Is It WRONG to Redesign Characters? (Why People Are Mad) || SPEEDPAINT + COMMENTARY 

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Redesigns are so common in art in general and in fandom especially, it's wild to see such strong reactions to it lately. I wonder If I avoided the worst of it for so long because my fandoms were chill about it or because it has gotten worse lately.

I don’t think redesigns are inherently bad, especially when most artists state that they’re meant for fun. Fans of the characters should take a moment to consider if the redesign was made in bad faith instead of assuming and jumping off artists off the bat.

my opinion.. its okay to redsign.. i think it ccan be flattering. what isnt flattering is saying your redesigning it because you think its trash. especially animated characters who cant have too much detail becaue you have to draw it it over and over again. or because its not in an art style you like... it doesn't make it bad it just means you don't like it. That's like me taking one piece characters and redsigning them to look like bleach characters and calling it better. its uncalled for.

While I think redesigns are fine, I do find it a little pretentious when people say they "fixed" a design.

I am of the mindset that character redesigns make the most sense when you are approaching the character from a totally different perspective, whether that be through things like personality or style swaps or imagining what they would look like in specific AUs or other, preexisting properties. Granted, this is a perspective coming from someone who has received multiple pieces of fanart that re-imagine my characters in a different setting. Sometimes my character is depicted as the artists imagine them were they actually a mermaid or a goddess or an otherworldly fighter. I don’t personally take offence to these because I understand that the intention behind them is artistic expression and love that they choose to have manifest in a unique way, both in terms of visual expression as well as their own personal interpretations and preferences. I approach characters from a very “this is the role they need to fill for the story” kind of way and I assume that plenty of other artists do the same but to varying degrees. So when an artist creates a character design for a story, I imagine that they have finely tuned this design to reflect very *specific* aspects about the character’s personality or backstory. Sure, their own personal tastes are going to shine through in those designs but that’s part of what makes everyone’s own stories unique. Whatever facets the design focuses on are those which the artist themselves have chosen to be the most important to understanding this character and their role in the story. A character who’s not terribly well put together may sport a haphazard, asymmetrical design with contrasting or uncoordinated colours, whereas a very serious, stoic character with a tragic backstory may dress in very prim and proper neutral shades but with a notable crack in their glasses that they’ve never bothered to have fixed. Doing a flat redesign of a character as they exist in their original story is basically saying that you know better how to convey this character than the person who created them. Given that so many peoples’ interpretations of a character can be *vastly* different than what was intended, this seems a little ridiculous in some regards and *very* presumptuous in others. I’m not going to redesign Gravity Falls characters and claim that I know better how to express them than the show creators. But, *for example,* if I were to reimagine an older property like Street Sharks in the modern day, I might redesign the characters and update their designs to fit more modern aesthetics. Similar to how the TMNT change through different iterations of the property over multiple generations. Maybe I take characters like Panty and Stocking and imagine what they would look like if their personalities were switched. You could take characters from a fantasy setting and redesign them how you imagine they would look in a modern, urban setting, or vice versa. If you think a property’s character designs are inappropriate then a redesign into something more age appropriate or socially/legally acceptable may also work, though I think that may hit some grey areas because what if the inappropriate nature of them *was* the point? Honestly, I would love to see more “character redesign” videos that explore what the characters would look like in different properties or AUs. I find them to be the most engaging and interesting form of the genre. I see them every once in a while but it feels like I’m mostly recommended the lesser of the two. Nice, thought provoking video~ I’m glad to see this topic discussed so in depth and with such nuance~ It sometimes feels as though artists can be so quick to jump on one opinion or another based on subjective opinion or community pressure, without really thinking about the details as to why that opinion exists or the facets behind it. My personal opinion of redesign videos have always been a little strained and this video goes over so many of those lurking concerns. It’s nice to think that newer artists may be blossoming into the community watching content like this that really gets them to think about their stance on big community talking points~

Redesigns are all well and good. But the second you say you're "fixing" a design, you're an asshole. That's the threshold.

I think it's fascinating that there's been a big trend of drawing Miku Hatsune as if she was from your own hometown or country lately, and I've not noticed anyone shouting how "race bending is bad!!!" about it. Which has been refreshing! I remember watching all the hate that artists like Thumin would get for drawing their favorite characters black, whether as art cosplay or just a hypothetical of "what if this popular character was black?" and using that as character design practice. It's usually just for fun, yet people get so heated! It's been nice seeing people just have fun with redesigns for a bit, even if it's just for a "trend".

