User blog:Angel Emfrbl/My thoughts on Vocaloid designs...

User_blog:Angel_Emfrbl/My_thoughts_on_design

Please read this abovve also.

So I said earlier this month that I'd do a talk about designs.The thing I find about Vocaloid is you can dislike or like different aspects of a Vocaloid package. The boxart design, the Vocaloid design, the voice.... And you can have very different opinions on one over the other. Take for instance SeeU, I dislike SeeU's voice a lot, I think her boxart was a wasted opportunity, but despite how formulic it is I think the design of SeeU is overall cute. So 2/3 of the issues with SeeU are negative.

Bare in mind that once I';ve seen a design I just file it and focus on the voice, as I said in the above blog, I've had training in the art area and I know its literally a eye catcher. So I tend to be mroe resistant, but not entirely, of certain marketing points of the vocaloid design. I also have a degree in art so I can talk more about art design then most.

So lets begin

I'm going to judge designs from Leon/Lola upwards, since they don't really have designs they are the best place to start.

V1

 * Lola; So Lola#'s art goes for a simple boxart and she ends up with no design for this reason, making it impossible to judge her beyond "she has red lips". I think Zero-G choose a better approach then Cantor did, as  Cantor feels like a science lesson and would have been more suited for a piece of science/biology software. 2/10 Because of the design is shared by Leon, there is no way you can rate this high, plus its not really a design as per say either. :-/
 * Leon; then we get to Leon who is the first disappointment of Vocaloid design. We know only he has blue skin and that he has a blue hue to the skin.  Oddly, I think Zero-G would have been better going with their primarily design they were going to use for the "Soul vocalist" boxart, and had they done we'd not have white-Leon in use for a missed matched portrayal by the fandom.1/10 due to the laziness of the recolour, I mean come on you can still tell this is a woman's lips!
 * Miriam; This was a better choice of design, going for a blurred photo of Miriam Stockliegh, gives the fans a little more to work with then Leon and Lola. Stock images are really hard to judge because they are not of the character but merely there to demostrate the concept of the voice. Miriam is no different, its Miriam Stockleigh's voice, thats about it.... Its actually, in my opinion, the best designed box of V1, but we're not talking about box designs, we're talking about character.  So I can't give this too high a mark 3/10.
 * Meiko; Okay now we get onto the first true "design", yet still nto an avatar representing a Vocaloid at this point. So we have a awkwardly drawn woman in a really far-fetched pose thats likely impossible within physics and horribly too bold.  the artist basically failed, because most of the time when you try a extreme pose, it ends up looking just wrong and its pretty common.  I've seen some One Piece characters in Video Games look worst, saying this... One of Sir crocodile's poses for the Grand Battle games is by far the worst of any character.... So there is worst, but that is no excuse.  There are people who think her right hand is a left hand due to its position and appearance. Overall I think the design is pretty much boring.  But at this stage it was okay.  My thoughts are that this reminds me of characcter designs of the 80s and 90s, which is the other issue.  The style that Meiko and Kaito was in was also popular in the early 2000s, but was starting to go out of style by the mid-2000s.  So this bring sthe whole. 3/10
 * Kaito; Okay its the same style, an extreme pose, but its not as badly executed and there is no confusion. I've seen complaint that the brown trousers look tacky, but I recall this was acceptable in the 90s and early 2000s.  The Japanese anime scene often went for this sort of "street" feel, and Kaito feels like it was trying to be a 2000 earl period "Street" feel.  In that respects, its not an aweful design, just outdated.  So it has the feel of being out of fashion even though its not that old. 4/10 since it works slightly better then Meiko's, but its still pretty bad.

Vocaloid2

 * Sweet Ann; so now we run into the first doozy of a design. Its not fair to call Sweet Ann when the "character" on the box is of a beautiful women in her own right... Its what they did to edit the woman that is the problem.  So Sweet Ann, and for the most part Big Al, were suppose to have this retro chic space-louge look about them, and were based on Frankenstein Monsters.  Due to some unfortunate editing, poor Ann is left looking a mess of poor choices.
 * Hatsune Miku; Iliterally did not think Miku was Vocaloid based on her design when I first saw her and thought she was out of a highschool sci-fi setting. I was half right on the character concept,but not where she was from.  This is where vocaloid gets a lot of its design problems from.  Miku herself offers nothing that wasn't done in a number of characters previously, but she got highly acknowledged.  As a consequences, Miku's design is very easy to copy without trying, because if you don't know Miku but know the tropes of anime character design, you can produce a like-character without trying.  It might not have the same colour hair, or outfit, but pigtails and school clothing is common in Japan, along with long-hair. Sailor Moon is much to think for this.  But her design is easily one of the most recognizable due to how much its in our faces a lot, you know Miku so well that when a character like Stardust comes along, the problem isn't about her looking like Miku... Its about having to take a second glance to make sure its not Miku, Ring had this same problem.   Its like in Pokemon how every generation of the games has a Pikachu clone electric rodent, and it notices, with the most recent one being the worst offender as it has the same colours more or less as Pikachu's evolved form Raichu. And the fact that Pikachu is the most common Pokemon to come across... PRetty much means your used to him.  So for this reason I can't give Miku alow mark,as the design is distinct... But the design is boring... so I can't rate it high either.  Even if the design wasn't common, the choice to user black/grey colours is a problem.  Black is not a colour, but the asent of colour altogether, its flat and obsorbs light.  Its hard to make black look "2D"ish and too much of grey/black can make a design look drab and dull.... and thats bad when you consider the choice of colour to go with it is a blue... The one thing going for Miku's design also is it shows you what to expect... A cute Japanese school girl design...  5/10
 * Kagamine rin/Len. Okay so the same formulic issue apply to these two once again, but not every design problem is here.  The choice of yellow hair and a white shirt (unlike black, white is a reflection of light) makes the two stand out, and there designs are matched so you can tell these two are a pair the moment you see them.  There is no mistake in not thinking these two are not "twins" as per say. Plus they have the other advantage of showing whats in the box is what to expect... Two teenage vocals.  the only thing wrong is that they are for the same voice provider, which means Len is not quite what you think he is and this lets the product down. You expect a shota/young masculine vocal and basically get a female vocal... because they are voice acted. 5/10
 * Prima; So we get a step down and around compared to Miriam. We have a professional opera singer and the design of the woman compliments the vocaloid she is meant to be.  Like Leon and Lola... Really hard to judge this stuff.

To be continued...