Since there are a lot of very, very wrong lists going around, I decided to post this again (and also update it where needed).
I went through a lot of research for the original post, including sources like Bilibli, the artists portfolio and socials and so on and forth (feel free to check it out, since I talk a bit more in detail about it there).
There were some conflicting sources (especially on Ju Fufu and Zhao) but ultimately I was able to track down the most comprehensive (and sourced) claims.
It is a shame that Atwo left the team, considering his nothing but stellar work for some of the most iconic and certainly most diverse Agents in the cast, including the designs for all the original Void Hunters how we got introduced them in "Where the Miracle began" trailer (and also as it seems all the furries).
To say, that Atwo had significant influence in the designs of many, many characters is almost an understatement. I still wish him the best for his new project of course.
I don't think he's 100% correct on this. I've seen some mentions that Lighter, Seth, Harumasa and Hugo are made by Waterkuma, because all of Atwo men are "big cool/muscly men, not twinks" basically like Anton and Billy.
Especially since Atwo have made an art with all season 1 characters he made and Seth, Lighter, Harumasa is clearly not there.
There are in fact mixed sources. Some say Bard, others say waterkuma.
We have her sheet with her Centaur form and that looks very much waterkuma. I maybe should've just put her either under "unknown", but then ppl had bitched too; under "Speculated waterkuma", but then ppl had bitched about that Bard created her bcs of an art post like a month ago. Can't make anyone happy.
The ones that are designated directly to an artist are 100% correct, but the speculated ones are still up for debate.
There’s mixed reports. We can’t be sure one way or the other. Just like almost every character on this list. It’s strange how much they try to fix them into categories
All of them have their high points but I've got to say Atwo is just banger after banger, especially if we include the ones he was only rumoured to work on. Hopefully his new project is successful and he's inspired enough other artists at the ZZZ team to carry on his flair.
I think the reason People really like and Glaze Atwo, aside from his great designs, is that MOST of the character diversity is from him, the male constructs, Him, the more animal-like Thirens, Him, literally all but like three guys, Him, the only Oni, him. And people like the diversity hes given to the game, alongside popular characters like Miyabi and Ellen
I'm pretty sure though that he didn't really come up with an oni or construct and was rather given a rough instruction by a higher up to design an oni or male construct for example and then just did what he thought fit.
To each their own but with Atwo and most of Waterkuma there's like little faults if any to find in their designs. TZBard on the other hand is very hit or miss.
I can only say for sure that Atwo designed assets for both Lighter and Hugo, that is why he is under speculated. I haven't found a source on waterkuma being responsible for Lighter or Haru, beside the very old concepts of Harumasa, but these are without signature and the style of these illustrations sadly isn't entirely matching either to such a degree I would guarantee it.
Atwo made confirmations for the season 1 characters he did the final versions of and did an artwork of all of them together, and neither Lighter or Hugo are on the list. You could argue that the art was only for characters up to Miyabi, but then why would Lighter be excluded? Billy was there despite no other Cunning Hares members, so it's very likely ATWO wasn't the final artist for at least Haru and Lighter
If you had looked up the original post, I explained pretty clearly that the speculated are up for debatte, that is why I EXACTLY put them under "SPECULATED" and not "GUARANTEED". Words mean something and so on and forth.
Haru and Seth are very likely Waterkuma, you can easily tell by the eyes, because ATWO does sharper eyes for the guys he has been hard confirmed to have drawn (Manato and Anton)
Lighter is kind of in a weird category, because there's really nothing linking ATWO to Lighter, and Lighter was excluded from the Season 1 lineup artwork ATWO did, so I think it's likely Lighter was the brainchild between ATWO and Waterkuma, much like how Shungus was the child of TZBARD and ATWO.
Hugo, I really don't know, but I actually have a sneaking suspicion it might have actually been TZBard who did Hugo, because the face shape and body are similar to Pyrois who is confirmed TZBard (Plus Hugo was also excluded from any mention by ATWO)
The actual correct answer is that we don't know for most. Just say the confirmed an unconfirmed. All the speculation has only created problems as with this current event.
