#fashion critique | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

artist-issues · 10 months

Text

I Saw Wish

And it was the worst animated Disney movie I’ve ever seen. I have to watch it again before I can get into the nitty gritty details. But I don’t need details to sum it up, because my dad actually said it perfectly as we left the theater:

“It was like someone who didn’t really understand Disney movies tried to make a Disney movie.”

Both the form (the technical arts of filmmaking) and the content (the morals, values, and themes of the movie) were totally horrible.

I don’t know who’s fault it was. Jeremy Spears was in the storyboard room and Mark Henn and Eric Goldberg did some 2D animation. But they must have gotten outvoted, or they must not care anymore.

Because holy cow. Here’s some stuff that’s just off the top of my head.

SPOILERS. Not that it matters, because nothing interesting happens in this movie.

The writing? Terrible. Ninety percent of it feels like the characters are filling time with quirky one-liners that are trying too hard to be appealing, then failing, then taking you out of the movie. The jokes aren’t funny. The characters just respond to each other in conversation to check a one-liner box. The other twenty percent is whole conversations repeating tell-don’t-show exposition that has already been covered, usually twice, in previous scenes. Like if in Tangled, every scene had included some variation of Rapunzel saying to friends and enemies alike, “I have to see the floating lights so I’m sneaking to the castle with this thief who wants a mysterious tiara I hid from him. Don’t tell my mother, she’s a bit overprotective!” Over. And over. And over.

The character motivations are way too broad. Asha? Her dream is just “that everybody around me gets to be happy.” That’s it, in a nutshell. No deeper exploration of that. Nobody asks, “why do you care so much?” Nobody tries to convince her she should look out for herself, and then she proves she was right all along. The King? We are told (not shown) that he doesn’t want anyone else’s dreams to be “destroyed.” But he in no believable way expresses that that motivation is still what’s driving him during the movie—what’s driving him is just a plain old lust for power, no nuance.

By the way, the whole premise of the movie? Undercooked. Half-baked concepts strung together with no definitive meaning. Therefore, it’s not believable. Example: The characters act like the wishes are beautiful—well, actually, no, this movie doesn’t know how to show, so there’s not a lot of meaningful acting—the characters just tell us that wishes are “the most beautiful part of someone,” and that’s why it’s worth going through this adventure to give their wishes back to them. But there’s no proof of that in the movie. In fact, it directly kicks it’s own legs out from under that idea, because it has every character who gives up their wish forget that part of themselves. Asha’s grandfather has forgotten his wish, but that doesn’t make him any less “beautiful.” She, and everyone, still treats him like he’s this wonderful old man who deserves the world, who everyone loves…but why is he so appealing? If he “gave up the most beautiful part of him?” The only character who is changed by their lack-of-wish is the Sleepy-analogue character…who is just sleepy, which is described as ��boring.” But nobody else who’s given up their wish in the whole kingdom acts like that. It’s just him. Also, the King acts like it’s so important to protect the wishes from destruction. But what does destroying a wish look like? That actually happens to Asha’s mom. Her wish-bubble is broken, literally, and she just says she feels grief. But like. Why? She never remembered it in the first place; it had been missing from her life for years. Also, what the heck is a wish?! It seems to range from broad concepts like “inspire people” to “fly.” Just “fly,” like a bird. The desire to levitate off the ground is the most important, beautiful essence of one background character. Like, what?! But no character ever has the why behind their wish to make us care.

I could go on and on about that point. Like, think about Disney movies that wrote the book on how to make movies about characters with wishes. If Ariel were in Wish, her bubble would look like “dancing and learning and exploring on the Surface with someone who understands her.” But we believe that that is her real, genuine wish, and that it matters to her, because we are shown why being understood is so important to her. Because it’s missing from her life. There’s a scene where she explores a boat alone, and even her best friend doesn’t get excited about it with her. Her dad won’t listen to her point of view. Her siblings don’t ask her about her life even when they think she’s in love. She wants what she wants because of pieces of her life that we are shown.

We are never shown why Asha’s grandfather is obsessed with inspiring people, so we have no reason to believe it, or care whether he gets it or not. We can’t feel disappointed when his wish is said to “never come true,” like we did when Quasimodo was abused by the people he wished to join. We can’t feel elated when he finally “gets” his wish, like we did when Simba smiles on Pride Rock remembering the same way he used to as a cub and claims the crown with a roar. We don’t have anything to hang on to, nothing to relate to, nothing to grasp and feel with the characters. So we don’t feel, because they didn’t put the work in to help us feel. They just say, “the mom’s feeling grief. Feel grief.” And expect us to do the work ourselves. I have to stop harping on this point and move on.

