Sprite Jam Jan26-Feb16 | Attractive Female Villains

[Misj']

Attractive Female Villains

credit: Fanpop

They are every hero's weakness: women. And why are they his weakness? - Simply because they're better than men (or so my wife tells me). So today we're going to draw the female villain. But we're not going for the old creepy witch or the ugly demon type...this is all about beauties with brains (and a desire to take over at least some part of the world...I don't care which world, or how big a part).

The challenge in this blitz lies in combining beauty and evilness; two features that are often presented as contrast (the beautiful angel vs. ugly demon cliché). She might be 'the weaker sex' (as if we really believe that), but she is certainly in control.

The rules:

• Color: You may use a maximum of 3 hues (minor hue shifts will be overlooked). You may use as many levels of saturation or lightness as you wish, but stick to a limited number of hues. Some background information can be found here.
• Size: maximum height of the sprite should be 1/4th of the screen-height you're creating it for (you may choose whatever screen-size you desire...so it's more of an arbitrary rule).
• Well that's about it actually...

As always, this Jam is open to any style and any technique. Rough sketches and character designs are always a welcome addition and much appreciated...but not obligatory. And for this Jam I'll allow multiple entries per person if you want to increase your chances of winning or when you simply feel inspired. 

Have fun drawing!

[Grok]

I did this one after only reading the title of the topic. Sorry I've not even attempted to follow the rules.

[cat]

(Link http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48771.msg636464072#msg636464072)

Sorry, I don't really feel compelled to draw yet another attractive female...

[Misj']

Sorry, I don't really feel compelled to draw yet another attractive female...

your image actually describes one of the reasons for choosing this topic. People tend to be less creative when drawing women in general and attractive women even more so. Men are always drawn with a multitude of shapes and body-types (even attractive men). For women not so much, and as a result they seem bland and without(a unique) character.

Based on your argument I would actually urge you to participate; if only to show that females can have multiple body-types and faces, and still be attractive with personality, a clear character, and unique features. Because by saying 'yet another attractive female' you're basically saying that all attractive women are (design-wise) the same and as a result - to me - you are arguing in favour of the thing you're opposed to.

So yeah, this is about a challenge in character-design where even most professional animated movies fall flat on their face. And that is what makes it an excellent subject for a Jam. And that is why I hope you will reconsider.


ps. I remember hosting a Jam for a non-cauccassian security guard in a museum. Some people were offended by that. Now you appear offended because I want people to think about better designing women...somehow it seems I can't win when it's not a middle-aged white guy

[Scavenger]

Well, you did use "standard attractive Disney Princesses as evil villains" as the header image, and you didn't mention different body types or anything at all that would clarify that you wanted a nonstandard attractive female villain. So, it really wasn't clear that breaking out of the standard paradigm was what you wanted. It really did look like you just wanted the standard. So you can't really blame Cat for that! And we have plenty of "attractive" female villains... they're just usually there to seduce the hero with their sexual wiles. :\

I wouldn't pull the "you're offended" card, though. It's more "I'm tired of this cliché." than offense. And it seems like women can only be attractive, like that's always the main thrust behind designing them. They can be other things, badass, evil, or funny, but they have to be SEXY badass, SEXY evil, or SEXY funny, and the emphasis always has to be on the SEXY. It gets really tiresome.

If you really wanted people to think about how women were designed, and to break out from that, why don't you state it in your opening post instead of focusing on "make em beauties"? x3

[Gurok]

Well, you did use "standard attractive Disney Princesses as evil villains" as the header image, and you didn't mention different body types or anything at all that would clarify that you wanted a nonstandard attractive female villain

For Disney though, this would be non-standard. Look at the history of their villains, both male and female, Cruella, Malificent, Madame Medusa (almost exactly Cruella), Jafar, Hades. To me, if that's what you're subverting, Misj', it might be better to go for attractive Disney villains (both male and female), as Disney has a pretty cookie-cutter approach to designing villains.

[Misj']

@Scavenger

Let my try to explain my thought-process for this Jam:

• Villains are generally designed to make them unattractive (often using hard angles), to ensure that their exterior reflects their interior.
• So to break that cliché, I added a contrast here by making the villain attractive.
• I then expanded on this by making her female (usually drawn using very soft angles); which is both an atypical role and much more challenging than designing a male villain. So this too was breaking the mold

Bear in mind: I didn't say 'super-model by day, archvillain by night' and I certainly didn't use the word 'sexy' (because there is a big difference between sexyness and attractiveness (and beauty). I thought about adding a line about that in the description, but then felt it to be too obvious and belittling, so I left it out).

