Figures: They Speak For Themselves (mildly NSFW) | Hacker News Reader

Figures: They Speak For Themselves (mildly NSFW)

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354 pointsangersock89 comments

Another great example is Team Fortress 2. All the characters are carefully designed to be distinguishable at a glance - I remember seeing a great explanation of this a few years back, but can only find this pdf right now:

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2007/NPAR07_Illust...

They kind of threw this out the window after all the hats and costumes, though.

It's all about the distinctive silhouettes of the character classes and how they move. Even with clothes you can quickly recognise a heavy, a pyro, a medic at a distance.

You can even determine whether a scout is about to hit a sandman ball at you vs. when he has a normal bat out just by the slight difference in stance.

I've never had an issue with hats confusing what class I'm approaching.

It's a lot harder though. The larger hats breaks up the silhouette quite a bit. At least you can still identify based on posture, which is done pretty well.

The Israeli military uses these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitznefet_(Israeli_military)

They're big floppy hats that go on top of the helmet to prevent the classic helmet silhouette look.

Works better because human bodies aren't quite as distinctive as TF2 classes :)

The in-game developer commentary goes over this in some detail. It's quite good.

This reminds me a bit of the DOTA 2 Character Art guide. Valve takes it a step further and states that a character must be identifiable by only its silhouette - including orientation and carried weapons. It's a pretty good read, even with just a passing interest in game & character art. http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2Chara...

They really have succeeded. I can tell which each of those heroes is by just the silhouette. Interesting read, thanks.

Aaron Diaz is amazing. The time travel/transhumanism comic Hob is greatly recommended ( http://dresdencodak.com/2007/02/08/pom/ ).

There are many webcomics out there that are strictly better from both a plotting and dialog standpoint--however, for simply having delightful art and interesting character design, Dresden Codak is wonderful.

I'm a bit skeptical of the current Kickstarter, but here's hoping, you know?

OK, confused. "Current" Kickstarter? Is there more than one? Because the one that he finished seemed to fund quite well.

Skeptical that it will be late? Well, given the normal DC schedule, that wouldn't surprise me a lot. But I don't fund projects on Kickstarter expecting a particular delivery date like it's a store. So if it arrives in November I'll still be happy.

It's funded, to the tune of a half million--I'm curious if he'll actually be able to deliver. I hope so.

Latest update from yesterday: Hey guys! We sent The Tomorrow Girl to the printers over a week ago and will be getting the proofs shortly. It's really happening! Everything's on schedule and going lovely. I'll share any tantalizing media as I get it. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/156287353/the-tomorrow-g...

Dresden Codak has been a fully sustainable job for Aaron Diaz for years now - this is his profession. He has also participated in at least one collaborative Kickstarter that has already delivered. Given that the professionals that have been doing the Kickstarter thing this year have largely done very well, and he already has a track record of delivering, why are you so skeptical?

The Erfworld Kickstarter pretty much bankrupted its author. FYI. He started a new Kickstarter with blessing from the KS people, which... I can't say I am happy with. Especially since he's already promising stretch goals again.

Absolutely fantastic stuff. The Kurzweil and FM-2030 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM-2030) nod in the third strip (http://dresdencodak.com/2007/04/07/rule-110/) is hardly subtle, but amusing.

It is the most ridiculously ham-fisted Mary Sue pastiche that I have ever seen, but the art is nice.

I think Mary Sue is only when character is posed as in any way ordinary.

No, Mary Sues are really awesome, in all aspects.

"The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment. She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. "

I apologize in advance, and DO NOT click the link if you don't have time.. (because linking to TV Tropes is evil; click it and wake up a few hours later wondering what happened - you've been warned.)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

There's more to it even than that. One-dimensional perfection (within the context of the story; "flawed" characters whose flaws are treated as meaningless still quality) is an important aspect of Mary Sues, but it takes more than that to be a Sue. Perfection is, in fact, one of three critical aspects.

The second critical aspect of a Mary Sue is being unnaturally placed at the center of the plot. The "unnatural" part is important: a character who makes sense as the focal point of his or her own plotlines is not a Sue. This is what makes Sues in fanfiction easier to spot than Sues in original works: you can compare a fanfiction to the original story, and see if it flows the same way. When the work itself is original, you have no basis for comparison: you have to look at more subtle (but, in some ways, more egregious) flaws in the writing. It happens, but it's easier to mask.

