attempting to understand character design through identity v part I

Opening segment

recently i've been watching a lot of videos from tbskyen on youtube, which are mostly about character design in league of legends. even though i don't care about league of legends at all, i still really like his videos since they've helped me understand how to analyze character designs. since i've started getting into this subject i've talked with my partner about character designs in genshin impact and we've talked about what we would change about them. (for some added context: i really dislike genshin impact and have a lot of criticisms of it, he really likes genshin but agrees with a lot of my complaints/thinks it has a lot of missed potential)

i have a lot of fun doing this, so i wanted to start making posts about it on here. i'm picking identity v mainly because i just really like it, it's been one of my biggest hyperfixations for almost three years. the hunters have a lot of variety in the designs that are super interesting to look at, and even the survivors have the added bonus of being puppets and having stitches/stuffing in specific places or their buttons being unique.

you don't have to play idv to read this, and i would really appreciate you giving it a chance even if you don't! but be warned, some of the specifics of the setting won't be explained here, and i'll still talk about some things that you need context for. still, i hope you can understand most of my writing :)

Lucky Guy

starting with lucky, who has no canon backstory or really personality, which makes it a little hard to analyze him based on those things. still, we can look at this design as what it's trying to be: a plain character used for the tutorial. and this design definitely succeeds at that! he looks very generic, you can't really get a sense of what his job is or what kind of person he is. normally that would be a negative, but for him it works. you can sort of understand that he's a nervous character from his expression, which is consistent with the very very few things we know about him. his outfit is sort of timeless, the t shirt over a long sleeved shirt and the sneakers are thought of as modern, but don't necessarily mean he's from modern times. these kinds of clothing have been around for a while, and the dull colors help him blend in with the game's older aesthetic. the stuffing coming out of his sleeve implies that he's injured and maybe has a wound on his arm, which is likely true based on that diary page from several years ago that showed him to be seriously mentally and physically affected by the manor games.

the main critique i have for him is that i wish he had something that showed his "luck" in the design, a four leaf clover design on his clothes or a rabbits foot charm, even something that isn't always associated with luck but can be thought of as a luck symbol to him specifically would work. still, this isn't something actually wrong with the design, just a missed opportunity.

friend commentary:

"i think lucky guy has a good design. it's simplistic which is what it needs to achieve for the character yet it still has a uniqueness to it, giving him his own character"

overall, this design gets an A from me.

more characters will come soon, hopefully with more than one per post. but, i am writing this at 1:35 am, and i'm getting too sleepy to do another one tonight.