But The main point of the movie is very broad because of that lazy premise, and it’s barely reinforced by any kind of appealing storytelling. If I had to guess, the point would be “Keep wishing for more even when it’s hard.” But the story they told to communicate that meaning was so unimpactful. Asha doesn’t have a dream of her own that’s such hard work to accomplish! (Neither does her grandfather; his wish is “to inspire people.” And at the end, we’re supposed to see him strumming a guitar and believe it’s inspiring? We were never shown how he worked hard to learn how to play the instrument. Or that he carved it with his own hands, or anything like that. So there’s no meaningful demonstration of working hard for it or achieving your wish even if it’s far out of reach.) And nobody except the king is trying to take wishes away from anyone, and he just does it literally, after they voluntarily give them to him, so there’s not even any impactful demonstration of “don’t let anyone tell you your wishes are dumb or unachievable, or stop you from reaching them.” Even when he takes them away, it’s just because they…could, someday, be used to threaten his kingdom in a vague, really unlikely way. There are so many things you could do with “keep wishing for more even when it’s hard.” For instance; you could say the main character has always been afraid to dream (wish for more), because maybe when she was a kid something wonderful almost happened but ended in tragedy, so she keeps her head down and doesn’t want much because if you don’t dream you’ll never be disappointed. She takes no risks, and has to learn that sometimes trying and failing is worth more than slogging through life all self-protective. I mean, the pieces were right there. She has this line about her dad, and how she wished he would get better but then he died. She has lines about how nobody should have to live with grief?? Then that’s never addressed again! It’s just a throwaway emotion-moment with no buildup or follow-through to tie it to and support that main theme.

The compositions of too many shots were so terrible. Characters got cut off in weird places. One shot has Asha dead center, with her grandfather on the left side of the table and her mother on the right, having a family dinner with a super exposition-heavy conversation that is meant to be emotionally charged. But despite everything else being perfectly centered, half of her mother’s body is chopped off. The movie’s shot like someone’s mom who doesn’t understand technology tried to take a video with her phone.

The charm of the art “style” wears off basically immediately. I know what they were going for. I see the sketch lines and watercolor textures. This is maybe the first time Disney ever failed to accomplish a visual “look” that turned out good. Everything looks dull. Muted. De-saturated. Slightly out of focus, but not in a cool Spider-Verse way. The sets or backgrounds are lazy; at no point does the scenery look complete; big, empty, boring spaces that do not create any kind of “stage” for impactful moments. The rendering looks unfinished. When Asha’s hair moves during her belting of the “I Make This Wish” song, it’s bad. It’s unnatural. It flops in a way that doesn’t make sense for the weight of her hair. The most impactful visual moments come from the villain, and they’re moments when he looks way too unhinged for the kind of line he’s saying.

There is no interesting character development. Asha goes from believing everyone is basically good and their wishes deserve the chance to come true , to….that, again. That would be fine, she could be a static character, if she proved contrast-characters wrong, in a believable way. But she never does. Because no other characters argue with her except the King. And it goes no deeper than “everyone’s wishes are basically good and they deserve the chance to make them true” vs. “nuh-uh, because I get to decide what makes them deserving.” The King doesn’t have any kind of interesting development, either. They don’t expand on his tragic backstory—it consists of one drawing of him near a broken boat, and a few images of the corner burned off of his family taoestry. They never say “King Magnifico wished for _____ and it was taken away!” They literally never tell you what his wish or dreams were, or what motivated him to create the whole kingdom that the movie’s premise sits on. So there’s no convincing sense of progression, how he got this way, why he’ll keep going “so far.”

The pacing is weird. It undercuts every moment that could have any kind of emotion behind it. One minute Valentino is suavely bouncing around, then he’s given a two-second beat to blubber with badly-animated tears that he’ll miss Star—then he instantly gets to have another funny one-liner so we forget he might’ve been sad a second ago. We’re clearly supposed to believe that the King and his wife are devoted to each other, and his turning evil was such a big betrayal, but there’s no time and no impactful evidence for us to believe either of those things. And even if we did, the moment he’s defeated and trapped in a mirror, and begs to be let free, the Queen kind of shrugs it off, makes a forgettable one-liner, and tells them to throw him in the dungeon. And he doesn’t look remorseful. And we don’t even get to assume he’s embarrassed or emotionally devastated that he’s come to this—because the last thing he says is “nooo, the dungeon is so smellyyy!” Like this is a half-baked LEGO short that can’t get emotionally deeper than what an actual 3 year-old’s parents might be okay with.