All Sues are wish-fulfillment characters, but not all wish-fulfillment characters are Sues. The difference between them brings us to the third critical aspect. Most wish-fulfillment characters represent the reader, but a Sue, by contrast, represents the author in particular. Authors and readers can of course have the same fantasies -indeed, some would say the entire point of fiction is to make this happen- but a Sue gets too intensely personal, to the point where it becomes harder for anyone but the author to relate to the Sue: it breaks the rapport between the character and the reader.

Then I'll just quote the first paragraph:

> Mary Sue is a derogatory term primarily used in Fan Fic circles to describe a particular type of character. This much everyone can agree on. What that character type is, exactly, differs wildly from circle to circle, and often from person to person.

Also, http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/post/13913540194...

Yup. This is why I prefer comics done by a solo artist/writer. His update pace is horrifyingly glacial, but he fully exploits the form - his panels are packed with visual information, creative designs, etc. He writes for what he wants to draw, and the imagery pushes the story without being simply a meaningless parade of neat-looking-stuff.

Comic art is wasted on an endless parade of spandex and soap-operas. Using the most visually creative narrative form to tell genre-bound stories about people punching each other is just such a damned shame.

Dresden Codak isn't the perfect webcomic by any stretch, but it's definitely a must read if you want to understand the potential of the medium.

Strange, I've never heard the term "figure drawing" used in the context of comics or animation. Maybe it's common within the field, but the artists I know generally associate it with drawing human models. Wikipedia doesn't mention it either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_drawing

Interesting post though. I liked seeing the Cowboy Bebop characters again, and the point about the need for the body to be identifiable without clothes makes a lot of sense.

There's a book by Walt Stanchfield (former head of animation at Disney) named "Figure drawing for animation" Although the name may have changed, it used to be a photocopied book passing from hand to hand, but I read it was about to be properly published.

Edit: memory failure (just woke up, I guess it counts as an excuse) The book is /Gesture/ drawing for animation, not figure drawing. I mentally mixed the article content with your reference :) The book is great, though.

Sounds neat, thanks!

Ex-animator, now doing comics, here.

My experience has always been that "figure drawing" refers to sitting down in front of a live model, probably a naked one, and drawing them. You'll see people referring to drawing from pictures of naked people as figure drawing as well.

Diaz only uses the term once, at the beginning of this article:

"Figure drawing is a pivotal tool to any artist, but being able to effectively render humans and creatures is only part of the equation. Even if your draftsmanship is solid, you won’t get far if your designs are uninteresting."

By this, I think he is saying "it is very very important to be able to draw models from life and to know a ton of anatomy - but that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about character design." Which he then proceeds to do for the remainder of the article. (And I will strongly agree that a good foundation in life drawing will serve any cartoonist well, no matter how stylized their work is!)

In my experience, the most common usage of the term "figure drawing" in the fields of comics and animation is "man I'm getting rusty, I really should get some figure drawing in again but I am so BUSY."

So that's my understanding of figure drawing too, but in his final paragraph he says it again: "Figure drawing isn’t easy." as if he was talking about figure drawing the entire time. I guess it just needs clarification or something.

I like to over-analyze too.

If you’re interested in reading more tips about cartoon drawing technique, there’s a relevant book I’ve read some of, How to Make Webcomics: http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Webcomics-Scott-Kurtz/dp/1582.... I sampled a few chapters in a bookstore and remember that the author of PVP gave very similar advice, which I found interesting reading. I’m not skilled enough to evaluate the book’s drawing advice, but it looked like the authors knew what they were talking about. Though I’d caution that their advice seemed skewed to comics that update often and have a relatively simple drawing style, as opposed to the kind of comic that releases a detailed full-color page once a week.

Did you just point out that Scott Kurtz (one of the authors of that book) gave some advice similar to that given by Scott Kurtz (author of PvP)?

(hopefully the humour/snark part of that comment doesn't overwhelm the information part)

No, I meant that Scott Kurtz (the book co-author and PvP author), in his book, gave very similar advice to Aaron Diaz, the author of this “Figures” blog post. But I see how my wording was ambiguous.

Then my apologies. =]

The rest of the "comic theory" series: http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/tagged/design I think my favorite is "Primary and Secondary: A Tale of Two Focal Points". (Note the "Drawing Hands" one has a nude girl, but she's curled up and doesn't show anything. And of course the "Figures" one from OP is in there too.)

