Why all western game's charecter designs are so ugly?

[firzenex]

Hongfire, you do realize that maybe it's because our aesthetic tastes and ideals differ from those in the east? Many of us Westerners loathe the huge eyed and disproportionate anime style character designs prevalent in Asian media. The heroes of games like Half Life or Grand Theft Auto would simply not roll with western audiences if they were represented as effeminate bishounen types.

To sum it up, it's all matter of distinct artistic tastes.

Of course, I'm using the terms "westerners" and "easterners" here in a rhetorical way simply to get my point across. Just because a person is of Asian descent doesn't necessarily mean that his tastes would reflect Eastern stereotypes, likewise if a person is American or European also doesn't mean that he or she will only prefer products of Western media.

Well posted.
I would of ranted in such a manner, so instead I'll just rehash what Hayate had to say. With a twist of course....

It would be appropriate to say that everyone has their views and opinions concerning artistic protrayl of characters whether real or not. Of course the medium that they're also presented in provides a certain degree of judgement.

To go with that Hayate said, you wouldn't expect sailor moon to dash out in a GTA game to help save the protagonist from being killed, nor would you expect Sam fischer to come sneaking up behind any Haruhi characters.

to put it bluntly, it depends on the medium and whats being called for. Cause frankly you could draw every dragon ball Z character Realistically and they probably wouldn't look bad. Take South park for example:
This is what the characters would normally look like:

Spoiler

This is a Realistic rendition of the Main characters:

Spoiler

Now depending on how you view this you may think its either ugly or interesting or even beautiful.

as one would say: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Theres not much else to say, other than that everyone has experimented with realistic, cartoonish, and anime-ish styles of drawings. Theres a personal touch to each 'work' so it might be hard to find everything likeable. But if you generalize the West as having Ugly "animated" characters than well thats what you think....The reverse could be said about Japanese animation, since no one person is ever going to like everything.

good day to you sir.

[Fenir]

Does anyone else realize that western character design is "realistic" only in that it relies on more detail and adheres to (often exaggerated) anatomy? Really, it's only a difference in aesthetic tastes. But as to why western character designs are so "hard" looking(my term), I blame Boris Vallejo(I don't really think it's really his fault, I just want to blame him).
And for the record, I prefer eastern character design.

[Tiexandrea]

if the character had a good personality and a good backstory, i can forgive an awful design...

i liked Squall Leonhart even if he looked like a girl...
i liked Sam Fisher even if he looks like my dad...
i liked both Cloud Strife and Gabriel Logan even if their heads looked like a huge Lego block...

[SFOHollandMGO]

Hong...Im gonna break it down to you...you probaly already know the answer....

the reason why is because...Americans want:

SPACE MARINE

If its not space marine, designers just wont try, they'll crutch off someone else's idea...space marine is super tired out and a diluted design. For the Japanese, their crutch is "school girl", but somehow they keep it fresh (I dont know how, but they do).

[whiteninja]

to put it bluntly, it depends on the medium and whats being called for. Cause frankly you could draw every dragon ball Z character Realistically and they probably wouldn't looks bad. Take South park for example:

Sorta reminds me of that episode of the simpsons...

Spoiler

[Z3120]

^^ reminds me of the kids from the old cartoon called Captain Planet

And yeah, in the end, it's all up to one's own preference of what they ultimately like. It's like trying to end the old age debate of what genre of games if better than the other.

[Silver]

I actually prefer western character design. It feels that for asian designers an orginal character means more weird shit attached to their bodies. The more, the better cuz you want to be orginal, eh? Also, asian game characters are way too emo

some of the coolest western stuff (in my opinion):




edit: To hongfire: What do you find ugly in western style characters? ...since character design -term is rather flexible.

[Conrad]

Arrrrr....

Ever seen "No More Heroes" game? In me eye, it's a sample of what a Western game would look like if Japanese were fully involved on the development.

[jokermausland]

asian game characters are way too emo

Quoted for truth!

[jenl12343]

Japanese character design has too many girly men so they aren't much better.