And that’s the worst offense: The movie is not genuine. It works hard for nothing, and it has no vulnerability. It just uses old Disney standbys to pretend to be vulnerable. Have the music swell and the characters gasp and the songs drip emotion when characters are meant to be saying or doing something emotional.

But truthfully, think of all the Disney movies you’ve ever seen with the hardest emotional moments. The sheer joy of Genie when he realizes he’s free. The anguish when Elsa thinks Anna’s been frozen forever, or when Anna thinks she’s dead. The trauma when Simba loses Mufasa. The longing and dreaming of Ariel when she reaches up out of her grotto. The sense of foreboding when Mother Gothel says “fine, now I’m the bad guy” or the heartbreak in Rapunzel’s eyes when she thinks Flynn has abandoned her, or the shame on Aladdin’s face when Jafar reveals he’s a street-rat, or the horror of cruelty when the stepsisters rip up Cinderella’s dress, or Kala’s tears when Tarzan leaves her in the treehouse, or Sarabi’s tears when Simba comes back, or Mulan’s father tossing aside the sword and token of the Emperor to embrace Mulan, or heck, even just Lilo pushing Stitch in the woods and telling him “get out of here.” This movie has no moments like that. It has moments you can tell that the filmmakers wanted to hit like that—but they don’t.

Because no work is put into building them up. You know how much Simba loves Mufasa, because you’ve been watching their chemistry more than any other character all the way up till he dies. You know how much Mulan wants to please her family because she spends all of Act I desperately attempting to do that. You know Quasimodo believes the world below is beautiful and wants them to accept him because he has interesting things like—talking to gargoyles, convincing us that he’s lonely; building a scale model of the townspeople, convincing us that he sees them in a beautiful way and wishes he were beautiful in more ways than one like them, too.

Right down to the facial expressions, none of them are as anguished, happy, sad, excited, silly, in any convincing way like all of Disney’s other movies. Asha’s “low moment” when she’s afraid her “wish” hurt everyone else (still vague on what that wish ever was) lasts two seconds, she’s not crying, she’s barely sitting with slumped shoulders, and her family barely spend two seconds comforting her. They basically just say, “aw, no, it’s not y fault, it’s the king’s.” And she’s like, “yeah okay” and that’s that. It’s like the animators we’re afraid to animate really intimate emotions on the characters’ faces. The voice actors, too.

And the whole movie is peppered with Easter eggs to past Disney movies. But all that does, if you really know Disney beyond the visuals, is make you think of how hollow this movie is in comparison. How much you wish you were watching Cinderella or The Little Mermaid or something with depth and vulnerability instead of Wish.

#I’ll talk more in an organized fashion later #wish #disney’s wish #wish Disney #wish 2023 #critique #spoilers

546 notes · View notes

sunnysam-my · 5 months

Text

Hazbin Hotel redesign ideas p. 2

I am a bit of fashion, especially men's, history nerd, and I'm also a bit of radio nerd, so here I go, biblically accurate Alastor.

ALASTOR:

Alastor was a radio host (a radio star?) who lived and died in Louisiana. He was shot during a hunting accident, in the head, somewhere in the 1933, during radio's golden era. He cares greatly about his image and always smiles to show no weaknesses. He hates modern technology and doesn't allow his face to be captured by video recording or non black and white camera. His is mixed-race Creole.

Nothing about Alastor design make sense and it pisses me off. Not only it doesn't fit the time, it also doesn't fit his character! Besides, he is too red. He disappears into the background, especially walls of the Hotel.

Alastor cares about his image greatly, yet his clothes are torn. He is supposed to be like Hannibal, yet he looks like an edgelord wannabe. It's awful. I learned nothing about him from his design, other than "he's and old-time radio deer guy", and that's really bad.

Fashion in 30s was inspired by Hollywood, and sport and movies celebrities.

Back and white fashion in this period wasn't that different, at least for men, as long as you weren't poor, but here are some photos of specifically black fashion in 30s. In general I recommend that website if you want to look more into the fashion of this period.