I am an avid fan of the Walking Dead comic books, but this is the #1 problem I have with the art: I can't tell the difference between the characters. Many of the characters look the same, especially the female characters, so the story gets confusing, especially when you only buy the trade paperback every few months.

Not exactly 'mildly' by any united states standard... interesting post though.

Conversely, I was wondering what was it that was NSFW at all in the pictures?

In a culture where all nakedness is banned and considered an absolute filter might be the explanation. But this is hardly the case even in the USA that is infamous for how inconsistently and arbitrarily such things are labelled as "ok" and "no-no".

First sentence of your comment was ok, rest was no-no.

First sentence of your comment was no-no, rest was ok.

I guess this is what I get for trying to be informative by pointing out that the post's content is in fact definitely, most very not-safe-for work: downvotes and ranting from the HN hivemind about how I'm oppressing art with my puritan American worldview, or something.

Let's enumerate the things I didn't do here:

- Say this post shouldn't be on HN

- Say the post is inappropriate for viewing by anyone

- Say the post was porn or smut

- Say anything is wrong with the post

I know tons of people who read HN at work, but screw those people, right?

It's your broad claim "by any United States standard" that's likely the cause of the downvotes.

Lots of US people here work in places where these two non-pruriently-posed cartoon nudes, used for a valid illustrative purpose, present no 'safety' problem.

Please don't make the US work environment seem more prude or homogenous than it actually is. This is not "definitely, most very not-safe-for-work". It depends on where you work. That makes "mildly NSFW" a fair description - it's enough of a warning for those in very sensitive environments, while allowing that in other places it'd be considered harmless.

I've never encountered a work environment where viewing those drawings at work would be defensible unless you were actually an artist.

Note that I'm not saying that this would be a firable offense, but that someone could easily complain to HR about it and it could be considered creating a hostile work environment if it makes them feel unwelcome. These things matter!

And I've never worked anyplace where it would be a problem. Which refutes your categorical pronouncements about nationally-consistent standards.

Everyone's got an anecdote!

Well, if you're demanding standards, you could spend a few seconds looking up the definition of sexual harassment in the workplace:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_environment_sexual_hara...

You'll notice 'pictures of pornography in cubicles' is one of them.

http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/currentissues.html (a government website, note) mentions specific cases where visible pornography counted as establishing a hostile work environment.

Nude sketches in this context are not 'pornography'. (Go ahead, look it up!)

And, an illustration in a browsed web article isn't the same as posted pictures in a cubicle.

Yes, the kind of hypersensitive context-oblivious standards you're describing exist in many workplaces. The point is they're not in all.

The dissenting comments and downvotes you've received contain valuable information: others' experience really, honestly, truly differs from your blanket claims.

In an ancestor comment you (correctly) noted that you hadn't said this post was porn. Now you are all but saying exactly that. Which is it?

I'll make my point again: The problem is not that the content is or isn't pornography; the problem is that the content can be considered pornography by a viewer. It doesn't matter whether I think it's pornography, it's whether the person at the desk across from me does. If they think it's pornography, they're well within their rights to file an HR complaint if it makes them uncomfortable.

Which is why it's good to have clear 'NSFW' warnings on things that might be inappropriate in the workplace. Trying to get really specific about what might be appropriate doesn't do anyone much good; just tag it NSFW if it's remotely questionable and people can check it out at home. Make sense?

Visible genitals - whether male or female - are often considered not appropriate for general audiences in the US. So it is not exactly crazy to assume that someone might be made uncomfortable or upset by a coworker viewing them at work.

Nudity is not pornography. I don't think it's healthy to assume others are so crazy as to call this blog post pornography.

I am slightly concerned that you considered this "Pornography".

Thankfully there's no such thing in this post.

Ever worked in construction?

That rather small collection of comments down there, half of which agree with you, is 'ranting from the hivemind'? Your comment currently being at 1+ karma is "getting downvotes"?

Grow a thicker skin.

It was at -3 when I wrote that comment. I guess writing a reply is a good way to get upvotes. :P

depends on the context and the standards.

The nakedness in question here is not intended to titillate, but to illustrate (ha) a point. To anyone who's ever taken a drawing class w/ a nude model, this is scandalous in the least.

If you're presenting to your board of directors, it might be (presuming that character design is not pertinent to your endeavor).

Dude, I work at a fairly liberal software company in SoCal, and if I scrolled down to the bottom-most picture with the hand-drawn fully-naked chick and someone happened to glance at my screen, I would most likely be fired.

