Thank you for explaining yourself Adarias. THAT's the kind of criticism I appreciate. One that actually goes into detail why a design does or does not "work". I can't say I agree with all it, as the artist at least tried in some areas to tie it all together (such as the flared sleeves and pant-legs), and I don't see the color as being such a big issue as you make it. Mostly in this case because the FFTA games take place in a children's storybook. What do you see when you look at children's story books? Well the first thing that always comes to my mind is bright and cheerful colors, though, basic colors. And that's almost entirely what the main character of FFTA2 is composed of. If you look at it that way, I would be inclined to believe either the artist knew exactly what they were going for, or the employer had a specific image in mind, from which they could not largely stray. I'm also further inclined to believe that is true because said same artist has and is capable of much more aesthetically pleasing and organized designs, but perhaps in this case, that's not what they were aiming for. I think students, specically, who concentrate too much on the technical aspect of their craft get caught in a trap of overanalyzing and criticizing everything to death, without looking at the larger picture, and ignoring the nitty-gritty details for just once. In the end, it will make you a better artist, but not all art is created equal, and not all art is created for the same use. If you continually break down any piece of art, all will, at least at a very specific fundamental level, have some sort of error or design flaw.
Anyway, I'm not personally a fan of animé, but I more so have personal favorite artists. Japanese-wise, I dig Ayami Kojima, and I know he gets a lot of flack, but I really admire Yoshitaka Amano for more or less always doing his own thing. That's an artist that you KNOW very liberally designs whatever description of a character is given to him. I think it was this peculiar characteristic that ultimately had him booted from being the main Final Fantasy artist. Square needed someone that would more easily design characters that fit their bill, and characters that could be easily consumable by the masses, characters that we've already described as always looking cool, no matter what was going on. In the process, there was a loss of a unique art style once brought to Final Fantasy, and what I like to think was a loss of softness, beauty and imagination.
And wow Helm I totally agree with you. And I was in that same position you just described. Around 10 or so and my main dish was Final Fantasy VI. I thought it was amazing cause it dealt with issues, that at the time, I had no idea about. Love, war, family, tolerance, and so on. As I've gotten older, maybe just grumpier, but I find I am extremely critical of games. Whenever I encounter something in a game that I find odd or displeases me, I always wonder, why is this so? What could be done to make this better? Why was nothing done in the first place? And I guess the obvious answer is because the general gaming population doesn't care, or doesn't acknowledge those things I find problematic to be as such. I don't even play games for storylines anymore, since these things have not evolved in the least bit. At this age, I could write a better story, about things that are either central issues to me, or ideas that have yet to be touched upon by shallow videogame storylines.