His hair is completely wrong. And it's also really ugly lol. For richer black men a shiny straightening hairstyle was the go to since 1920s. One such style was "the conk" where one would chemically straighten their hair. It left hair shiny, but the process was painful and expensive. It literally could burn your scalp.

Another popular style was the brush wave. It's creating narrow waves rolling on top of head with the sides cut short and smooth. This hairstyle is still present to this day, but nowadays it's done on the whole head.

Other than that, men just wore their hair naturally, but short.

There is no focus on trousers or vest in Alastor's outfit. (Which is wild considering zipper fly was introduced in the early 30s, but was got popular by the mid ’30s). This was time of experimenting a bit with vests. If you wanted to look fancy and/or formal, you would wear a vest. Pants were wide legged, had a high waist and a single pressed line down the center of the leg. Some trouser waistbands were unique in the 1930s, for example a Hollywood waistband trouser. It had an extra wide band with a double row of buttons. They fit very high, overlapping the ribs. they often had netal ring tabs on the sides to tighten the pant to the correct fit without the need for belts or suspenders.

Also, monocle? Really? …Really? Here you go, read this if you're curious. Lots of pictures of glasses included. Glasses stayed essentially the same in 30s as they were in 20s. They were "round with a center bridge in the early years and an upper bridge in the later years. Frames could be tortoiseshell, black plastic, or thin metal."

Moving on from fashion, because I could never shut up, microphones!

The most probabale one that everyone who is redesigning Al is drawing is a good old classic Carbon mic. It looks like a ring with a metal star and the microphone inside. It can be hand held or a staff.

But, if you wanna draw something different!

Other than Carbon mic there is also a Ribbon microphone (first row) and Moving Coil mic (second row). Unfortunately, they killed Alastor in the best part of the radio golden age, so the mics are still a bit ugly, not gonna lie.

How would I design him:

First things firsts, either he is mixed or he is white, because right now it just feels like a cheep excuse to have an "evil voodoo" character without getting too much backlash. Let's be honest, nobody thought he was a POC and that white face doesn't help. Again, just like I mentioned with Vel, when you're drawing a character with human like skin tone you have to be careful and think how it ties to their race.

Second - fashion. His outfit and hairstyle is a disaster. He has always tried to 'dress to impress', so obviously I would give him well maintained clothing and that 'high quality', formal style. I would give him the dark brown Hollywood trouser with buttons and dark crimson shirt, like dried blood almost. Under a coat or jacket he would have a brow vest, both the same colour as the pants. Highlights would be golden and green or purple. I for one would love to see him start out with a jacket/coat which he stops wearing inside the hotel after he bonds with the people inside it more, but he would still wear it outside and in the finale would put it on again, after his breakdown in the tower. This would show he began to trust the hotel residents a bit before he 'realises his mistake' after the battle. I would give him short haircut, because not even white people wore hair like that. (What in the Karen-core is it supposed to be?). Say goodbye to that monocle. Why is it even there there? Because he is old-timely? What is he, a children's cartoon villain? His design doesn't need more soulless clutter. Give me something that tells me about him as a character. I've seen people give him old radio as teeth or chest and I love it! When it's not too detailed, it's a great idea to make Alastor less like a living human but also less of… just a deer. He just looks like a deer demon. I would keep his shoes, hands and antlers, and give him ears that would fit the hairstyle I would go with.

[Edit: I forgot to mention, I would give him a time accurate hat or a free wavy lock of hair to cover the mark on his forehead where he was shot]

Thirdly, the microphone! My love. I remember the microphone used to be able to talk, but now it doesn't, unless I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure. Now it's just a weird look staff microphone with an eye and that's about it. But imagine something like a moving coil with the metal sign on top of it were the letters on it change. It could be a way it's communicating, in a simple way. This was it could still have a unique shape. That would have been fun to see. I can certainly imagine it being something of an 'unfiltered voice' of Alastor, where it would change it's writing into "Shut up", "Die" or something like that and he would hit it in a reprimanding way to reverse it to "Smile!". I'm just saying, that's a cool idea.