And no, I didn't specifically mention different body-types. I also didn't mention age, hair-colour, freckles, race, species, etc. I wanted to give the contestants free-range on any of them. But you cannot argue that I'm forcing you to commit to the standard paradigm by me not telling you specifically to break out of it. Sure, there was the header-image...which I added at the very end (after I already posted the Jam) just to have some window-dressing there. Since when is that going to limit your creativity?

My Jams are always about character-design, it comes without saying (as should every Jam in my opinion). In this case I focused on two seemingly contrasting concepts (which under the hood are hard-lines vs soft-lines) so you can think about the most interesting way to solve this design puzzle. But I'm not going to spell it out for you, because that would be limiting your creativity and there is no fun in that.

As for the 'plenty attractive female villains', I disagree. There are too few female big-bads, and the seductress you're describing is generally a small side character with little personality that is a mere hindrance on the hero's quest (and potential love-interest once she's succumbed to his charms and leaves her evil ways behind). These are not villains, they're roadblocks. And the big-bads (even more so with women than men) are rarely attractive. There are - of course - exceptions, and exploring those exceptions is what this Jam is about.

I short, I'm specifically giving you all the tools for breaking the clichés but I'm not specifically telling you that you have to, because the latter should be part of your own creative process.

If you are 'tired of this cliché', then this is exactly the Jam for you; once you start thinking about what it is I'm actually asking. I'm not requesting attractiveness because women always have to be attractive, I'm requesting attractive because villains are generally not. Moreover, women are generally not drawn as (true) villains, and men more often drawn in the Jams (and often designed with more personality) than female characters. So in this Jam I'm actually forcing you out of your comfort-zone...but only if you want to.

It's up to you to interpret the rules and subject in a creative way.

[cat]

Excellent post, Scavenger! Just exactly my thoughts.

[Grok]

An attempt to follow the color rule.

The character is a cross between Kali and Hel.

[Myinah]

Cat what are you talking about?!

I mean dear god...



How will anyone...



Manage to come up with...

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Concepts for such an unusual...



And original idea as conventionally attractive female villains!

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Try not to hurt yourselves guys! It's a taxing and mind bendingly original task but I believe somehow you will manage.

[selmiak]

Thanks for the variety of sketches Myinahm, I madez a original artzworks from this

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the attractive villainess with knive tits in modern times. Thanks for the inspiration!

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[Mouth for war]

I'm going the cartoony way

[Myinah]

Selmiak at first I was like



But now I'm like



Your work is artistic genius given the limited...

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inspiration....

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available...

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for...

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attractive...

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female...

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villains....

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Kudos to you for being a trooper and working through such difficult circumstances! If "Knife Nipple Bitch" doesn't win the Sprite Jam there is no justice in this world. NO JUSTICE!

[Jim Reed]

[Mandle]

Jim...that is AMAZING!!! Hauntingly beautiful and pixel-perfect!

[Myinah]

Misj thank you for the message. It's weird you sent it as a PM and that you seem to have taken the critiques of your theme so personally. It's not a critique of you, but you are mistaken when you claim attractive female villains are uncommon. I'm not going to be entering the jam because I'm busy and uninterested in participating for similar reasons to Cat. 

All examples in my previous post were video game characters. Every single one.

Good luck with the jam!

[Grok]

I just did this one for a completely different competition, but I think it would work here too, so why not (even though it probably is outside the color rule - I just draw stuff. I'm not very technical about it.).

[Misj']

Misj thank you for the message. It's weird you sent it as a PM

I PM'ed you, because I felt that this Jam is not a place for this discussion. It is possible to do so elsewhere, but this isn't the place. PM seemed more logical than wasting space here.

That being said, I will now waste a whole lot of space here. To explain my point a bit clearer, I will also share something I posted Cat earlier today (with some minor edits):

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I do have to say, though, that I'm very much surprised how much focus is put on sexy/sexist designs. Maybe that's because people think of superhero and manga designs (most of Myinah's examples seem to cover those)...while - to me - superhero's don't have any character design at all. Neither for men, nor for women. There are a few exceptions, of course, but if you look at the image below pretty much everyone is a carbon copy of the broad-shouldered bodybuilder man or 'corset'-wearing girl. It's costume-design not character-design (basically the image you quoted would have five similar men on top and five equally similar women on the bottom).