Redesigns are fine, my only problem with the Hazbin redesigns is that a lot of them felt like their intention was to "fix" the originals, rather than just putting a fun personal spin on the characters. With like, mlp redesigns, I never had any doubt that the original designs were respected or loved, like, it never felt like the intention was to "fix" it. I have seen hazbin resigns by people who clearly were just... playing around and having fun, and those designs didn't get the hate that these other designs got. I also think, though, that this might be fueled by the fact that Hazbin got a lot of negative press on RU-vid, it was pretty difficult to find people who praised the show, and anyone who did often prefaced it with the fact they know the show is flawed which is, of course, true but it made it seem like you were supposed to be ashamed of liking the show, which probably made fans of the show more sensitive to criticisms or negative talk about it hypersensitivity to criticism in response to the prescription of hyper-negativity (because the show has pretty good reviews and seems rather loved, even if the way people on youtube talked about it wouldn't have given you that impression) is a pretty common problem in fandom spaces but, I mean, in my opinion this situation has a lot of nuisance, and a lot of that is in the context around the whole thing. The Original lavender town video (and I adore lavender town, to be clear, and I never commented nor do I endourse the hate she got) but her original video was bad. It set out to critique designs for a show she hadnt finished watching, and it ignored a lot of the design conventions of said show. Which would be fine if criticism wasnt her goal, but the fact that was her goal meant that it came off like she didnt think that it was worth it to understand the reasons behind the choices made for the character designs, like she thought those designs were so bad that she could scrap everything about them which just feels incredibly disrespectful and dismissive, and I was super disappointed and a lot of my critique of those types of redesign videos, again, the ones made to improve on the original designs, comes from people who dismiss the originals and dont acknowledge why certain design desicions were made the implication being that the artists behind the original designs do not deserve to be acknowledged as intelligent artists making decisions for like reasons. and I think thats super gross for artists to do to each other But overall its I dont know, thats just what I think, obviously people can disagree and I also disagree with the notion all redesigns are all bad and pretentious Normally redesigns are fine, you just gatta do the bare necessity of like... Being... Respectful?

I think it all comes down to attitude, if you’re coming from a place of positivity like a “what if _ was ____” scenario or something. But when you’re coming from a place of trying to feign superiority like “this person’s designs are complete shit and I’m gonna fix them because my personal taste is the objectively correct good version”, that’s when people start having problems. Nobody likes a stuck up jerk who thinks they’re better than everyone else, but unfortunately it’s an attitude that’s become more common in the art sphere lately.

Until this video, I had no idea that this was a controversy. I love watching people redesign characters for AUs or Neytrix's character redesign series for entertainment and inspiration

It's definitely the language used when making redesigns. Words like "fixing" and "made better" are a quick way to make people turn sour on you. Redesigns in general are really fun to do and see, imo.

I personally see redesigns as other artists vision for other artists concepts and there's nothing bad about that. The only thing that bothers me is calling it fixing because it feels like the person is trying to fix it like the original design is "broken". I overall like when people are comparing redesigns to the ogs and saying what they like about both of these

throwing in my two cents: i love putting my own spin and flair on characters from my favourite media!! i love giving MLP characters slight redesigns because they're fun to draw and it's fun to imagine what they might look like with certain colours and details that likely wouldn't have made it into the final show or incorporate stuff i just think would look nice on them. for example, i like to draw Twilight Sparkle with more star-like patterns because i love the scrapped concept from the MLP pitch bible of unicorns using star and astrology magic (and because Twilight is a huge astrology nerd). i like giving my favourite characters certain features that look appealing to me (like differing hairstyles, more colours, different body types etc) whenever i draw them. these redesigns are made for fun and putting ideas i think would be cool for them into realisation. i do also agree with redesigns as a critique when done in good faith. using MLP as an example again, there is a character from MLP G5 whose design i really don't like, which is Opaline. i personally find her colours to be very garish and hard to look at, and certain design elements (such as the slight white patch of fur she has around her mouth area) to be off putting and very unappealing. not to be rude, but i think her design is a mess. i think it would be okay for me to redesign her in a way that i would personally enjoy with improvements i would make, but to say that the designers are bad at their jobs and to insinuate my design is objectively superior would be incredibly disrespectful and just mean. it's ok to not like a design and think you would enjoy it more if it had certain elements that are different from the original, but to say you're "fixing" the design just comes off as trying to say you're better than the original designer. that's just dickhead behaviour. on the topic of redesigning an OC or a personal character, i tend to keep it as close to the original as possible while adding a little bit of my own original flair, usually a few extra details or colour differences. redesigning a personal character is more of a case-by-case thing as some artists don't like it when people redesign their characters, which is perfectly fine. i remember hearing about people drawing someone's fat oc thin and trying to excuse it with "it's just my style" or "i don't like the original design so i changed it" and i think that's a really rude thing to do, especially with a character who has a very stigmatised body type that already gets erased enough. if an artist is okay with their character being redesigned, that's cool! if they're not, that's also cool! i know i wouldn't like to have any designs or characters i make to be disrespected that way. i think it's good to respect an artist's wishes. it's polite and considerate.

