yor analyssi of why a design issnt good is actually really helpful can you sort of show what makes a good design vs a bad one from a pop designer? like maws or scpkid also can you help explain why sauntproof's art is so hard to replicate her style sort of MAKES chows look like chows
(saunt uses any pronouns from what i can tell so I'll just use they/them for sake of simplicity)
And yeah sure, let's talk about it! I've looked at too much maws and scpkid stuff today, so we'll do saunt analysis. I'm gonna be breaking down some of their art and explaining my process and the motifs and foundations I find.
So, first breakdown I did! The best thing you can do while breaking down work is using triangles (watch Ethan Becker for more on that.)
They're strong shapes that provide balance and structure, essentially.
So what we see immediately is obviously that you can shrink this design down to maybe 1/5 of the side and it will still be clear what it is. The silhouette's in Saunt's style are (generally) clear and uniform. Almost all their designs have the same silhouette, which makes their work immediately recognizable from afar. (u can look at a toyhouse thumbnail and say awh fuck a saunt design)
They often keep the silhouette clear by keeping the limbs closest to our view within the shape of the body, and letting the limbs on the other side of the body disrupt the shape.
SO what we get is- all of saunt's designs are just big triangles with smaller triangular cuts made into them.
This shape is found even in the way they draw fur. It's simple and avoids complication.
Here's a design which they made for themselves, which segues very well into the next thing I noticed!!
Big, medium, small!! This is a really important design principle, if everything in ur design is the same size it becomes boring and there's no visual hierarchy.
Our Big stuff is: the largest back plates on the back and head. Same with the 'spines.' The medium details are the middle back plates and legs, and our smalls are the eyes, ropes, and the neck tag.
notice how our smalls are clustered around the head and the back end of the design is relatively repetitive and uncluttered.
(not to say it's a perfect design but be quiet I'm fucking talking)
Color! Saunt's use of color isn't the Best but it's Good. Lukewarm sushi type beat.
They make use of what is a "black" and "white" in the palette (your darkest and lightest colors) and one or two pop colors with relatively non distracting neutrals as a backdrop for these.
Your pop color in the smore bitch is the eye, an almost green/yellow which contrasts the more red/yellow of the rest of the design. Big medium small isn't utilized as well here but it gets a pass because the design still has breathing room to help with visual hierarchy.
Chows are largely defined by soft, rounded features, proportionally large head + tail with smaller body, lots of tapers and rounded triangles, and largely neutral colors with a few pop colors.
There are obviously chows that break these guidelines but it's a large portion of Saunt's work.
As for the more stylistic elements that contribute to Saunt's work
their very thin textured linework with a few spots of pure black (pupils, eye outlines) and low contrast inner lines that are colored
Simplified textures and shapes
uniform silhouettes that they build on top of
Generally the neck is hidden in their designs. This is important (to me) because it aids in smoothly transitioning the head into the torso. If you actually look at the leading lines of chow necks, they're fucking tiny. So Saunt is smart to cover them and concentrate clutter in that area. Neck, what neck?
soft and subtle design gradients
This isn't a perfect breakdown but I'm real tired so this is what yall get
