Thoughts On Art/Character Design and Character Personalities

[Avarice Shadow]

I like all the designs so far. I always thought Persona had a really sharp style to it. My favorite ones are Edelgard (I love red) and Byleth.

Personality wise, I think Edelgard is very serious kind of like Lucina. Dmitri also looks kind of serious but I feel like he's the one that made the least impression on me. Claude looks like the flirty type of guy who loves to have fun. 

[Etrurian emperor]

The new artstyle feels a little stiff though I guess I'll get used to it.

From the three lords Claude is definitely my favorite. The tanned/black skin and the yellow clothing really stands out. He's also the only of the three who smiles. 

Edgelord seems pretty okay to me. I'm glad we got an axe lord back.

I'm not really feeling Dimitri. Out of the three he's the only one who looks really generic. Claude's features stands out and Edgelord is a female axe lord, but Dimitri is just another handsome blonde noble. Its to early to say for sure but the devs noticing Leo was really popular seems to be the driving force behind this character. 

[C_Mutter]

8 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'm not really feeling Dimitri. Out of the three he's the only one who looks really generic. Claude's features stands out and Edgelord is a female axe lord, but Dimitri is just another handsome blonde noble. Its to early to say for sure but the devs noticing Leo was really popular seems to be the driving force behind this character. 

He's also definitely my least favourite design-wise, but if I had to guess its 'semi-intentional'. I don't think they're aiming to invoke Leo so much as to have a foil for the other two Lords. While we don't know personalities yet a lot of folks seem to currently be speculating that he'll be a lot more rigid and straight laced than the other two (with Edelgard seeming rebellious and wild and Claude seeming somewhat carefree and freewheeling). 

Worst case scenario, his schtick is meh in itself but does help to highlight the good parts of the other two lords. 

Best case scenario, that conflict between his more traditional character and the other two actually gives him some depth. If he ends up being this typical upper class dude who's super ingrained in just fitting in and being a part of the system that could give him a good arc as Edelgard is upending everything.

Either way, its way too early to say much, but I hope that all three can end up being good characters. Im def all in on Edelgard and Claude so far but even Dimitri I'm willing to remain cautiously optimistic about

[Goesbyrem]

Also to mention his hair is just a hot pile of garbage!
I mean it legit looks like he hasn't washed his hair in years, it's all F**kin clumped up and shit like it's friggin Angel Hair pasta.

I swear to Naga that parts of his hair is branching off, it's F**kin disgusting  

Edited June 19, 2018 by Goesbyrem

[False Prophet]

Not a fan of the new design much, but then again, I don't think we should only stuck with Kozaki's tried-and-true style. Maybe a little experiment won't hurt.

 

Say, would it be possible to transplant the highly-detailed artworks of Cipher into portraits and sprites in the real games?

 

 

[nyainou]

1 hour ago, False Prophet said:

Not a fan of the new design much, but then again, I don't think we should only stuck with Kozaki's tried-and-true style. Maybe a little experiment won't hurt.

 

Say, would it be possible to transplant the highly-detailed artworks of Cipher into portraits and sprites in the real games?

 

 

Only if you want stiff, one-emotion portraits at weirdly dynamic angles and clashing styles on a per-character basis.
The point of portraits is to display the character from at least their chest up, at usually a 3/4ths angle so it can be flipped and used on either side of the screen. On top of that, the portraits need to have different versions for different expressions, which means the portraits have to be simple and easy to edit, or at least set up in a way that makes it easy to alter the face and anything else needed.

So, no, you really couldn't effectively have really detailed, dynamic artwork as portraits. There's ways to do it (ala Dangan Ronpa), but that requires an expressive style to pull off. Otherwise, you'd have to sacrifice a LOT of elements in favor of high-details.

[TheSS]

I'm really loving Edelgard's character design. My big hope is that she's more of a Hector and less of an Eliwood in terms of personality. I'm not a fan of the very genericly heroic lords a lot of games have. She seems very blunt and harsh with her words, so hopefully she'll be dynamic and interesting to watch, and not just a copy and paste heroine.