As a rule of thumb, suggestive/sexy clothing is "mildly NSFW." Full nudity, regardless of context, is "very NSFW."

(It may be different in Europe.)

> I work at a fairly liberal software company in SoCal, and if I scrolled down to the bottom-most picture with the hand-drawn fully-naked chick and someone happened to glance at my screen, I would most likely be fired.

If that would be grounds for firing, even after describing the context of the article, then you decidedly do not work at a fairly liberal software company.

Definitions of 'liberal' differ.

It seems perfectly consistent to me to be 'liberal' and have a 'no (non work related) naked pictures at work' policy under the auspices of a zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy. No one needs to look at naked pictures at work, and they could plausibly make someone uncomfortable in a sexual way.

Now, you could argue that the modern liberal hippie philosophy is that sex is natural and no one should be offended by it and it is just our Puritanical baggage which makes it otherwise, and maybe I'd agree with you. But you could also argue that in the context of our Puritanical baggage, our slut shaming, our last fifty-plus years of Madmen-esque workplace sexual discrimination, we need a period of overly desexualized workplaces before we can shed our Puritanical baggage.

That depends on what makes it grounds for firing.

Any sufficiently left-wing policy is indistinguishable from a right-wing policy, and the reverse is also true. Anti-pornography movements present one of the clearest modern illustrations of this phenomenon. The right-winger complains of personal morality, while the left-winger complains about demeaning and objectifying the subjects, but they wind up at basically the same conclusions. Alcohol prohibition showed something very similar around the turn of the century.

Something similar - a hand drawn picture of a woman in a fantasy equivalent of a bikini (lots of skin, no nipples, no groin) - has actually gotten me fired from a very large internet company, so...

It's basically considered a fireable offense under the sexual harassment policy.

I doubt that such a firing is defensible as a sexual harassment claim. If you are creating a hostile work environment, someone first has to complain about it and you have to be given a warning and instructions on how to remedy the situation.

However, of course, you can always be fired for demonstrating questionable judgement.

All that it takes is one person to complain that they were offended, irregardless of the work environment, and a company with "zero tolerancy" towards sexual harassment will toss you out on your ass.

Frankly, it would have been easy to remedy - I was browsing a game forum with image signatures, which is where this image appeared.

Of course, at the time, the HR person didn't like me (I mistook her for my bosses personal assistant when I was hired), so that didn't help. Learned a lot of lessons from that situation - the biggest being "make the HR employees like you".

No, you're wrong. A firing on the grounds that sexual harassment took place has to go through a specific sequence of events, and a number of lines have to be crossed. If you were actually told that you are being fired under a sexual harassment claim, and none of these intermediate events took place, then you may have been improperly terminated.

Sexual harassment isn't just "someone did something that made me feel uncomfortable" -- it's a set of specific and defined offenses, with measurable impacts. You have to have done something which created a hostile environment for your peers, they have to report to management that you are making the environment threatening for them, management has to raise this to your attention and instruct you to stop the offending behavior, and you have to have failed to remedy the situation when you were instructed to.

A zero tolerance policy like you describe would just be a reiteration of the nature of your at-will employment agreement, as what they're saying is that they reserve the right to fire you for doing anything that is questionably dumb. But if you were told that there is a sexual harassment claim against you, you have rights too.

At will or not, I was terminated for sexual harassment.

Rights or not, it wasn't realistic to pursue it (an inexperienced 20-something against a multi-million dollar internet giant), and it was enough years ago now that I've gotten something more valuable out of it - experience.

So it took more than "one person to complain" - it took that and the HR person not liking you.

Which, in an ideal world, shouldn't have had any impact. Of course, it's not an ideal world, etc etc.

However, the original point stands - even "liberal software companies" will fire people for less than nudity on your screen.

I don't disagree with you that "mildly" is a somewhat generous judgment call here. Most American workplaces wouldn't look kindly at your being caught with this on your screen. That said, I think we're missing the broader point.

The broader point is that "NSFW" labels carry an implicit caveat emptor warning. Nobody's forcing you to click open a link, and if you believe that you work in an environment with a low tolerance for anything that could be construed as "NSFW," then don't click on a link marked "NSFW" -- even if it's qualified by "mildly," "moderately," "slightly," "possibly," and so forth. If you see the abbreviation "NSFW," you need to take stock of the risks involved in proceeding, and proceed (or not proceed) accordingly.

