[RamenRider]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddarko

I do not know if you are serious, but assuming you are, let me attempt to explain.

Oh we’re serious? I didn’t think we need to, given the topic, but why not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddarko

You ask what is wrong with making a woman with a masculine design. It does not work since it is no different than drawing a human being as a pig and saying that is a human being. Sure, I can take pity on such a drawing as the work of someone who is incompetent at drawing. But, it would be more sensible to call their drawing an orc or a pig-person than a human being. Similarly, you cannot design an actual female character to look like a man and call that a great design. It would be better to simply call that new character a man at that point.

That is a very lacking and uneducated point. You bring up an example that has effectively been proven wrong: You can design a human being as a pig and say that is a human being, with great effect even.

The 1992 animated movie “Porco Rosso” (Full stop, spoilers incoming. Watch the movie first, it’s on Netflix, and its really good), literal translated name “Crimson Pig” of the famous animation house “Studio Ghibli” tells the tale of an ace fighter pilot that has the appearance of a humanoid pig, even though no humanoid pigs exist, and no one makes any remarks about his strange appearance, they only call him a pig. That is because he is a traitor of the army, labeled a pig, thus the movie portrays him as such, even though he doesn’t actually look like a pig in his own world. Only the viewer sees him as such.

A nonsensical appearance can, rooted in imagery and meaning, portray a story without actually telling it outright and is thus a creative way to entertain the viewer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddarko

As for your question on why not create something new for a change, the issue is that nothing new is actually created. What is done is to take the existing design of a comic book man and label it as a woman. That is not new. It is just absurd.

I will accept your argument should you find this very same design used for a man. Since I’m sure you cannot, this is effectively a new design by definition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddarko

Finally, on good vs. bad design, saying something is a good design is admittedly subjective for many who have not looked at the matter technically. However, leaving that aside, even a child can identify a poor design. This Spider-Woman is definitely a poor design. To explain why, consider an image of Batman by Jim Lee or just Spider Gwen shown here. Even if someone had zero knowledge of comics, no one would confuse Batman with being a woman or Spider-Gwen as being a man. This is because the image conveys very clearly as to who is a man and who is a woman. Even the most basic design principle is that ones design must convey such basic information by itself.

I fail to understand why not being able to tell the gender of a character makes for a bad design. People were unable to tell if Samus Aran, for example, was male or female at first, given her suit of armor. So was this armor a bad design? Most certainly not.

A good design can tell many things, it can also hide many things. No one needs to be able to deduce a characters identity at first glance for a design to be good.