ok guys let's all post our most favorite and least favorite character designs here:

I call that guy John shootaman

When she added the straight up photos of women on the faces I just went “OH NO OH NO”

"His face is so generic, it matches every other face in our database!" -Random Robot guy (The LEGO Movie)

"who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" Brown Hair Dad Guy

Male armour: full suit of armor Female armour: steel bikini

The first trope is the Western version of the typical black/brown haired anime boy

honestly, that elf looks like he could cut food better than an actual knife.

"They look like they have not showered in a hundred years." And then there's Link, who actually hasn't showered in a hundred years.

For the main protagonist: don’t forget at least one of their immediate family members passed away

“A face so normal no police sketch artist could ever find this dude.”

it would be so fun to have a game where u play as the generic brown hair dad guy but he dies in the beginning/middle and then u switch to playing as his wife/daughter or smth

“long white hair is a must” *laughs maniacally in sepiroth*

I like how she just wrote “gun” on the gun the first guy is holding-

The elf is less “graceful and slender” and more “graceful and slenderMAN”

Nobody: Graphic designers making elves: *l o n g*

I LOVE how she uses yakuza as an example for good designs. Even though most of them are realistic and wear suits they all manage to be distinct and carry symbolism

Brown hair dad guy addition: profession is most likely a cop, sticks to his morals

I'm never going to get over lavender Town photoshopping someone's face onto her drawings. I literally started cackling. Damn that's so many likes...

Another point about the Elves though, in mythology they could often be interpreted as really scary. An example, the German word for "Nightmare" is "Albtraum" which basically means "Elf dream". So much for nice happy Elves, I like them in stories but I don't want them to visit my bedside at night.

Every video game protagonists wants to be a dad but we all know the true video game dad Octodad

"a face so normal no police sketch artist could find this dude" Lavender this is the funniest thing I have read all day

My pet peeve: I hate it when all the women look literally the same. There is this fantasy pretty girl anime face plastered everywhere and i hate it. Okay i get it the hourglass bodied pretty girl is marketable i guess but i'm tired of pretty i want interesting, people can be attractive/sexy while also looking distinct. *Cough* League of Legends *Cough*

Ok but Aurther Morgan is honestly so perfect he gets the pass of “Typical brown haired dad”

I recognized one of the elf designs you showed and if I remember correctly they were terrifying on purpose. Like, the elves in that game are CREEPY in the lore on a level rarely explored in fantasy. So I honestly think the designers took this exact “Video game elves are too weird and long” mindset and cranked it to 11 for some freaky character designs to match the lore.

”I’m just describing Link, aren’t I?” That is such a mood

Elves in book: lovely and kinda spooky/ghostlike ELVES IN GAMES: L O N G AND G R E A S Y

“The main character always wears a muted color palette” Arthur Morgan: bright blue shirt

The thing with the sorceresses in Witcher is that they don't just use make-up, they use magic to significantly alter their appearance. That's why they are all conventionally attractive - they all used magic to alter their appearance. For example, Yennefer has a hunchback in her 'true form'.

Don’t worry Lav, I’m sure you’re not the only one who is bothered by the greasy pointy people.

mines pretty popular but it’s the over sexualization of women in games specifically the games where the men where full sets of armor and the girls are wearing bikinis💀

Therapist: Lavender Towne art with real faces can't hurt you Lavender Towne art with real faces: 6:25

The until dawn characters scare me more than the game. They’re too realistic but at the same time too robotic

I completely agree with the first one, its like the anime guy protagonist. Your main character or protagonist should be interesting or have recognizable features. I hate when they are boring like that

As someone who likes history, the Medieval Sephora lady angers me soo much

"A face so normal no police sketch artist could find this guy" I love this

We need more extra buff stocky women in games, with a big ass shield to ram people with. It kinda bothers me when all I see is dainty women, there should be more diversity in general

"when people are emoting the most, showing their teeth, [...]" The screen: *_28 STAB WOUNDS_*

Get this. A typical "brown hair dad guy" dude. But he's obsessed with cats.

Well originally elves WERE monsters, with the whole stealing your babies and playing with your organs thing

I feel like the character design you’re describing for an elf would be better suited for a vampire.