That happens all the time in the art world, a lot of professional artists have interpretations of popular character redesigns in their portfolios. Mostly, character redesign is only an asshole move if it’s an indie artist’s personal ocs. If it’s a commercial character from a commercial property, fair use still exists and is fair game.

Honestly I tend to see redesigns of characters in a negative light since the ones I have seen were usually made by people who were claiming to be "fixing" the design so I’ve been avoiding all redesign videos no matter what. But honestly this video is making me reconsider that in the way of giving these videos a chance instead of just scrolling past. It’s really nice to see someone trying to be as objective as possible on matters like this and even mentioning that some topics are always in some ways gonna be subjective Great analysis on this topic honestly! I’ve seen a few of your vids before and they’re all really lovely! Keep up the good work! I’m definitely gonna subscribe so I can watch more of these!

The most common reason people hate redesigns is because they call it "fixing", or at least talk about the process as if it was fixing it. (Like, 90% of Momo Yaoyorozu redesigns, even if they don't call it fixing her, definately intend to "fix" her) Another controvery comes from race, gender, and sexuality swaps, as well as giving a character a drastically different body type, or erasing an important part of their design. And finally, there's the cultural designs. Like, I saw a video where a group of artists redesigned Pokemon, and what they actually meant was removing every interesting feature from Pokemon because its "not accurate" (they couldn't understand that the Pokemon they were redesigning weren't based on European folklore, but instead, a variety of myths and legends from throughout the world)

i love your chanel so much, when i hyperfocus on drawing and dont want music, i listen to you cause you give a good objective point of view on the situation and your videos are long enough to last a few hours of drawing. also, you're a really good artist, visually and and morally.

While I generally like redesigns and Lavender Town I absolutely hated both of her hazbin videos because they both felt like she was trying to fix the characters designs while ignoring parts of the characters traits to justify it. For example she just threw Husks whole design out the window because she just didn't like him as a cat with wings or a cat at all really She also ignored how Charlie doesn't want to use her princess status to forward her goal opting to make her more princess like anyway The other two were alright, not my taste but not particularly offensive or anything

I like redesigns, I love seeing other people's spins on existing characters! But the problem a lot of people in the Hellaverse fandom, myself included, have is when people redesign the characters to "fix" them, to prove that they're infinitely better character designers than Vivziepop. They tend to completely miss or flat out ignore the design intent and inspirations to tell us that their ideas are what the characters "should" look like, and it's extremely pretentious and off-putting. Obviously not all Hellaverse redesigners are like that, but after seeing so many people do it out if spite and no desire to understand the source material, I don't blame the fandom for getting a bit defensive and wary, as unhealthy as having that mindset is 24/7. Artists like LavenderTowne shouldn't be attacked, but I think criticism is warranted against this honestly arrogant attitude, because as artists, I think we should know better than to put down people's work to prop up our own, especially if their work isn't doing anything wrong aside from not being your personal taste.

"Character redesign is contraversial." Okay... then why does Fan Art exist, when fan art is made in a fans own representation of the original character and is usually done in a way that redesigns something, such as hair, clothing, body shape, body proportions? Biggest example, some people draw their favorites with much bigger and larger assets than the original, some draw their favorites more cuter than the original, some draw it more "mature" from what maturity is in their perspective.

My personal opinion is that redesigns are fine, as long as they don't say they are 'fixing' art. Because fixing implies that something is wrong with the art to begin with. I also don't like it when they do race swaps or completely change the character's attitude. Those both ruin characters.

Redesigns are not bad it’s fun to see characters in other styles it’s when they say it’s fixing them that is a problem. Fixing sends a message that you know better than the original artist that made the art.

lavendertowne deserved none of the hate period.

To me redesigning a character is the same as remixing a song. It's just someone putting their spin on something, and people are valid to like it or dislike it.

It's not like these redesigns are cannon so idk why people would get all worked up on this

Thank you so much for actually taking the time to consider this in a nuanced and respectful way. I agree with your points, so I don't really have anything to add, but I just wanted to say I'm happy to hear a voice of reason above all the bizarre aggressiveness on both sides. Another great video!