But when I devised this Jam I really didn't feel like conforming to these - ehm - cartoony archetypes (for lack of a better term). I had four ideas when I came up with the Jam:

• a bully at an elementary school (but specifically not the cheerleader or the gothic type)
• a personification of the internet (not the most original idea, but I didn't want her to be some sexy android type which - for some reason - half-women/half-robots always have to be (although the Borg-queen has a slightly better design; especially when she's not connected to her body))
• a Cleopetra-like faraoh/queen-type person...which would be the only design that could be considered somewhat sexy (although I probably wouldn't have focused on that, because while I like drawing attractiveness, I don't really like drawing sexiness)
• something similar to the green Geisha in  Elio Lischetti's design below:
  
  

Now if you look at the language of shapes - and for this I will quote from Tom Brancroft's Creating Characters with personality - you see the following:

• Circles: evoke appealing, good characters and are typically used to connote cute, cuddly, friendly types. Consider Santa Claus, or endearing, fuzzy animals. Attractive women are often described with a lot of curves and circles, and drawings of babies usually rely heavily on circular shapes as their visual cues.
• Squares: usually depict characters who are dependable or solid, or play the heavy. Next time you're out at a club, check out the bouncer, one big old square. The design of superheroes often relies on square shapes.
• Triangles: easily lend themselves to more sinister, suspicious types and usually represent the bad guy or villain in character designs. Consider Darth Vader: His whole head is one big, mean triangle!

In addition to these shapes described by Brancroft, you also see that positive (attractive) characters tend to have soft angles (more circular) while evil (unattractive) characters have much harder angles (more triangular). A few classic examples:

Frieda from Happily n'ever after:

She's given a very triangular face to focus on her being sinister (and less attractive than the heroine).

Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty:

It's the same thing: the evil person is designed with typical hard angles and triangles, while the good person is designed with softer roundish shapes.

It's less obvious in e.g. Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas:

Here they actually seem to take a generally attractive design, and add some minor hardness (for example the fingers are extremely sharp).

Disney's Atlantis is, I think a very nice example of some varied character design, that also doesn't (entirely) conform too much to the standard (e.g. with triangles for shady characters who turn out to be good). I think Kida is very 'traditional', but Audrey is - to me at least - not any less attractive (even though her design is much less conventionally shaped). On the other hand, I think Helga is a good example of an attractive but evil design. Her harshness is mostly from her expression and not so much her shape:




So yeah, those were just some thoughts I thought I'd write down for you. Gives you something to think about when you have some extra time

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Since I mention your examples in the above text I will go through them (I've included the 'style' and the origin of the character's design (not necessarily this incarnation of her outfit)). They are:

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1. mystique (superhero) - comicbook (your version: comicbook).

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2. posion ivy (superhero) - comicbook (your version: figurine based on J. Scott Campbell's drawing).

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3. catwoman (superhero) - comicbook (your version: computer game) - also not so much a real villain (criminal mastermind yes, villain no) in the Batman universe.

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4. Harley Quinn (superhero) - animated series (your version: computer game).

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5. Maleficent (the life action version, and personally I really don't see the attractiveness of Angelina Jolie, but that's an entirely different story) - animated movie (your version: life action).

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6. I guess: Sniper Wolf (manga) - computer game (your version is a drawing for a figurine). Also, personally I would have chosen one of the less sexualized designs.

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7. I don't know, had to look it up (Cia from Zelda). But she is a good example.

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8. Also don't know her, but she actually has an interesting (and non-sexualized but still feminine) design. From a quick read on the borderland wiki, I however doubt she's a true villain. Maybe I'm wrong, but from the description there she seems more selfish than villainous.

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9. Dahlia Hawthorne (manga) - computer game.
10. Still have never played any borderland game (and still don't care to), so I didn't know her either.
11. Amanda Evert - computer game
12. A succubus from  world of warcraft - original design is from folklore because a succubus is a seductress; your version is a specific design from a computer game. Strictly speaking not a villain though but a minion (and yes, there is a huge difference).

I also don't really understand why you chose - in many cases - these renderings of the characters, so I added some additional images that have a slightly different focus and feel.

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As I said, in my opinion superheros and manga generally lack good character designs (but rather focus on costume designs); especially for main characters (as always there are exceptions!). As a result, in relationship to the image quoted by cat, both the upper-row (men) and lower-row (women) would be mostly a repetition of the same character in different outfits and with different hairstyles.

Also, since the Jam is about character-design (to me), you have to quickly and easily recognize character's personality (otherwise you're not a designing a character). You have to tell the entire story in a single sprite. Otherwise you could enter the same sprite every time and just say: and now he's a pirate...sure he doesn't look like one but I tell you he is. That doesn't make sense. Take your example of Dahlia Hawthrone, for example, you might be completely correct that within the story she's both a villain and attractive, but from a character design point-of-view she is (possibly intentionally) only the latter.

you seem to have taken the critiques of your theme so personally. It's not a critique of you, but you are mistaken when you claim attractive female villains are uncommon.