[LorisaGoldfish]

So, for the other characters that have shown up in the trailer besides our main four (Edel, Dimitri, Claude, Byleth),

there's Dragon Goddess Lady:

Spoiler

And Sleeping Loli:

Spoiler

I feel like she's probably a descendant of hers or something. They look similar enough.

Then there's Whip-Sword Guy:

Spoiler

and the Important looking Priestess(?) Lady:

Spoiler

who, if we're going with the whole "church is evil" plot line, she might be the villain, and maybe the old guy will play a role similar to Gunter in Fates. Or, maybe he's a bad guy too, and he works under the Priestess lady as some kind of Holy Knight. The flower in her hair also appears to be the same as the goddess' which is a nice little design element.

Then we have Hilda and Mercedes:

Spoiler

Design-wise they look fine, if not a bit bland.

There's these four guys who are very in the background so it's kinda hard to get the details:

Spoiler

but they look alright I guess. Mustached Mage dude looks cool. The white/gray haired guy looks reminiscent of Robin and Henry to me, but I feel like personality-wise, he'll probably be nothing like them. The other two are just meh.

And can't forget Random Mage Girl:

Spoiler

such a great design. So beautiful and detailed. (jk)

Edited June 20, 2018 by LorisaGoldfish
spell fix

[Landmaster]

Edgelord looks good and I've always been a Cristina Vee fan so, I'm a fan of her voice and design so far, which is good~ Also nice to see another female Axe user~

Dimitri looks hot, not much else to say there yet~ Hope he's husbando material because it's always good to find one of those early~

Claude is meh~ Pretty boy but not my type, atm, never been fond of bow users in general~ Maybe that will change but the design is unquestionably nice~ Darker skinned character and he looks good~

And Byleth looks good, too, pretty interested in seeing how he turns out if he really is the Avatar~

[Remi]

Out of all the characters they've shown, I must admit Edelgard looks the cutest; I want to try on her clothes ^^ Claude looks quite great too, I hope he serves some kind of Hector role in the story. Dimitri looks like he's Clive's son  a very strict character, hey, maybe he'll be like Ephraim!

As for other characters, Byleth, the Manakete(? girl and the green haired woman are very pretty and I hope that the latter stays for very long (unlike, y'know..."them").

[AntasticTunes]

I'm loving Edelgard's design. There's just something very graceful about it, and her voice is really nice as well. I'm totally up for another female lord!

As for the art style, I actually like it so far. It looks clean and it suits the more serious mood I felt from the trailer. I can understand if some people might feel that it lacks details though. Something I wasn't too fond of however was some of the portraits we got small glimpses of. The archer guy who appeared when they showed the detailed battle view looks a bit generic (of course, we only got to see a small part of his face, so it might be unfair to judge it only based on that),  and I'm not liking Hilda's design that much either. That being said, I think the three main lords (I assume they take on main character roles) all look really good! 

 

 

 

 

[HappyHawlucha.]

I have a feeling(and hope) that the whipsword dude is actually on our side. His way of dress isn't screaming that he's a devotee to the goddess, so I hope that he is a general or something for one of the three houses or their allies, unless a civil war breaks out due to the Church, in which case he could still be a villain, but hopefully he's still a good one.

Edited June 22, 2018 by HappyHawlucha.

[Tenzen12]

He is probably both, leader of one of three houses AND enemy (allies don't come with prf weapons so easily). Not sure why assume all three countries will be on friendly terms, when war is inevitable.

Well, that doesn't mean he is necessary bad guy. He could be this game Rudolf.

Edited June 23, 2018 by Tenzen12

[LORDike14]

Art/Character Design 

The current character design looks cheap and reminds me of the shin megami / persona game. 

Best artist for character design would be as following:

Girls : Yuji

Maidens: Kita/Kaya8

Ladies: Kita

Boys: Yuji

Lads/Men: Kita/Sachiko/Okaya

Animals inc dragons/wyverns and were-people/laguz: Chie/Hidari/Sachiko

Monsters: Hidari

Badass bosses human: Chie

Badass bosses monster: Kita/Sachiko/Hidari

The reason for these selections are the strong point of the character being memorable, strong impression of the character's personality before reading their backstory at first glance while each character designed uniquely and less likely to have the same-face anime syndrome. The moe character design just doesn't work for me for a classy game like Fire Emblem, such as the artstyle of the kozaki garbage. Kozaki artsyle are probably attractive for masses plebs because it could be seen in pretty much all anime nowadays where they need to take a break for that pleb art style. They could've make a return of the moving mouth and blinking eyes animation combined with the various expression of the 3ds games though. 