Sincere thank you for touching on this topic, I seriously am sick of media stans harassing & threatening those who do redesigns, even if it's the smallest change of a character. ❤❤❤

I've been enjoying many artists on RU-vid creating Concord character redesign videos and not a single hate on their videos. Didn't know there are some people who see redesigning characters as bad. Redesigning is also a good practice for beginners because they unknowingly learn how to properly use references to create new designs instead of just copying the reference or designing everything from scratch.

Redesign are fine, as long as the commentary isn't just about how trash they are. Instead, comment your opinion, how you visualize it and the way you made it accurate and still appliable in the show. Redesigns are just the canon characters' designs, but in your way.

I watch a lot of artists here on YT because of their redesign videos and I think that if the redesigns are in good faith/for fun or are used to give constructive, useful critique to the original creator of the character I think it is completely fine. I will admit that throughout this entire video I did keep thinking back to MIraculous Ladybug character redesigns and was hoping that you would have a section within this video about characters created by people who are, to the majority of people online, "Bad actors" such as the writer, senior animator and director of miraculous ladybug Thomas Astruc. I personally think the only good hero design from that series is Queen Bee (who is a spoiled rich civilian girl named Chloe) and though I see the majority of designers redesign and rewrite the characters with more... subjectively, but one could argue that it is objectively, bad writing and designs like the main characters Adrien and Marinette. I would like to argue for writers/directors like Thomas Astruc who have countlessly taken respectful or opinionated redesigns/critiques terribly and responded very poorly, that the redesigns that come in bad faith could also be valid. I don't know if you addressed this in the art fixing video because a lot of people do use the term "fixing" in their titles for miraculous redesigns. On a similar note, it would have been interesting to see the opinions of other people within this video about their own opinions on Redesigns and why they think it is okay/why they do it and not just your own opinion as to why the people being negative towards it may be, in your opinion, unfair. I believe this because you mention how its a very subjective and opinion-based argument and so it would have been interesting for you to get other peoples opinions and share them in the video, wether it be the twitter following or your yt creator friends ect.

I do redesign videos! Funnily enough, I don't know how many of them can be considered a regular redesign because I always put a big spin on it and never try to fix or change the original media but add to the fanfare

Redesign for fun is whatever, redesign to "fix" other people's characters is kinda pretentious. But I mean, we all have oddballs and exceptions for this rule, as "redesigns" for stuff like that Concord game seems to be pretty well received, but that thing was run through the mud mainly because of bad character design and it was an unanimous opinion

I think it could be better to call it "Drawing It in My Style" rather than "Redesign". However, that won't get as many clicks

I've only ever redesigned "dead" OCs from my past, never really characters from anything I watch or play

I feel like there's a difference between "I like this thing/these characters and here is my take on them based on knowledge I have from my interaction with the media" vs "i don't like this series/artist/designs and i am going to fix them even though i don't have knowledge or context to do so accurately and I'm gonna talk as if i know better than the creators" One comes from a place of love and the other a place of ego. Then there's AU "redesigns" which I personally don't count as redesigns in the same vein as straight redesigns as it's more of like an art challenge prompt, "draw this chara but in this setting" usually involves keeping a lot of their more canon design aspects (vs redesigns that often reimagine or altogether remove aspects) as the goal is to keep them easily recognizable.

Pre-watch, predicting she’ll bring up Natlan characters

Personally? I see nothing wrong with redesigning a character *as long as it's not made with the intentions of mocking the original* Redesigns for all i know are supposed to be fun stuff you do when you want to put your spin on an existing character and see how you'd do it in your own way, whether you want to make them historically/culturally accurate or just want to have fun Although i can't really speak for everyone whether they're okay with their ocs to be redesigned by others, so I'd say you should ask them if they're okay with it (i personally don't mind when people redesign my ocs, i do admit I'm not the best character designer, haha)

My issue is when people are clearly just doing "redesigns" of something with a large fandom purely for the clout. No shit you're going to get backlash if you try to cynically profit off of fandoms for things you clearly don't even like. Do people take things too far? Yeah but I think the anger was warranted even if a lot of the actions weren't. Fandom is not a business niche. It's not for people to make a quick buck off of and I'm really REALLY sick of people going "oh I'll make fanart for (popular thing) and get some quick money and attention" while having NO knowledge or love of the source material. That isn't what fandom is FOR and it's really annoying when it keeps happening. Is it really THAT hard to just make art/videos about topics you actually enjoy? Christ.

