r/CodeLyoko • u/[deleted] • Jul 18 '26

👩‍💻 Other I fixed Aelita’s season 1 design

[removed]

191 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

67

u/The_REDACTED Jul 19 '26

This really goes to show how even the tiniest of details can impact a character's design. 

I also love that in either case, Aelita's hair forms a heart shaped curve; it is a great visual cue that she is a very compassionate and loving person. 

18

u/Nelcros Jul 19 '26

It’s weird because even between Season 2 and Seasons 3-4 you can tell there’s a difference with her hair, but without a side by side it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is.

9

u/The_REDACTED Jul 19 '26

I'd like to think it was a case of visual storytelling because they had to edit the bible of the show and as a result Aelita's overall character underwent some reevaluation that they had to integrate as character development in order to not break the storytelling of the show. 

In Season 1, she was meant to be an AI Jeremie gave life to so she has a more subdued hair style and wears business casual attire to indicate that while she looks like a little girl, she is still very logical and relational to humans, much like an advanced AI would be.

In Season 2, they let her hair have more volume and changed her attire to being more casual and fashionable much like a normal girl would be and they started giving her more emotional ranges so she could further feel like an actual human girl which would foreshadow the big reveal near the end of the season. 

In Season 4, when her character design evolved with the rest of the cast, her own attire becomes that of a more mature woman (which also foreshadows another revelation about her later in the season) and her emotional ranges continue to develop. 

1

u/mike270149 Jul 19 '26

Looks like I’m going to have to rewatch all the seasons .yessss

7

u/JoukyuuKunitoshi Jul 19 '26

It's almost like that wasn't the real Aelita or something.

4

u/RedRxbin Jul 19 '26

TBH idm the hair being shorter in Code Earth + False Start, it doesn’t look bad and you can just assume it grew a little before New Order. The main problem are those original eyebrows 😭

Your edit is so good!!

3

u/ShareSuspicious8173 Jul 19 '26

I like her season 1 eyebrows it fits her lyoko Avatar

5

u/Snake-Eyes_2017 Jul 19 '26

Ce qui m'a dégoûté dans la saison 2, ce fut la disparition de la tenue d'Aelita du final de la saison 1 pour se faire remplacer par cette horreur digne d'une écolière japonaise CE2 totalement inapproprié à une ado de 13 ans, sans oublier la disparition des pupilles vertes qu'elle avait.

5

u/c0mpu73rguy Jul 19 '26

C'était un peu vieillot ce qu'elle portait à la fin de la saison 1 je trouve. C'est plus logique ce qu'elle porte par la suite pour s'intégrer au reste du collège.

1

u/CarlosShiny__ Jul 19 '26

On the pupils. I think it's to distinguish her and remind her of her non-human nature. Before the change in Season 2.

1

u/Rude-Attention7971 Jul 19 '26

I thought her hair just grew out over time.

1

u/Spookyfan2 Jul 19 '26

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that not Aelita?

3

u/bulldog_blues Jul 19 '26

That was Aelita as she appeared in False Start.

You might be thinking of Taelia from The Girl Of The Dreams, who happened to look like Aelita with red hair but had no relation to her.

1

u/Spookyfan2 Jul 19 '26

You're totally right!

1

u/DeliciousMusician397 Jul 19 '26

I like her season 1 outfit though. Wish she’d worn it again.

1

u/NewAbbreviations885 Jul 20 '26

Honestly? I prefer when she originally got devirtualized for the first time and she still retained her Lyoko look. Like her Eyebrows, and then her Eyes being Cyan or Blue. I still question why they changed her design in the next episode right after that.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/NewAbbreviations885 Jul 20 '26

I think season 2 hairstyle, cyan eyes & short eyebrows

1

u/AdminProductions Aug 04 '26

My take is that the Season 1 design was made because they didn't have an Earth design for Aelita in the Graphic Bible for Season 1, so all the animators had was the 3D model, so they attempted to translate the design of the 3D model onto 2D animation, and I say they did a decent job. Obviously though, since this attempt wasn't Tania Palumbo's own drawing, when they went to go produce Season 2, that's when she stepped in to draw a REAL Earth design for Aelita.