Well, this took forever to make, I actually forgot about this, so it just sat in my drafts. Anyway, if you want to see brilliant use of costumes and detailed, accurate depiction of fashion (especially black and queer) through history in New Orleans I recommend "Interview With The Vampire" (2022). It's also a great show.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel redesign #hazbin hotel fanart #redesign #hazbin hotel criticism #hh #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel critique #men's fashion #men's style #menswear #mensfashion #fashion #fashion history

87 notes · View notes

mickc-art · 11 months

Text

Helluva Boss Redesign: Prince Stolas

His redesign is heavily borrowed from Paimon’s design than Stolas’. I decided to add some glam and Bowie themed motifs since Stolas is more space oriented (which explains the cold palettes, his forehead, his eyes and his collar).

Without his cloak, Stolas has a waistcoat (or spacecoat) underneath which is inspired by the Thin White Duke, one of Bowie’s personas.

His human disguise/form still have glam and Bowie motifs but his appearance is based on Jemaine Clement. He won’t wear cloak in his human disguise but it depends on the time period.

Inspirations: https://pin.it/6wrhEji

#stolas #stolas goetia #helluva boss stolas #helluva boss redesign #helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critique #helluva boss fanart #david bowie #jemaine clement #70s fashion #mick c art

159 notes · View notes

thoughtportal · 4 months

Text

the garden of time and the met gala

#tiktok #the guardian #met gala #met 2024 #met fashion #met museum #fiction #garden of time #pop culture #cultural critique #cultural criticism

101 notes · View notes

dolly-birdi · 5 months

Text

Any doll brand that tries to appeal to the christian soccer moms that call their dolls "demonic sluts" or "child hookers" are missing the point so badly. Changing the dolls faces, clothes, or bodies won't improve their opinion on these dolls, because those were never the issues to begin with. These are just the kind of people that take issue with virtually any depiction of the female form because it makes them uncomfortable. Even the amount of skin showing isn't the problem. (I've seen westerners call licca-chan "pedo bait" before. No dolls are safe lmao)

If it was about modesty, realistic body image, positive role models, etc then they would also take issue with male action figures that are marketed to boys as well (they're built like fridges, wear skintight bodysuits, and are made to play in fight scenes). But they don't. I've never seen anyone call action figures "roided up gigolos" or "slutty barbarians." Only the toys designed to look like girls/women are called sexually derogatory names and slurs. How curious.

There IS an important conversation to be had about over sexualization of toys aimed at little girls, but this is not what this is about. These people pearl-clutching over dolls in strapless dresses, skirts, or crop tops aren't doing it because they are concerned about the mental health or innocence of young girls. Tbh I think it's more of a projection of internalized misogyny from these women, and just plain old misogyny from men.

#I don't like when ppl dunk on suburban moms for everything bc it's usually just an excuse to be sexist af #but in this case most of these critiques do seem to be coming from moms and middle aged women #I still hate when people will call them 'karens' though #dolls #fashion dolls #monster high #barbie #bratz #lol surprise #lol omg #dollblr

57 notes · View notes

mayhaps-a-blog · 3 months

Text

Also where is Crystal getting all of her outfits. She barely has money for rent, how does she have like three different fairly nice winter coats? Those are expensive! Sure, she has one on the train, but did she just have an entire wardrobe shoved into her bag? Did the boys have some things laying around? Did they take a detour to nick a bunch of clothes from a department store in Port Townsend? Also how is she fitting like two trenchcoats into a single tiny dufflebag? I want to be able to fit my coats into a bag the size of a large purse. I could bring so much more stuff on trips!

#i can't wear the same thing every day #or change my clothes with my mind #like you guys!#crystal's true power: the power of packing #dead boy detectives #dbda #crystal palace #fashion #i love her outfits #and i love the image of crystal #just demanding they stop at a store #no wonder edwin's critiquing her outfit #he had to sit there and watch her #go through the entire mall #to find it #when she had a perfectly good coat already!

35 notes · View notes

caseylovemail · 2 months

Text

To me the best part of mock trial was passing notes with co-counsel and talking shit about the opposing side. And now I'm just imagining Casey giving the most immature commentary during a trial and Alex starting to talk shit with her

this defense attorney's so bad we're getting a conviction for sure lol

Stop writing unimportant notes and focus on the direct

doesn't he look like a washed-up Adam Sandler omg

Pay attention!! But no he looks more like a sad Tom Hanks to me

#alex giving every witness fashion critique on her legal pad #“he's only making five figures. that suit is made of cheap fabric and isn't even tailored”#teddy talks #svu #calex #casey novak #alexandra cabot #alex cabot #law and order svu