It's surprising to see that this discourse has turned into such a big thing. I'm sure there are people out there who get too big for their britches and act like transformative work *is* an objective thing, but pretty much all of the redesigns I've seen don't claim to be anything other than subjective changes based on subjective critique. Idk, I think as long as you're upfront about what you're trying to do and give actual critique rather than hate, you're good. It always seemed to me like being transformative and incorporating oneself into the work are just the nature of fan art, redesign or not, so the concept of seeing those things as an issue is pretty foreign to me 😅

I felt so bad for LavanderTowne

Redesigns are a blast! And I’m gonna keep drawing my MLP redesigns, thank you very much.

did you got remarried? congrats on your marriage with milanote !

4:27 hypnosis mic jumpscare

Redesigns for established characters from IPs can be fun based on the tone of the artist. If the artist is more playful or doing it for fun as an experiment/exercise it is fine. The issue is when they come into it with a the "I can do it better" mindset or try to slide in the more intrusive ideals or beliefs into it.

Personally I like the character redesigns, and it wouldbe very cool if the redesigns being used for a show's potential episode on trying different looks, etc.

celestia, tell ther truth. did you divorce squarespace, or did she divorce you? why did you break up? will you ever get back together? spill the tea!

I personally enjoy seeing redesigns. I like seeing others twist on characters in their styles. Most of the ones I've watched were just for fun and respect to the IPs. I remember someone telling me redesign videos was a form of bullying and became confused from their statement. 🤔

Do people really usually expect re desings to be better than the original? Maybe they do but i always tought the only expectation was for it to look different. I could see a redesign that i find unappealing but i wouldn't disslike it and it would still be a good redesign to me as long as it still fits the character a bit and has the artists creativity in it

In my opinion redesigns are perfectly fine, and can be a fun exercise for artists to improve their designing skills, whoever i do think its better to the artist show that they are doing for fun/train their skills, rather than fixing (although if the design has good reasons to be considered bad like having harmful stereotypes on it, in this case is ok to call your redesign a fixed version)

10:30 whenever I redesign, it’s not even really a redesign? It’s just me adding a few embellishments to the character, like accessories I think they’d wear. It’s not like I’m completely changing the character, I’m just adding some extra details that fit with the character. If anything, it would be more accurate to say I’m just drawing them in my style because I like to add little embellishments to literally every character, even my own OCs.

I think "redesign" should be buried as a term for this and should use "reimagined" because that completely recontextualizes a lot of things. "Redesign" comes off arrogant to some or comes off that something's "wrong" with the original. But "reimagined" only has one meaning no matter how you use it (generally). Reimagining Disney Princesses vs Redesigning Disney Princesses. Reimagining Hatsune Miku vs Redesigning Hatsune Miku.

I tend to see redesigns as a "draw this character in your style" type thing, as opposed to people "fixing" other peoples characters.

Some people just don't have good intentions when doing a redesign. I've seen it first hand on Twitter, nothing but insults and poor understanding of the original designs, while giving themselves high praise for basically making a whole new character. A good example from Hazbin is how they kept turning her into an actual moth even though it's clearly just supposed to be a minor design influence, at which point they just start insulting Vivziepop as a shallow attempt to get attention from her haters.

I know when It's OK to improve the design and easy to make it superior. Women in One Piece. Women in Fairy Tail. Women in any "Written by a man that never seen real woman and has some clear visible problems". Look at all the redesigns in My Hero Academia, when girls outfits are actually making sense. A friend of mine draws 18+ stuff and agrees that he does depict women totally not how it would make sense, but cause he's really horny And also small creators do tend to share how they feel about stuff. And big ones are struggling with handling being viewed by so many. So I would say it's just a little drop of critique in the sea of content at best and people should just not be a-holes about it

Fans shouldn’t be too critical, others are allowed to have an opinion. My thing with it is how the artist approaches the topic. As a Lavendertowne fan I think that if she did not go into her video kind of “hating” (She wasnt that bad, she was critiquing but she did this with no idea really of what the show was about, she should have finished it first and learned the lore before she went on i think.) on vivs work and critiquing it, and then provided some of the worst redesigns I’ve ever seen her come up with. It just felt ill-intentioned. She should not have gotten all of the hate she did, and shouldn’t have had to profusely apologize over it. I think it can just be handled alot better in some cases. Like an artist is like “its not the way Id do it so its wrong and now imma make a video on it.” And that just seems…spiteful in a way. You can appreciate and critique without it coming off so negatively.

Ultimately it's such an inconsequential thing that becomes a battleground because some 12 year old wanted to feel big by starting some "discourse"

i just love how nuanced your videos are! it sorta helps people exercise their own opinion instead of following a mob

I use Gacha Life 2 because I can't draw. I made Redesigns because it's a good way to see my headcanons. For example, Tenya Iida. Iida in the manga has had many changing eye colors even though in the anime he has blue eyes. Thus, I lean into the Iida having heterochromia, either that or his eye color changes every other week. But there are takes might not like with the design, like how I in my redesign of him has longer more unruly hair as a reference to the beta design. I like this because of the reference and just the unruly hair sort of giving us the feeling he is little autistic gremlin.