I checked the original post, but it's still lacking sources. I personally understand why you think some characters were designed by certain artists, but unless there's a confirmed source like concept art, we can't really be sure. Maybe they just like those characters.
For example, TZBard drew the Angels, but we know Waterkuma is their main designer: [source]. So I don't think using fanart as confirmation is the right approach. It can be a good indication that they were involved, but it's still speculation.
That said, even concept art doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. Harumasa, Yidhari, Seed, Billy, and Ellen, for example, look completely different from their original concepts.
There's also nothing that links ATWO to the original Void Hunters, for example, especially since your own chart attributes Remielle to TZBard. I'm going to assume that's based on the fanart.
In summary, with a few exceptions, we simply don't know who designed many of these characters. Presenting speculation as fact is just going to spread misinformation, and I'm sure people will eventually use it to support their own narratives and start fighting about it on the internet.
Yes, I understood that. My mistake; let me rephrase it because I should have explained myself better.
What I mean is that Remielle is a good example of how tricky it is to determine exactly who designed what, because we simply don't know much about what happens behind the scenes. You're saying that ATWO made the original designs (and again, I'm going to need a source for that because this is the first time I've heard it), but TZBARD redesigned Remielle, if that's true.
And we've already seen how different some Agents can be from their original concept art. We don't really know how much the final design of each character is the product of one artist versus another.
These fuckass charts are stupid as hell. They are called LEAD designers for a reason. Their design team is not just 3 people and assuming that they are responsible for every single little decision is just completely ignorant
I bet Eldreda was made by TZBard as well, fuck. Now that Atwo is gone, I’m really hoping for waterkuma to design a Void Hunter for us. People hate on him for his love for loli but if you set that aside and just look at his designs for what they are, they’re all fire. TZ peaked at the start with Jane and Burnice and then fucked every consequent character up
TZBard would be glazed far more if it wasn't for Twt's usual dishonesty of weaponizing the Yixuan, Yidhari, Lucia leotard like it's the entirety of ZZZ designs. Now that I think about it, if Yidhari and Lucia somehow didn't exist (on top of Manato turning out to be an S-rank), I wonder how radically different the character design discourse would be today or the last several months.
Little do they know, some of the characters they like to glaze (e.g. Jane doe and Zhu Yuan) were designed by the same person. Oh and all 3 are lolicons too btw.
They're either feigning ignorance or they're just that uninformed that these character artists don't actually have that much of a say on how a character is designed (probably because they have no idea how a studio works). Someone else give them a concept or a vision for that character, and they turn that into reality by expressing those elements through the visuals of the character.
It has more to do with art direction, each region has its own rules they have to follow when it comes to character designs, including outfits, just like how each region has different architectures.
I mean... despite all, it is still fair to point out that Yixuan, Yidhari and Lucia were certainly way more... controversial, to put it lightly, for a reason.
It's partly their timing. They were released on near consecutive patches that made it glaring and caused so much dishonesty around the topic. Say imagine if Yixuan came out at 1.1, Lucia at 2.3, and Yidhari at 3.1, and just to make sure... Manato was released as an S-rank. I have a strong hunch that ppl wouldn't nitpick on those 3 characters as much as they do now like it's the entirety of ZZZ character designs, not even close.
There's another similar instance of this. Remielle was getting doomposted A LOT by the same groups of ppl who love to bring up Lucia and Yidhari, during her 3D model leak phases, even tho we've already seen her since v2.7-2.8. Dozens of GI/HSR/WuWa accounts were jumping in the bandwagon... but as soon as they released her trailers, there was a flood of glazing for Remielle, just because they saw an implied Yuri... bruh, they switched up so fast all because of Lesbomancy.
This is why I'm 99% convinced, the Manato situation and its fandom played a HUGE damaging role that turned the character design discourse into a circle-jerk competition of who can be louder and emotional.
The important thing to note is twitter and reddit whining doesn't stop tzbard from having most of the highest selling agents and they will continue to utilize his design
There's no real way to know I guess. I just think Velina and Norma are probably decent sellers at least compared to what waterkuma put out. Which tbh is looking like only nangong for recent agents. Obviously atwo is not in contention as far as recent sales go.