“A face so normal no police sketch artist could ever find this dude.” 💀

I want a dadlike main character of a grungy video game that's ACTUALLY like a dad. Gimme the mullet, the 70s and 80s bands, the gregg universe vibes. I wanna see a dude with a beer gut and bad puns fighting in an apocalyptic wasteland with a crowbar

When looking at the different mythologies of elves, very few describes them as beautiful and kind. For a lot of them they are described as ugly, mean and mischievous. The ugly and mean version was very popular in media back in the day but in modern times the beautifully and kind version has skyrocketed. It was the same thing with vampires. Most myths describes them as ugly and that was the most popular version of them until modern times where we now have beautiful vampires which looks pretty much the same as humans just more pretty. To be honest I'm kind of tired the beautiful creatures that look almost the exact same as humans. I enjoy the ugly versions since they in modern times stand out more.

Beauty is in the watcher's eyes. I love elder scrolls elves, since they have human-like characteristics, but as we see them better, we do realize they are elves and not just humans with pointy ears This sort of elves get better highlighted in the skyrim, where elves look clearly odd compared to a human, but I love it.

I feel like the elf stereotype makes them look more like weird goblins than elves

So we have “brown hair dad guy”. So what are some common traits of “surrogate daughter girl”?

I saw the elf in the thumbnail and I was immediately like oh no Skyrim’s finna get it for their crimes against the elven race 😭 I love Skyrim so much but the elves have such a distinct overdone sharp thing going on that they have same face syndrome IMO. I wish the dark elves, high elves, and wood elves had more visual discrepancies instead of just being blue/gray, golden/yellow, and pale

I've always liked the "brown hair dad guy" because my dad looks identical to them and he always makes jokes about it when we play games together.

I don’t think the “Daddening” of video games is bad, but I wish they’d look different, least a little. Like Kratos. The dude’s a dad in a father-son relationship game, but he has the ashes of his previous dead wife and child all over his body, red face paint, an intimidating bulky athletic build of pure muscle, and one of the most glorious beards in the history of human kind, the most unique designs despite being a video game dad. But the problem isn’t so widespread that I’d call it an annoyance of mine. So lesson here is: Design more dads in a more unique way, follow the “Dad of *BOY”* design mantra.

LavenderTowne putting cutout faces on her drawings reminds me of when the Arthur animators drew a digustingly realistic face for Matt Damon

The "plain person" main character is often made super plain and generic so the player can relate and self insert better.

Ay ay listen... the dad energy one is just comfy lmao

THE WAY YOU MADE THE ELF'S ASS CHEEKS POINTY SENT ME WHEEZING

"Medieval Sephora Lady" **cough** Elsa **coughcough**

8:35 No explanation needed of why THAT'S horrifying

Hi ! Just wanna say, about Yennefer and Triss, in the book they're telling that the sorceress use a lot of "materials" for make up and skincare that the other characters all find pretty weirds in the book itself. Plenty of time in the book, the sorceress seems be in advance in their time, and all their surroundings don't understand what they're doing

I actually really like it when elves look inhuman and uncanny. They aren’t human why should they fit human beauty standards??? Still totally a valid opinion tho, pretty boys are great.

The elves in those video games are so sharp that you can almost legally classify them as a weapon

About the witcher, Triss and Yenefer were witches, Yen was literally taking a whole closet with her everywhere because of magic, also the witcher world is much more complicated than it is shown in game

To be fair, on the elder scrolls ones, in the lore elves are supposed to look alien and like humans with VERY sharp features. I actually like that they aren't just humans with pointy ears, myself The greasy hair though? Yeah thats unecesary 😔

The elf dude kind of looks like a vampire lol

Well that’s just John videogame! He’s a very talented time traveler who goes on a lot of adventures

I kinda dig uncanny elves. It makes it feel more like a different species than just uninteresting human with big ears. Personally I think the benevolent, elegant type elves from classic fantasy was overdone, and this modern trend kinda taps into the "otherworldly ethereal being that is clearly humanoid but uncomfortably not human enough" that you see in the original folklore modern elves were inspired by

Aw man, I love the brown haired dad guy protagonists. 😅 Arthur is probably my favourite computer game protagonist since FemShep. 100% behind you about the creepy face tracking though! 😆

I’ve seen a lot of bad character designs before... *flashbacks to 9 year old me downloading every weird game in existence*

Lavender: describes the first one Me: GAH STEVE FROM MINECRAFT

"the celeb face" videogame style's gonna become a whole new breed/genre of games at this point

Realism is a huge drawback for videogames, because its a lot of detail that adds almost nothing as its mostly not noticed, takes a lot of processing power and can be done much more memorable with stylization, i have been saying that for years

The way she designed gun man made me go: “Cartoon show. There should be a cartoon about gun man.”

mine: lazy fanservice basically, when they're giving characters like unrealistic bikini armor or whatever, and yknow, not only is it breaking my immersion. But, its the most basic bikini armor they could come up with Like, if ur gonna break my immersion at least make the armor look cool

When you put the live photo for the drawn girl's face, I laughed until I cried, my gosh.