For me the issue comes when either the character redesign is used to change immutable characteristics of the character or it is done for profit without the blessings of the original designer. This includes if the redesigner is the copyright owner of the character but is not the creator and especially if they bought the rights to the character, or took over the company that owns the character, with the intention of changing the immutable characteristics of that and or other characters. The only times I think it is okay to change a characters immutable characteristics are because there was a body swap or because they were reincarnated into a new body. Both of which can make for great fan fiction plots. It is our job as artists and writers to tell a story. It is not our job to be politically correct.

Wait, where's squarespace? Did you get divorced?

Enjoyed the video. Good as always, Celestia, and yeah, I pretty much have the stance as redsigns. Im still not 100% where Im at on redesigns, especially after the recent concord stuff, where all the characters seem to have a theme that was just widely viewed as missed.

The way this got on my feed ween I'm in the middle of making my first redesign video. In my case I want to make redesign videos because I enjoy watching this kind of video, and I want to give my take/show how I would draw those characters, as well as use it as a opportunity to practice my character design and refil my creative juices cause my mind been so dry for a while now...

I mean . . . Transformers Characters get redesigned all the time, so I don't mind people redesigning characters from other stuff as long as it fits the character lol.

It goes without saying even though now it seems needing to be said, absolutely nothing is wrong with redesigns. Its the people who use them as weird one sided "gotcha" moments with the creator of the source material that make it annoying and problematic. People have done redesigns for shows in the past they love regardless if they full love the OG look or like everyhing about whatever the series is minus the look. I don't mind the art style or look of any of the Hazbin or helluva boss series characters and love the creative ways people do their own spins on the character looks. Vivzie made a post months back when there was weird shipping discourse where she mentioned people shouldn't bully one another regardless what's canon and ship what they want for fun. I'm sure she feels the same about all the fan art even the ones that label themselves "anti-vivzie" in the tags. That's still says she made something that got somebody mentally invested enough that they sat down and spent their own free time to think about how a character of her creation could look with more or less of this and that to their appearance or plot to the work.

When your redesigns include editing someone's fanart without permission, it's absolutely NOT ok. And most redesigns are most definitely not improvements on original design, nor are they made in respect. The majority of redesign vids I've seen have always turned out to be shitting on the sourse material (usually the person going off on a range about how bad they think the original is), and indeed claiming their redesign is superior to the original.

Huh. This was posted while I am in the middle of my own redesign project. Mostly just as an artistic and character design experiment, given I am still new to drawing.

I spent 8 years on Tumblr and I rarely saw redesigns that didn't at least imply there was something wrong with the originals. This character is now Black (what was wrong with them being white?) This character is now realistic (you don't know how character designsl and stylization works) This character is now dressed more practically (stop attacking characters for being "sexualised"), etc. Totally different from "I reimagined Disney proncesses as Star Wars characters or ninjas").

Redesigns are perfectly fine. The only ones that aren't are the ones that are made to bash on the said characters. A good example would be Neytirix here on YT. They get submissions from their own fans with their own OCs for Neytirix to redesign.

As an artist it annoys me when people glorify their design over another. Like yes critique is one thing when wanted but to just disregard why a character might look a certain way is not okay. Yes I am an artist yes I know integrating personality in a visual way has its importance, but consent shpuld be have when doing such changes even if fun. If someone took anothers character and said "this is how to make this design better" im sure the artist wouldn't feel great especially if lore wise it makes sense! Yes doing fun "this character in this time realm with this personality" is one thing but to just blatantly go "this design is better" is annoying and yes I drop artists like that at a snap of a finger I dont support others who tear people down ESPECIALLY when it comes to art because someone I knew stopped arting and yes they were amazing because some jealous person said they weren't good (they absolutely were amazing).