46 notes · View notes

rosesgrownbytheseaside · 7 months

Text

𓂃 ࣪˖ ཐིཋྀ just saw a video of a girl saying that jeans aren't coquette...and like....yes they are lol. I thought it was so ridiculous. Why are we gatekeeping? Coquette isn't just mini skirts with lace and bows. what about coquette folks who don't want to show their legs or skin? Who can't wear skirts because of the weather or personal choice? let's not gatekeep what this is. Jeans can be coquette. She also talked about pieces being too basic. A piece or outfit doesn't need to be complex or intense in order to qualify- nor does it need to be solidly pink and white. There are subcategories under the coquette umbrella, sure, but it still falls under the term. ps you can still be coquette without dressing like it all the time.

#coquette #coquettecore #coquette girl #coquette aesthetic #soft girl #soft pink #baby pink #coquette fashion #coquette community #rose rambles #critique

50 notes · View notes

cidthesquid · 1 month

Text

Fashion Dreamer | Character Creator Critique

[Previous Post] [First Post] [Next Post] Still not quite up for my normal style savvy posts yet, So for today We'll take a look at the character creator for Fashion Dreamer!

I Don't play this game a ton anymore, but it's still fun to hop back in from time to time, and I realized I never talked about the creator in it.

(Again, I know I call this a 'critique' but please don't take this too serious, it's mainly just live blogging my thoughts on the options)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You start the game, and after a few lines of text explaining what 'eve' is. (the digital world of the game) You're taken straight to the body type selection:

It's kinda interesting that the starting heights for both are so different This game has a fair amount of 'body type locked' outfits, but it's still a huge step up from the "Men's fashion" options in Style Savvy, and you can actually play as a male body type in this game too, so let's do things a little different...

We'll mainly be designing a type-b (masculine) body muse today, The main difference I found was for the presets:

Each body type offers 12 presets, each with a fairly good range of hairstyles face shapes and skin tones.

And as far as I can see none of the features or style choices on offer are locked out regardless of your body type:

Ok, lets gets started, and.. I just realized, I have no idea what I want my character to look like. D: As a professional 'guy' , this should be easy, but I have no ideas,

(no ideas, head empty) Oh well, maybe we'll figure it out as we go. Here are all the options you'll have on a fresh save, Many more choices in these catagories will open as you play. Let's start with hair:

There are a ton of options here, since nothing's locked to a body type. (I really wish more games did that.) Next up is hair color:

41 options, to start you off, and I wish they just gave us a color slider, honestly. But they wanted to offer more unlocks down the line.

I'm always surprised that so many games don't let you start with Jet-Black Hair, The default Looks much more gray in the game's studio style lighting than I'd prefer, But Jet-black is unlockable though gameplay. Also, I love that the captured the Anime-style translucent hair effect:

Next up is face shape, and here's where is gets a little disappointing,

You only have six options to choose from, and this option affects everything about the facial structure, cheeks, chin, and it adjusts length with, angle, everything. (no unlockable choices) I can see how more granular control, with sliders, may have been considered too much, limiting to a selection of 6 choices shared between feminine and masculine, is just FAR to restrictive IMO. It locks you out of so many design choices. such as making a more 'grizzled' look, edgier design, or just something a bit more netural in tone harder to work on. Next up is eyebrows:

24 options here, all unlocked at the start. This may seem a little silly, but I REALLY appreciate the labels. I often have a hard time deciding what eyebrow choice gives off what attitude, so having them labeled as 'confident', 'Refined', 'brave' 'determined', etc really helps me notice the differences a little more.

Brow color is next:

Same 41 colors as hair color, and I think any hair color unlocks show up here to. I always just keep this the same as hair color, I have not put much though into it, maybe it's more for people who want to go with a unnatural dyed hair color, they can keep their brows standard? Or maybe it's to add contrast, I'm not sure, feel free to comment below with your thoughts on brow color choices. Eyelash color is next:

Same 41 color choices, but 'black' shows up even more gray here, So I'm substituting 'brunette' for the darker color tone:

Next up is eyes:

You start with 24 choices, consisting of various sizes, spacings, shapes and more. They're a wide range of styles on display ranging from very cartoony to a bit more realistic, they really help you dial in your character's look. When it comes to eye colors however..