Really like your videos ! About the Witcher though : the books set it un a world were universes were merged long ago, so a lots of styles are rocked by characters. Also witches use magic to look as gorgeous as possible, and makeup is a huge part of them all. They wear it like warpaint as they are often involved in politics and need to go against kings sometimes. Also about the Elder Scrolls... well it depends on the lore of the land. I think it's neat that they stay away from the typically "more beautiful than human Tolkien elf". I understand that you want them to be beautiful that being said ! Like I said, great video ^^

I wish those reading is a very pleasant evening.

I feel like the first one is why people go crazy for designs like Link in BOTW

Me seeing the thumbnail: Oh gosh there better not be any Zelda slander in this- Me when Haley started talking about how bad elf designs are: pleasedontsaylinkisbadpleasedontsaylinkisbad- Me at 9:15: *screaming*

0:48 what sucks about the brown hair dad type is i don't ever remember if any of these guys were shirtless so i don't even know if they even got a six pack

elf boy rlly do be looking like a vampire though wait a second elves and vampires are both obnoxious immortal guys with pointy ears in castles who think they’re better than everyone else- I SENSE A PATTERN FORMING

For Brown Hair Dad Guy I wasn’t sure if you were drawing Harry Mason, James Sunderland, Henry Townshend or Murphy Pendleton from the Silent Hill games.

any yakuza (game) character design. more specifically, their tattoos and suits are just so cool. they all match their personalities in a way too.

OKAY I THINK I can explain the 2000s makeup look - I’m not an expert but this is what I assume - why characters/game models have smoking eyeliner Is to avoid the awkward mess that is programming eyelashes, waterlines and rendering colours between the skin and eye without them glitching, looking creepy or giving you Tomas the train vibes. 👁👄👁 I remember way too many times where lashes would glitch into the characters eyes in games that tried. Think early assassins creed games (poor Petruccio) or just the Eyes and mouth emoji.^

Androgynous elf guy: I think the word you’re looking for is Link lmao

I was making a meme but this is more important

10:24 THAT CAKE THOUGH

The last one about elves I've seen them do with goblins in a book once and jack frost(so i can never unsee it). And also in a more recent game they did it with vampires where it's all like pointy angles.

The fact that everyone has Link as goals really says something.

Yes omg the elf thing is so annoying Edit: Link is literally the only goodlooking elf man XD

brown hair dad is the western game equivalent to the black hair anime protag, carefully designed to be the blandest possible for the average male gamers to self insert as. id rather leave self inserts as customizable mcs and have actual interesting characters as leads

the day this was uploaded it was my birthday! i shall treat this as a gift!! so thank lavender towne!

Brown hair dad guy is the self insert, tell me I’m wrong

I like how she just pastes a realistic face on the drawings

6:15 Draw this, not that [How to use references]

I think every RPG adventure game has that dude that’s rlly tall and strong with brown hair and a brown beard

Lavendertowne: Designs a "bad elf" Me: Lowkey loves it

About make up in witcher: In the 3rd book Triss actually says that the elves created and popularized eye shadows and other make up. And because The witcher is a fantasy game, I think we can close an eye on that.

Honestly I love the design for Divinity's elves, they may just be my favourite design for an elf race in any fantasy setting. Considering how Divinity's elves are very much outsiders in the world of Divinity and how different they are to what we'd normally think of elves, their odd, druidic body design and their lore as ritualistic cannibals who eat their dead to inherit the memories as a way of remembering them honestly makes them look and feel extremely unique and cool to look at as opposed to a typical fantasy elf, who is a thin human with a pretty face and pointy ears. Elder Scrolls has less of a good reason, and whenever I see an oblivion elf all I can fucking hear is "By AzUrA'S sTaR!" over and over again, but honestly I just stretch my suspension of disbelief for that. Unless it's really bad I'd rather take a Elf design that has inhuman and uncanny points to it over a typical fantasy elf any day, even though I like both design concepts.

6:20 LOL 😂

Lingerie armor for female characters is one of my biggest- but you definitely make some amazing points lol

I like how there's a label for the gun. Just in case you can't tell.

Dude. The entire house rn is asleep and I'm going lightheaded from trying to not make noise while laughing at the elf one. You are too funny friend.