This 'fix' trend, is just ragebait from the meme police

Ah jeez, another one of those art dramas that feel like it could have been easily avoided with a simple name change. Had they just renamed their videos to "[this character] in my style", or "[that character] in this style" the whole argument of "this redesign is garbage" would have fallen on deaf ears because it would have been countered with "but it's in a different style". Also, I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with the whole solicited and unsolicited critique argument. I get what you're trying to say with the whole "if they're doing it for profit then unsolicited critiques are part of the process" thing, but it kinda falls apart once you do something as simple as showing-off a drawing to your friends and family in person, and they go "that's a nice drawing, but why are the eyes so big?". You don't want to lash-out at your best friend or your mom just because you didn't ask for criticism do you? If you really don't want to improve or get critiques then you shouldn't have shown it in the first place. Doesn't matter if it's shown publicly or privately, people will always have opinions to spew-out. Life isn't full of yes-men who will agree with everything you do, and dealing with people who go against the current will make you stronger in the long-run. To me having no critiques is worse than bad critiques, just because with a bad critique you at least have some idea where you're going But that's enough rambling for one post. Take my opinion however you'd like because in the end it's just words

To me, so long as your doing it with good intentions, trying to give someone constructive criticism by redesigning character and showing how it could be improved or just trying to help someone who they could improve there character and make it better than it already is. Or just doing it for fun, i see no problem with it. But if its with bad intentions, or just doing it because you don't like the characters and making them to what you would like. Or making them into completely different characters, or trying to "fix" characters. The. Yeah I see the problem and the criticism and calling them out is very much deserved. And overall, if whoever us being redesign, I feel it's most important if the creator has expressed they are comfortable or fine with. If the creator is uncomfortable or not okay with it then taht should be respected and left alone. It can easily be helpful for a creator or just not helpful at all and possibly harmful depending on the situation

for me redesigns are fine as long as it's not meant for bullying, like a lot of ones for smaller creator's ocs are; personally however I keep redesigns strictly for aus, as I have no interest in redesigning outside of that context.

Redesigning is fine unless the person in question say “I’m fixing it”. Another personal opinion is if I can’t tell who you just redesigned, it’s a bad redesign. Some aspects should still exist otherwise it’s an OC with the same name.

you betrayed your usual sponsor 😔 pls dont take it badly, this is a joke ;-;

I personally love redesigning things when I'm bored. Redesigning is pretty harmless in my opinion when it comes to popular characters that don't solely belong to anybody aside from a company or maybe one person in the company. I think it's a bit different if it's someone's oc because it's more of a personal thing. I could sit here all day trying to break it down but as long as you're not hurting anybody and being civil about it, redesigning is fine. The only time where it becomes harmful is if someone doesn't want their character to be redesigned.

I think it depends on redesign, I love watching the mane 5 redesign 😭

like many things it depends on context, fanart is always welcomed but if some moron redesigns someone else's fanart cause it's "wrong" or worse to steal it, then got to artist hell

the redesign isn't harmful, like everything, it's in the intention. Anybody has the freedom to draw what they want, you can even blackwash or whitewash it, it really doesn't matter, but what matter is the intention, fixing art is just a redrawing a piece of art, but it becomes bad because it claims to fix it.

I'm only just now dipping my toes in character redesign myself and, so far, I'd say I'm doing it to do the subjects justice. They're side characters from a popular Shounen anime that I feel were failed by the author-with one of them in particular being infantilized in a disturbing way just to immediately get violated by the hyper-masculine villain of the show. The majority of female characters characters tend to be killed off or similarly brutalized for the sake of titilization in this same show, so I really wanted to tell the same story WITHOUT the disrespect while working it into the context of a greater fanfiction that treats them with as much love as the original series treats its male characters.

Are redesigns bad? Not at all, it can be interesting to see what some people would consider for making a character design. It's when they become entitled elitists, going "Hey ! I FIXED your character design to make it better" that a line needs to be drawn and I can't stand it. It's not wrong to have differing views on design, but being elitist about making a change and treating themselves like they saved the character from the trash is rude.

I know I'm not saying anything that you or others aren't already commenting, but I've got to give my point: I suppose it's simply the fact that art fixing became so ubiquitous on most social media platforms that the very concept of any style change or interpretative fanart became conflated with it. Lavendertowne didn't deserve backlash, but her HH being such a target for bad faith and outright malicious redesigns that not only did the fandom have more than enough reason to be on defense whenever it happens, but she openly said she was attempting to improve upon the material in as much good faith as possible to her credit. She also admitted it was not her best effort, and with all due respect, it sort of shows. Her version of Angel Dust, especially, I recall being just downright bland. A cute design, but it was so not within the same stratosphere of the character it was supposed to be based upon.

I feel like the real issue comes from HOW ppl present the redesigns. No one bats an eye when artists or ppl come up with AU designs, or divergent designs from the source material. The real problem however, comes when ppl start acting as if their take should somehow replace the original, and decide to impose it on others who may not agree/like/have their own take on the matter. The problem with the HH/HB case is that those fandoms, have a notorious long running debacle with the shows' creator. With their "anti-vivziepop" approach... Even though they are clearly fans of HER work. This is just disrespectful through and through, no matter how "justifiable" they try to make it out to be. In my honest opinion, if they genuinely took so much issue with her, then they should instead just create their own stuff. Unfortunately, that doesn't Garner the same amount of attention or clout, so the hate bandwagon just keeps going. I say as SB who has never got into the series, BUT I see their shitty behavior all over the place. And it's tiresome to see them keep acting like that.