You start with 8 fairly simple choices, but you're teased with their names, "type 11", "type 19", "type 40?" Clearly hinting at more to come. I guess this is a decent starting selection, the 'unlockable ones' could be considered 'colored contacts', but I wish there were a few more to start, like a more natural green and a deeper, yet less dark blue.

Next up is eye hilights:

This is another interesting option I wish more games offered, You start with 4, with the last one giving you a butterfly themed sparked to your eyes, I don't personally prefer themed irises or sparkles for my characters, but I know some love it! I don't really notice much of a difference #2 and #4, it's just more sparkles, but it may be nice to adjust for close-ups.

Next up is noses:

13 choices, no extra unlocks, and like always, I have no idea what to do with this feature, I just don't ever think about noses, so I don't really have any opinions on them. But they do offer a good selection of, sizes, widths and slops, and even a few 'blocky-er' options too, Next up is accents:

This is for face lines, moles, freckles, laugh lines, etc.

Most of the options are dedicated to the placement of and number of your moles, but still a pretty good selection. Next up is facial hair:

You have 12 options here, with no unlockable, and I'd argue this is a pretty good spread of choices. I'm surprised they don't have an option that combine the handlebar mustache with a goatee for a silly villain look, but overall, I'm happy with what's available, as it caters to a wide range of style. Next, your hair color options can be applied to your facial hair as well, but we'll skip that, (same 41 starting options) Following that is lips:

(Dang, he blinked, oh well, it's funny, so I'm leaving it in) 12 choices, a good range of shapes and sizes, but again, it's not really something I have much of a opinion on, I just pick what looks less 'weird' with my design. Lip color is next,

It's pretty much just lipstick choices, you'll start with 44 choices, and more unlock as you play. You have a good selection of standard colors, with various shades of pink, red, beige and black, with matte, and various mount of glosses. Surprisingly, next up is skin color, (I would have figured that would have been first?)

The game started with a good selection of skin tones, but the 1.4.0 updated added even more! You get 30 choices! And it's cool to see that your natural lip tone adjusts to match. (that's something that a lot of games miss, especially on darker skin tones) There are 'bonus' skin tones to unlock like blue and green, but all the standard ones are unlocked at the start. Makeup is next:

This pretty much combines all facial colorings, so it's makeup blush, eyeshadow, etc. you start with these 12 options. Next up is"Body Shape":

And honestly, they should have just called it height, that's all it adjust. Type 1-9 just adjust how tall your character is, This is the one time being vague is not really helpful imo, You can't tell how tall your character is, there's no reference, And making a whole category called 'body shape' would be the perfect chance to have the devs at least, dip their toes into inclusivity, and it kinda makes this section feel a little tone def.

The next section controls your idle poses:

Honestly, I would have just called this 'personality', but I guess they did not want to over represent what it changes. Don't worry, It won't limit how you behave or pose in pictures, It only affects how your character looks while standing around and interacting with npcs.

Your other options are "Shy", "Active", "Elegant", "Relaxed", and "cute" And using one is a really neat way to make your character feel like they have a distinct personality. It's a great way to really drive home your character's style, ------ And with that you're done with the designing phase, Now you can set your profile info:

And once filled out your done, and transported into the game world:

Alright so final thoughts on this games' character creator. I thought the UI was fairly easy to navigate, and everything was layer out well. I think a 'zoom' option would have been nice to see changes closer up, but the auto zoom for things like changing the face were good enough. For the most part, I was very happy with the options of offer, It's a huge step up from style savvy and other fashion game sin may ways. But it still feels a bit limited in others, it really feels like the game caters towards a few 'cuter' character styles significantly more than others, it still gives a good degree of flexibility within those styles. But for those looking to go for a more traditional masculine design, or even something with a bit more of an angular or striking look may find themselves having to compromise a bit. I get the idea that you can't please everyone, but I feel like there are a lot of fairly easy compromised that could be made to allow for more player creativity in multiple areas, Mainly just adding a like two more face shapes that stand out more, and un-gender lock most outfits. (You removed gender labels, but they're still being enforced, even on jackets?) Anyways, that's all for today, thanks for reading!

Next critque: inZOI ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun making this, so I hope you had fun reading it as well. As always, all comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome! You literally can't bother me, unless you go out of your way to be a jerk, so post whatever you want to say!

#syn sophia #fashion game #style boutique #new style boutique #fashion dreamer #nintendo switch #Character Creator Critique

14 notes · View notes