I take it personally in so far that I think your reaction here doesn't add to the competition (but in my opinion actually undermines it). I have no problem discussing the subject of women as portrayed by men, but this competition is not the place. Especially, since I did not force anyone into the cliché of - as you worded it - 'conventionally attractive female villains', and you a free (and actually welcomed) to show that this cliché can and should be broken. But you seem not interested in doing so, and that I cannot understand.

What bothers me most is this: even if we assume that attractive female villains are a dime a dozen, and if we state that the portrayal of these women is uninspired (and in many cases questionable). Then why not show that things can be different...better? - Why stop at critiquing without the desire to change things?

Secondly, when was the last Sprite Jam specifically about designing a women (honestly, I didn't look it up, so it might be like two weeks ago, I don't know)? - Are we honestly saying that women, or specifically attractive women, are uninspiring? - How can we expect people to come up with original and interesting designs for (attractive) women if we're undermining a competition that is specifically dedicated to that? - Because really, I will probably stick to men and gender-agnostic (where hardly anyone ever draws a woman) subjects for Jams for the time being, because I sense a lot of hostility that I truly feel is more harmful to the portrayal of women than it is constructive.

And that, in short, is my point: I'm very glad people are passionate about the portrayal of women in media and about the subject of this Jam. But in light of this competition, please proof your point by drawing a better, more creative character design. Because then you are actually showing that things can be better.




ps. also, there are plenty of Jams that I didn't join because I felt the theme wasn't right for me, or because I didn't feel inspired. Everyone should decide that for him or herself, and it's a very valid reason not to participate. I definitely won't hold that against you.

[cat]

I think this discussion is too interesting to restrict it to PM. Maybe a moderator can split it of into a separate thread?

Anyway, I'll go from this quote, because this best describes my issues with the topic.

Also, since the Jam is about character-design (to me), you have to quickly and easily recognize character's personality (otherwise you're not a designing a character).

Being attractive is not a part of personality. It describes a visual feature (or rather the lack of: I've seen a report about a study where they were showing portraits of men and women and the task was, to rate attractiveness. It turned out that attractiveness is not the result of certain facial features, but merely the lacking of anything deviating from the norm. The blandest face was rated most attractive). So from a point of character design, you could also have said the character has to be a female villain with red hair, it would not have made any difference.

Personality always has to do with feelings, experiences and motivations. You could have said the villain should be vain or superficial. Or maybe that the villain puts a lot of effort into hiding that she is actually the antagonist. I could work with that.

I think I start to understand what you tried to achieve with this topic, but I think you set it up the wrong way. What you want is non-stereotypical villains. But this has nothing to do with attractiveness. I'm not very proficient with Disney characters, but from your last post at least to me Maleficent is much more attractive than the green geisha. I think I would have perceived this whole sprite jam much differently had you called it "non-stereotypical female villain" and then given the examples you did above.

So I was certainly not offended by the topic, I just thought it was uninspired and uninspiring. I should have known from your previous posts on the forum that you put lot of effort in this jam, but sadly it didn't shine through. So sorry from me for imputing uninspiredness.
I'd love to enter a sprite jam (or actually character design jam) where you get a description of a character's personality (I own and love Bancroft's books) and then you have to design from that, similar to last background workshop. But being attractive is just not a character trait, it's a visual feature.

[Myinah]

I too was not even slightly offended by the theme. I just believed you were mistaken when you said there are few attractive female villains and I stand by that. There are plenty. They are both sexy and attractive. Just because they are also sexy doesn't detract from their beauty which is what you seem to imply.

Now I understand you mean you want a non stereotypical female villain but have simply explained it a little poorly in your posts. That is a much more interesting topic. By saying attractive though you made the jam feel more restrictive and more stereotypical IMO. But it's never been me being offended by it. I was just pointing out with my images that there are plenty of attractive female villains.

I think it was a fair point to make as you were pretty adamant and defensive when it was brought up so I thought providing some evidence to counter that was helpful to the discussion.

Additionally as you were willing to address everyone else publicly I felt it strange you singled me out to PM. I wasn't offended but I prefer a public discussion where it can be moderated when one party in particular seems to be a bit more heated and invested in the issue.

But honestly there is no offense and understanding your intent I can see why you were getting frustrated that people were misunderstanding you. It's just a shame the first post was worded in a way that it did not adequately convey your intentions for the theme.