As for their personalities, nothing much could be said up to this point.

p.s. Hopefully the marriage/partnering system doesn't return, it's such a nuisance for the plot.

 

[Scoot]

On 6/20/2018 at 1:33 AM, Angelique said:

So, for the other characters that have shown up in the trailer besides our main four (Edel, Dimitri, Claude, Byleth),

there's Dragon Goddess Lady:

  Hide contents

And Sleeping Loli:

  Hide contents

I feel like she's probably a descendant of hers or something. They look similar enough.

Then there's Whip-Sword Guy:

  Hide contents

and the Important looking Priestess(?) Lady:

  Hide contents

who, if we're going with the whole "church is evil" plot line, she might be the villain, and maybe the old guy will play a role similar to Gunter in Fates. Or, maybe he's a bad guy too, and he works under the Priestess lady as some kind of Holy Knight. The flower in her hair also appears to be the same as the goddess' which is a nice little design element.

Then we have Hilda and Mercedes:

  Hide contents

Design-wise they look fine, if not a bit bland.

There's these four guys who are very in the background so it's kinda hard to get the details:

  Hide contents

but they look alright I guess. Mustached Mage dude looks cool. The white/gray haired guy looks reminiscent of Robin and Henry to me, but I feel like personality-wise, he'll probably be nothing like them. The other two are just meh.

And can't forget Random Mage Girl:

  Hide contents

such a great design. So beautiful and detailed. (jk)

All I can see in that last one is a girl with a second head.

Spoiler

[Three Eyes]

I don't DISLIKE it, per se, but I feel like what we've seen is a little lackluster.

I'm biased towards our last artist from Echoes--his art all looked so timeless and beautiful to me, and I much preferred the more muted colors to this--the bright bright blue of Dmitri's cape is so jarring to me in general, like someone messed with the settings in Microsoft Paint, and it doesn't go well with the black armor.  His hair doesn't offend me as much as it does other people, but it looks REALLY greasy.

Edelgard's bothered me more at first, but it's grown on me a bit--the lilac with the bright red with black and white with greenish hair and gold accents still seems like a little much, but at least she has pants.  

Claude's is the least offensive of the trio, but I still don't care a lot for it.  He just seems the least generic to me.

And then there's Byleth, and I'm really digging the armor and the face, but the blue-green haircolor clashes so badly with the blue on his uniform and of his eyes.  It drives me crazy.

Edited July 15, 2018 by Three Eyes

[May]

3 hours ago, Three Eyes said:

And then there's Byleth, and I'm really digging the armor and the face, but the blue-green haircolor clashes so badly with the blue on his uniform and of his eyes.  It drives me crazy.

I think they had the hair color green to represent his own color like how the lords have their own color. Those colors are then represented on his attire which makes his art wholly unappealing because there's too many things going on once. 

I think Edelgard is the least unappealing to me. Everyone else is kind of... eh. I feel like the art director threw out color composition for this game or something. 

[Jingle Jangle]

One thing I am bit other bothered by is  the amount of black the main characters has. They should feel distinct from each other. I know the in the FE series there are people that wear similar armor, but that was in the same class. Unless they are in the same class, then it makes them all less unique.

[nyainou]

15 hours ago, Jingle Jangle said:

One thing I am bit other bothered by is  the amount of black the main characters has. They should feel distinct from each other. I know the in the FE series there are people that wear similar armor, but that was in the same class. Unless they are in the same class, then it makes them all less unique.

I think its just meant to be a unifying color, showing that all these characters are related in some way. Someone theorized that their outfits were actually their (military) school uniforms, based off the information of Byleth being (at least) Edelgard's teacher. If that's not the case, though, I agree; I think their designs should've been linked with an accent color instead of main one.