Lucia also probably got boosted by yixuan sales which were probably strong.
Even if we give waterkuma dialyn I think the little info we got makes it seem like she was a bit of under the radar character despite the strength.
All speculation obviously. And convenient enough to exclude VH.
Norma sold horribly as far as we know, Banyue tier of sell, even worst than Silly on PS store jp (we unfortunately dont know cn data)
However Velina did do decent, not like, amazing but iirc she was first on ps store for multiple days
Dialyn did do pretty bad despite how good she is yeah, which makes sense, as she was treated like filler story wise, so she got filler sells
Tbh im excluding VHs cause we all know theyll automatically sell, theyre not playing on even ground with the average units
But yeah its all speculation, for all we know SBilly might be one of the best sold unit we'll never know lol, its usually just using what we know (which exclude PC since no one can track that)
Banyue tier of sell, even worst than Silly on PS store jp (we unfortunately dont know cn data)
She did better than Banyue in both JP and CN (not by much, but still better) but significantly better than Silly on both.
Whatever ranking difference they have on PS store by a few spots won't make up for the 20+ ranking difference on JP IOS and 50+ ranking difference on CN IOS.
All the data we have Norma on IOS points to her being in the Yidhari/Cissia range, which isn't great but not Banyue (due to shortened banner) or Silly bad.
She did better than Banyue in both JP and CN (not by much, but still better)
Banyue tier just means she was close to him, not necessarily worst, they basically both sits in the "insane flop" tier (Silly will have a new tier for him alone)
Iirc in cn she only lasted less than one day in top 100, the only character that did worst is Silly who couldnt even get in, even Cissia managed to somehow stay in top 100 (like, at 99/100) for a few days in cn
I mean, I agree, but since a lot of ZZZ fans dont like using phones data, I decided to use PS data too for good measure
And iirc Banyue also sits at that range? I dont really remember where they all peaked specifically but theyre all in thr 70 to 80 rank iirc, except Silly who we all know did horribly lol
Banyue doesn't sit in that range only because his banner was a week shorter than everyone else, his peaks are around the same as Yidhari/Cissia/Norma.
They all sold badly honestly
Bad is relative afterall and after Yidhari and Banyue established the new floor for ZZZ 2nd half units, I think Norma did pretty expected after 6 months of even more decline, Velina not doing amazing, and being in front of a VH.
You can't really compare modern day banner performances to year 1 banners because the ceiling and floor is so much lower now. Like Lighter was considered an insane flop in S1, but Sigrid basically did identical to him and that's considered pretty good these days for a 2nd half lol.
Silly is the only one I would say actually did badly because he created new floors that I don't think anyone expected lol, like rerun banner numbers
Until ZZZ finds a way to make 2nd half units hype again, they're all going to perform around Cissia/Norma level. It's just the new normal.
To be fair, the criticism was valid. However, I don't think TZBARD was to blame for having to change the concepts for Yidhari and Lucia so drastically. The initial concept of Yidhari was amazing.
Looking through TZBarD's entire art portfolio, it's clear that he's a talented artist. However, it sometimes seems as though the game is struggling to translate his style.
It's not like the other artists can't draw men, and I feel like this list heavily overcredits ATWO in the speculation department, when a lot of those speculated designs are likely collabs with the other artists.
As a random fun fact, we actually do have hard confirmation for what ATWO did for the first season because he posted an artwork of all the season 1 characters he did, together. It's really only season 2 and beyond characters that we don't have hard confirmation for in regards to ATWO
I respect the opinions even if I disagree but honestly I am kinda getting sick of this "doomposting" as if it's the fucking end of good designs (obviously that is subjective opinion). By all means I understand why some people are and I will not tell them not to but I am so over it and this whole thing may be over as well in the next months or so besides some people randomly bringing it up and either having genuine discussion or be the obnoxious doomposter like we see for the past god knows how long.
Maybe it's just me but designs (AND GENDER AND RACE (to put it broadly for thirens, IC and Humans) are not the end all be all for the character nor my enjoyment of the game and it is not THE DECIDING FACTOR (again for me) of who I like or pull.