A corollary: given that one person's definition of NSFW will always differ from another's, it's often best to err on the side of caution.

Personally speaking, I'm thankful I work at the sort of company that wouldn't fire me for viewing this material. And I'm grateful because it's genuinely fascinating material, and the nudity is used for illustrative purposes (and also, conveniently, tucked at the bottom). Of course, if I worked at a bigger or more conservative company, there's no way in hell I would have taken a chance on anything with an NSFW label.

1) You clearly don't work at a fairly liberal company. 2) I disagree with the "regardless of context". Let's say someone did see you reading this. You would say "this is the top ranked item on Hacker News. Didn't realize one of the drawings was naked." And that would be that, at least everywhere I've ever worked.

I work at a fairly staid software company in NorCal, and that would definitively not be grounds for firing.

Wow, are you serious? I knew the US approach to these things is weird but this is shocking. How can you fire someone for briefly looking at something they happened to find on the web? You never know what you can find on the web and not everything is labeled, so you can always find something by accident.

There's a big difference between spending hours at work looking through porn and reading one article which happens to have one nude drawing at the bottom. I find it hard to believe that someone leading a big company in the US can not realize that.

I used to work at a place where part of my job was to find great porn for the boss so he could spend more time doing boss stuff. And I got paid to find, and rate, porn. Win/ win.

I'd still classify it as mildly NSFW. Cartoons and other depictions are less NSFW than images. Or else the following would also be a fireable offense:

    (.|.)

But I don't understand why you need to match periods redundantly in your regex?

That's why it's a fireable offense.

I should be fired too... '.' != '\.'.

I'm put in mind of the old Zawinski quote:

"Some people, when confronted with a problem, think \"I know, I'll use regular expressions.\" Now they have two problems. "

Obviously he meant [.|.], which is redundant on so many levels.

Newsflash: SoCal isn't as liberal as you may think.

Does anyone know of any case where someone has been fired for looking at a hand drawn non-pornographic depiction of a nude in the western world? Really?

I see stories about teachers being fired for working as strippers on the side, or there's a teacher fired for http://www.parentdish.com/2006/10/02/texas-school-teacher-fi... a child to nude pictures in an Art museum (Texas -- ) but I think this is fanciful. And note that the teacher concerned was no, technically, fired over the art.

Prudishness in the US is pretty ridiculous but the only thing which would be job-threatening here is that you're surfing the web on company time AND the thing you're looking at offends someone.

Yes, me. And the hand drawn character was not nude. Fell under the "sexual harassment" clause, because the co-worker who saw it was female and offended.

Eh. You are probably correct, but were it "high" art (say.. "David"), not some sketches on tumblr, it would certainly be mild. Sussing out what is potentially offensive and how much so can be difficult.

Heck, the author of TFA has it tagged as nsfw himself!

I disagree that the drawings were not meant to titillate. The, ahem, anatomic detail they go into was unnecessary to prove his point.

> The, ahem, anatomic detail they go into

I'm curious what exactly you mean here? It's a naked body, it's not posed in a "Pornographic" way, and by definition a naked drawing is a drawing of anatomy, and even then it's not as though anything has been gone into in detail. I'm not sure why the artist would have to deliberately remove elements to 'satisfy' the whims of insanely prude readers?

Besides, without the anatomical details, there probably wouldn't be the visual clues to identify the characters as 'Naked', which is necessary for the point in question.

It's nothing an art school graduate hasn't seen a million times over.

It's nothing I haven't seen a millions times over. That doesn't mean I'd want to be caught looking at it at work.

Presumably that's why it's tagged NSFW.

"using hair alone to distinguish heads is cheating" xkcd might disagree :)

He explicitly mentions stick figures that can be better than photorealistic painting as readers of xkcd might agree.

But take the Scott Pilgrim stories, everybody looks mostly the same except for hairstyles. I remember there is also a joke by one of the characters that everybody looks the same anyway.

I'd say, these are suggestions and not hard rules. You might get away disregarding some of these.

On the contrary, I think he might agree with the characterization. It is a hacker's comic after all.

What a surprise: the only naked figures are a) women and b) cute.

They are also c) the main characters in his webcomic.

To be fair, it is a reasonable criticism of Aaron Diaz - he frequently posts feminist-commentary and lambasts others for using sex to sell comics, but he throws a lot of pin-up worthy cheesecake in his work.

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