - 2x11

Em was planning on letting Arrested Westeros sit while she was in Morocco, but then I got a very excited e-mail that started with

…We have been waiting for this scene for two goddamn years

teal-deer asked you:

First off, I absolutely adore the work you did for Bioshock: Infinite. Second though, I’m considering trying to cosplay Rosalind Lutece, and was wondering if you could give me advice on how to do her hair: what’s that hairdo called, how does one execute it, etc? And any other things about her general costume you think might be useful (though your drawings are so lovely that I think I have the general idea!) Gotta convince my brother to be Robert too (we’re both redheads)

Thanks for the kind words, always so excited to hear that people are interested in cosplaying my designs!  Coincidentally enough, I took (very literally) two minutes to see if I could get any semblance of Rosalind’s updo before a shower the other day:

I have short hair so this is pretty quick and dirty, but it’s got the general structure, to say the least.

I was basing Rosalind’s hair on any number of hairstyles you would see in Charles Dana Gibson’s iconic “Gibson Girl” illustrations- stylish, upswept bouffants that pool rather pleasantly on top of the head, entirely ignoring the nuisance that is gravity:

Daunting though they may be, most of these are attainable through a fair amount of teasing, sculpting, and copious amounts of hairspray- I wear pompadours pretty often, so I have a decent hand for pulling this sort of thing off to the best of my abilities.

Some great photo reference for this sort of thing would be looking at real life Gibson girls like Camille Clifford and Evelyn Nesbitt, and I’m pretty sure there are a couple decent tutorials floating around online for doing Gibson-style updos as well.

-C

If you want to listen to me ramble on about Bioshock: Infinite (both about my role as concept artist, and my thoughts about the game itself) with the lovely Lisa Foiles and the rest of the League of S.T.E.A.M., you should definitely check out the latest Steam Geeks podcast- possibly a bit spoilery, but we generally avoid discussing end-game or any major story elements. :)

The second half of the discussion is dedicated to the insanely talented Brian Kesinger in anticipation of his upcoming book Walking Your Octopus, so do stick around!  The man has no damn idea how talented he is.

chelseakenna:

Here’s some of the concept art I’ve been doing for Sojo Studios for the game Joy Kingdom! I did concepts all of the animals in the game, which were then turned into animated models by the 3D team. 

It’s been a lot of fun working on this project because it really gave me quite a variety of things to draw. I was researching new animals almost every day.

I’m reblogging friends all up in HYEAH as of late, but oh man these are adorable.

Chelsea and I met through the TLK fandom back in the day- back when learning how to draw Scar on-model was like really important okay that was a life goal- and so I always get misty-eyed when she draws some damn nice lions.

aidanrae:

hey guysss! I entered my children’s line in a contest to win a trip to the future insights conference at the end of April and I’d love for you to go HERE and vote for me - by liking or commenting on my post OR BOTH! It’s through facebook.

(for old followers: my BIG PROJECT has been silent on here because of self-imposed NDA agreements haha, not because it hasn’t been worked on!)

Today’s the only day of voting so I promise this won’t become a habit.

THANKS I LOVE YOU.

Reblogreblogreblog for my buddy Aidan, go vote for her!She does amazing work in general, and she already designs cosplay for kids with sensory issues and does a completely BADASS JOB:

Look at how 1) awesome and 2) comfortable they look, c’mon

My buddy Kai Carpenter (Deviantart | Portfolio) just put some prints up for sale on Etsy!  Go buy them.

I love Kai, but I also hate him because he does these in goache, and that just seems like goddamn magic to me.  My memories of using gouache in school are strained and frustrated and often chalky, so seeing a fellow artist take to a medium so naturally is a serious kick in the pants, inspiration-wise.

Go buy some of his beautiful nonsense here, if you have the chance!

1. Yup it was an April Fool’s joke, I’ve had the idea for a solid year and have been BITING my TONGUE
2. No there are not actully any foxglove motifs, you are not crazy, stop looking for them
3. What have I done now a ton of you are asking for an actual historical Marian
4. I am just digging this hole deeper and deeper