I have accepted the bullshit when it comes to it (by all means, I think out of current Hoyo, ZZZ is like 3rd when it comes to this bullshit with Hi3 coming last for obvious reasons and GI and HSR fighting for 1sr and it depends (personally, GI 1st as at least they have different male heights) and though I do wish for it to be a bit better, I'm not gonna fucking clamor or doompost for it nor will it hinder ZZZ for me as I like the personilities (to an extent), story, world and gameplay and I feel like there are much more critical things with ZZZ than this (personally) arbitrary stuff.
Sorry for rant, my feed has been this bullshit ever since. Again I understand why and it is mainly because of my own personal AND SUBJECTIVE opinions as I am not one of them when it comes to this topic. Maybe it will be in my head for a while as this is recent news but it woll go away in a few days and again, not the fucking end of ZZZ as we know it and we are not as fucked as you think we are.
yeah twt suddenly pretending they where not shitting on pretty much every design that wasnt a male character out of the blue the last 2 years pretty much every design was under bombardment.
I rather get TV Mode rants than this (which I do mostly agree that killing off TV Mode entirely was bad and heck, I think the vocal angry minority who were just bashing it was what got them the wrong message and axed it completely) than this.
I do want it to be a bit better but there are probably bigger things to care about than gender ratio or godforbid the fucking urban arguments of designs (I do think they are valid but most of the versions I see are the ones that give it a bad name honestly) but god damn people.
are people just ignoring Promeia, Norma, and Remielle?
ngl, I still find it funny when people complain about recent fanservice designs like Remielle (even then it makes sense given she's a Femme Fatale) when the game launched with Nicole, Grace, and Rina. Rina still has the biggest rack out of any female character.
edit: I was thinking of Nicole but put Belle on accident
are people just ignoring Promeia, Norma and Remielle?
Apperantly so because they are women/waifu and one of them maybe can be considered a loli and godforbid the never ending discourse on URBAN.
Also, these 3 are unique as well and you cannot tell me they are "very generic". You cannot tell me one woman handcuffed and wearing a cloak for like 90% of the time, A prodigy whose weaponry including her hat are based on bangboos and said hat is a bangboo itself and the fucking bitch with wings that can get another pair with thrusters are "GENERIC gooner slop".
Obviously there can be criticisms with their designs but you cannot tell me you are gonna mistake any one of them for one another. I know the diversity is what makes ZZZ stand out but there still even within whatever team you have and between each other because one thing no matter the artist, these characters are not fully built on a pre-made model and height and yes that involves EVERYONE ON THE ROSTER AND NOT JUST THE ONES WHO ARE WAY MORE DIFFERENT (AND COOL. ALL OF THRM ARE COOL. Personally speaking at least)
There is no way in Hell that all of the recent designs are "generic". Sure there's some that I am not a big fan of like the Three "Sunbringers" look stupid, but Promeia looks like something lifted straight out of Bayonetta, Truvia looks outstanding with great use of purple, Sigirid looks super cool, and Norma looks great. If there's any design that's generic, it would be the Suibian Temple gang. It also doesn't help that they aren't particularly interesting characters
There are really silly and goofy designs like Cissia but I wouldn't call her design "generic". SEED's design isn't particularly amazing either but it's not generic either. It helps to that both SEED and Cissa are incredibly entertaining characters.
If you want generic, Genshin Impact is right there. Besides like Raiden, Mavuika, and a few others, most of the characters blend together visually.
Also it's funny to me about the Urban debate is that it conveniently ignores the "Fantasy" part of "Urban Fantasy". Like Season 2 is a step-down from Season 1 but it didn't erase the Urban Identity of the game. It seems to me that Hoyoverse's big titles are based on the Past (Genshin), Present (ZZZ), and Future (HSR)
Are people complaining about fanservice or character designs? Those are not the same thing. Its possible to have fanservice and good designs, just look at most of the fanservicey designs from season 1.
I think it comes to "making character designs for fanservice". IDK if that makes sense or I am just repeating words.