Take a shot everytime she says “by way of”

TlDR: No. Just don't be weird about it.

Personally I never understood redesigning a character. I've never felt the need personally at any point in all my fandom obsessions to redesign a character. I don't have any strong feelings for people who do for fun fo course, But I'm just like...why not just make an OC from that universe at that point, or if the character should be 'fixed' why bother with having the need to do fanart of them at all. Either way, guys be kind to other artists, it's rough out there for us.

I like some of the redesigns Trugreen7 would make for Pokemon. Thing is he actively tries to keep the spirit of the original design and even if there is an intent to improve it, I don't remember him ever being straight up disrespectful to the designs, just voicing his criticisms I understand not liking any redesigns made with the intent of improvement rather than reinterpretation, but I think even with that there is level of tact you can approach it with

I like "redesigns" because they're basically just fanart at the end of the day, and i do tend to not like "fixing" art, but i do have to say that at least when it comes to the Winx fandom.... well, let's just say that ultimately i'm not so mad at them😓 But the thing about it is that the creator of Winx has totally REVOLUTIONIZED what it originally started like, and i wish it was just a problem of a few, but it's the majority of the fandom having seen the horrible decisions and changes made where the plot has totally been lost...

I think redesigns are fine if they are not done in bad faith. For example, I was working on a redesign project of my own recently because there are multiple factions in a game I play that don’t have official designs basically they have the most bare bone outfits it doesn’t even feel like a design and just doesn’t really fit compared to the other factions they are put up against. The project I was working on was born out of being pretty ticked off and because I love the game but I stopped working on it recently because I got burned out after working on 3 of the 5 factions due to all of the details I’m considering from their bases, how they work and their bare bones look as they have separate designs despite them being bare bones design wise. But I don’t think I fixed the designs, I just think I improved them since the second game had a lot of detail that is missing from the from the first game.

I think most redesigns are made for fun and being personalized.

I have mixed feelings on redesigns, but I let the artists be

To quote Rocky Horror Picture Show, "I didn't make him, for you!"

It's not "wrong" like it should be against some code... BUT the way it's done as shameless self-promotion to imply or even outright claim superior skill/creativity in character designs while conveniently outsourcing 90% of the originality/design to the original artist is extremely vapid and childish. It's very much stealing valor when it's done in self-promotion. Redesigning is EASY compared to coming up with an original idea, which is why it's so much more common... even if simply as fanart. That said, when done in admiration/respect of an artist that the redesign-artist really loves... I think this is a good example of taking inspiration for a style while attempting to personalize it through practice, and simply showcasing it. It's all about how it's presented and the level of respect shown by the borrower in the equation.

Redesigned is a mixed feeling to me, is rather hypocritical for me to say i dislike redesign that i redesigned some arts that i find it unappealing. Fakemon art for example, i enjoy what artist redesign the pokemon that majority disliked, it makes me wonder why the og pokemon was design like this begin with. It makes sense when u learned about their concept behind the designs. Once you know the concept then you can use it to improve the og was instead of blindly perfect it based on your aesthetic.

Fan redesigns are ok it’s just now people are either using it instead of a fun thing to completely complain about things their eyes somehow can’t see, or what they don’t like and make it “accurate” to the character descriptions, an artist can say a character is a dragon but god forbid that character has no dragon features visually present and your art gets slandered I remember the discourse over the hazbin characters and people saying they all look the same, or since alastor is a deer he should have dear features, I’m guessing his giant deer antlers aren’t apparent enough when he shape shifts

My rules for these would be: Get the artist's permission/be sure redesigns isnt something the artistfinds insultingor hurtful, don't make it obnoxiously stereotypical or racist, be nice about the og character and don't insult the og character or creator's art 👍

As long as they don’t claim they are better than the original it’s okay Also as long as they keep the canon in mind for the redesign

As with anything, I think its down to intent. If you redesign with love and respect to the character, and dont change the core of it, its fine. But if you change the race or make such drastic changes that its basically another person, its completely disrespectful. That is not giving the character a new look or a new perspective, that is making said character into your own oc.

I think the problem with the lavender town first one was they didn’t really watch hazbin hotel before designing. Just jumping on a bandwagon. Now if you redesign after considering the story we all good.