multiple fandoms and art crap

at the helm of arknights currently, we still see familiar faces involved in character design. looking up to the CN updates, ryuzaki ichi is still going strong with his hold on kjerag, but also outside of that with leizi although her eyebrows have been debuffed. looking great! aZLing4 continues to excel with their composition, raidian's E2 filled with the perspective and scale that are unique to their style.

skade, close friends with ryuzaki ichi (if im not mistaken), also remains active; she's recently done logos' ambience synesthesia skin, tragodia (soon to hit global), and an ulpianus skin reminiscent of his researcher days. resident urbica sisters artist YUJI graces us with astgenne the lightchaser, but did you know they're also tasked with miss christine?

min, a prevalent illustrator often tasked by hypergryph to draw commemorative art, now has ingame character artwork. there's amiya's first live2d skin that just released last year, and (if i'm getting this right) global should be familiar with our newest sankta npc, vannini. im quite certain she is min's work, but do tell if i'm wrong.

min's been around for a long time i believe, but having witch amiya and vannini means we might see more characters by them. of course, min isn't the only 'recent' character illustrator; arknights has also got some great new artists seeing more active involvement in recent updates.

fivefall or 伍秋秋秋秋 comes to mind. as recent as ep15, fivefall is the artist for mon3tr. there's also 〇亻or formatspace, although not the most recent, who is definitely a more recent addition to the team. you can recognise their work from mitm and underflow's designs!

perhaps most significant of all is banban or 板板. and who better to show banban's work than with one of the hottest ever characters in the game, mantra. among their other works are nowell and narantuya!

while i see the rather occasional complaints about arknights' (character) design direction faltering from its original charm during its first 2 or so years (which, fair, a live service game's visual language is subject to change under changing hands as the years move on), i think arknights is still well and away fit very snugly into its own space, standing with its own visual style that sets it apart from its peers, even 6.5 years in. to bring it back to the beginning, how does endfield look right now?

endfield, in a state where it's still in development, seems almost like a far cry from its predecessor. it appears to be sanding that arknights visual language at important sections that it risks creating a new language far removed from its mantle of "arknights". some do counter this argument, as in essence, endfield is its own entry, its own game, it should seek its own identity! to which i say, fair, but i don't think it's doing too great in that department. it's currently shaped its roster from a cast of characters borne out of an art direction that cant seem to commit between shaping itself as a legacy of arknights and going for mass appeal.

a different argument would suggest im not being fair in the first place. if we really want to make comparisons, shouldnt we compare endfield pre-launch to arknights pre-launch? well that might make the comparison feel even less fair if im being honest with you... lidukefication vs the days Wei@W (hoshieve) was art director? the concept and promotional art of arknights' earliest factions; LGD, karlan trade, penguin logistics, rhine lab, USSG? be real. be so real right now.

(this is as arknights boomer as it gets, really. what do you mean im pulling up NoriZC's celebration art for arknights' beta?)

while character design is a major element in a video game, with gacha specifically the characters take on an even more influential role due to the nature of live service and gacha. the game must pump out new characters, and these characters must necessarily be appealing (even overly so) in order to keep current players playing and attract potential new players. in order to truly invite people to play, however, a clear visual identity must be established, and what better medium to communicate that identity than through character design?