Why are the leader heads so ugly?

[Scaramanga]

Just to provide a visual example, let's place Hojo on the more realistic side, Frederick as a middle ground and Pedro on the cartoony side.

We can sort of imagine Frederick and Hojo being on the same world, and Frederick and Pedro also being able to exist on the same world. But if you pair Hojo and Pedro...it looks really off, mainly due to the proportions.

more realistic.

Spoiler :

Stylized middle ground

Spoiler :

Full Cartoony

Spoiler :

Most of the leaders fall on the more stylized middle ground, with a few a bit more on the realistic side...Tomyris, and Hojo being the less caricatured, but Pedro and Qin, man do they feel out of place with the rest. The Teddy fix bring me a bit hope in that they'll be able to bring those two along with the rest of the leaders style wise.

Well I find Frederick very realistic. Maybe you are East Asian and therefore find Hojo the most realistic.

Anyway, I find Pedro has Richard Nixon's nose, and Richard Nixon was a real person even though he looked like a cartoon. Bob Hope is someone else who I find looks like a cartoon. People like this really do exist, although I'm not sure Pedro II was actually one of them.

 

[ehecatzin]

Well I find Frederick very realistic. Maybe you are East Asian and therefore find Hojo the most realistic.

Anyway, I find Pedro has Richard Nixon's nose, and Richard Nixon was a real person even though he looked like a cartoon. Bob Hope is someone else who I find looks like a cartoon. People like this really do exist, although I'm not sure Pedro II was actually one of them.

Nope Mexican here. My insistance with this it's probably due to me being an animator, there are some things I just can't "unsee".

Exagerated features are good, and a basic part of any style of cartooning (from Calvin & Hobbes to political satire) in the example of Richard Nixon and his massive nose, the proportions is what makes something feel more realistic, despite exagerating the nose (as in political cartoons that aim to be a bit more realistic).

Just compare the head and body proportions of Hojo to Pedro, you'll notice the diference. Teddy had the same issue his face was gigantic (and so does Qin).

It would be much easier to dial down the exagerated proportions of Pedro to bring him in line with the rest, than it would be to exagerate Hojo to Pedro's standard. Again, no need to redo Pedro and Qin from scratch, but they do need to feel like they can exist along with Hojo and Tomyris, just for consistencys sake.

 

[Ryika]

I'm not sure why they chose to exaggerate the vertical length of Pedro's face so much. From the images I can find on google he has a pretty normal, oval face and only the beard makes it look a bit overly long, but it seems like the artist has taken that into account for the form of the face and then again for the beard. (Which isn't me criticizing the artist, I just can't follow the thought process)

That, and the fact that his head is overall like 50% bigger than Hojo's head makes him look like a caricature in direct comparison.

 

[Ebrim]

OP: Because to a lot of people they're not.

/thread

 

[nunor]

Just to provide a visual example, let's place Hojo on the more realistic side, Frederick as a middle ground and Pedro on the cartoony side.

We can sort of imagine Frederick and Hojo being on the same world, and Frederick and Pedro also being able to exist on the same world. But if you pair Hojo and Pedro...it looks really off, mainly due to the proportions.

more realistic.

Spoiler :

Stylized middle ground

Spoiler :

Full Cartoony

Spoiler :

Most of the leaders fall on the more stylized middle ground, with a few a bit more on the realistic side...Tomyris, and Hojo being the less caricatured, but Pedro and Qin, man do they feel out of place with the rest. The Teddy fix bring me a bit hope in that they'll be able to bring those two along with the rest of the leaders style wise.

EDIT: I cropped the images so they are easier to compare.

Links are broken.

Anyway, I assume they have a team of several artists working on the leaders, and apparently some of them took the cartoony-look briefing a little too far. I hope they can manage to find a common ground, preferably by toning down exaggeratedly exaggerated (can I say this? ) features.

 

[JimmyBanks]

Yeah, the image links didn't work for me either.

I like the current look of most of the leaders. I actually prefer the old Teddy but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on that one.

 

[ehecatzin]

Yeah, the image links didn't work for me either.

I like the current look of most of the leaders. I actually prefer the old Teddy but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on that one.

There this should be better

Spoiler :

The design itself is not the problem, if you look at each individualy they are all appealing (except Qin, that's the one I dislike). The annoying part is the inconsistency, once you put them side by side, some do look like they don't belong together.

The Teddy fix hopefuly means they'll be fixed, but, who knows.

 

[ferretbacon]

There this should be better

Spoiler :

The design itself is not the problem, if you look at each individualy they are all appealing (except Qin, that's the one I dislike). The annoying part is the inconsistency, once you put them side by side, some do look like they don't belong together.

The Teddy fix hopefuly means they'll be fixed, but, who knows.

I came here to point this out, but you did it already and with picture examples... I'd have been too lazy to provide those.

I agree that there are definitely different styles... realistic, stylized, and caricatured. I don't care which they go with, but for the sake of consistency I would like them to go with one. Personally, I'd like them to edit Pedro and Qin and take them into the stylized territory by scaling back some of their more absurd features (like Pedro's nose).

 

[JimmyBanks]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying I think. Hojo is definately less caracature than the other two. I like the look of the other two but I'm not sure how you show off a japanese guy carrying a samurai sword in a jovial caracature.

 

[Gintoki89]

Everything I would want to say has been said at this point - I love the style, there may be some tweaks that would help things but I am excited to play in this world - so I'll just add that personally, Tomyris' design is my favorite of any leader I've seen across any Civ game, absolutely love it.

 

[Galbias]

I like the caricature style models in general but there a couple they went overboard on like Pedro and to a lesser extent Qin. The animations are really nicely done too.