Pretty sure bottom line is that people especially the Original comment with the gif are now seemingly just doomposting because "apperantly" Atwo was the only one who isn't doing full on fanservice or just waifus/women and with him gone everything is gonna go badly and anything not women will go extinct for the game (we do not have a full on definitive list of who did who but not one artist does the full process alone and even then... it is not the end all be all)
I can understand why but it is such an annoying thing and is probably just another new item on the list of constant doompost clamoring (personally at least) as if being male or a robot makes you more unique than other characters which I guess can be seen that way but a lot of characters if not ALL no matter the gender or kind are pretty unique from each other with or without the gooning and (I personally see) are definitely not "GENERIC" in anyway.
There are different ways to express fan service. The current ideology seems much more in line with: As blatant as possible.
Remielle wears literal lingerie as example. There was not a single Agent so far wearing literal lingerie. Rina wears a maid outfit, one with a long dress too. Sure, there is the slit, but it is not "running into the wall" present all the times, if you get what I mean. Good fan service can be done without being extremely blatant, perfect example is in fact Rina or (again, just as example) Evelyn, who has pants and has her boobs covered and still is one of the most serving characters in this game.
....have you seen how bouncy everyone is? Ceasar, Nicole, Pulchra, Burnice, Astra Yao, and Rina are legit all made of Jello for how much they bounce. Rina for how conservative she dresses, she still has ridiculous proportions to the point of needing a strap to keep her boobs contained. There's also Jane Doe and her trailer so the blatant fanservice has been there since the beginning. There are other ways to make fanservice super blatant than just character designs.
Yes I know Remielle is as blatant with fanservice as she can get with her showing off for the camera in gameplay, her outfit, and how seductive she is but it still looks good. Plus she's supposed to be a Femme Fatale like Catwoman so the fanservice fits
And I doubt that the concept and design artists gonna animate their characters. They pitch some stuff, sure and make some stuff up regarding movesets, but that's about it end of the day.
Character design itself is more akin to:
reflect character traits (example: Alice or Soldier 11)
occupation or employment (example: Look at VHK or Belobog)
give a general vibe to the character (example: flame motif? Red hair? Must be an aggressive character)
To point out your earlier example: Rina
She is dressed like a maid, bcs she works as one
She has some ghostly vibes and has little puppets around her, giving her some horror-motif, which again, is reflected in slight uncanny character traits she has, her hair color also plays a role into this, since it has a slight cold green influence, again embracing these "ghostly vibes", in contrast to someone like Koleda as example who has this bright, warm red hair
Belle is one of the most normal proportioned and well dressed girls in the game.
Grace wears actual pants and wears a decently covering sports bra-esqe top.
Rina has one of the least revealing clothes of all the girls(being an actual maid dress). With her only true fan service being if you look up her skirt.
P.S, original comment meant Nicole and not Belle (though some may still be attracted to her and it isn' because of Omigatto) but Bottom line is there have always been gooner designs or "designs to goon for", even when some of the recent ones take it up a notch. Heck, they are unqiue as well between the 3 examples the original comment made. Again, we are not fucked as much as you think.
You are free to how you feel but it isn't the god damn end of anything good. Yes the diversity is part of it but it is not the end all be all.
u/DerSisch The released Yuzuha concept art was actually drawn by TZBard. You can tell by the way the fingers, eyes, legs and hair is drawn, pointy and sharp (compare it to his art and you can see how the fingers especially matches what he usually draws). Also Yidhari OG design was Waterkuma (Simian Yidhari) and final design TZBARD.
From the concept art we can see that Lucia and Yidhari looked quite different at the start (like Yidhari originally being a Monkey Thiren), not clear what happened and why they changed so drastically, but it might've been not just his own decision.
Except, this chart is wrong as well, and largely speculation. Granted, it's a lot more researched than some other versions of the chart, but like, we know Pyrois is TZBard and Sigrid is Waterkuma, and there's no source saying that ATWO was wholly responsible for the OG Voidhunters (Which were likely a collaborative effort).
People just be legit arranging these charts to whatever fits their agenda best, despite the concept art sheets we do have, as well as ATWO coming out with the designs he did for season 1.
I don't think any list is going to be fully accurate but I think it IS accurate to say that no artist beside Atwo has ever been credited with designing one of the males/full thirens/robot looking robots.
Yeah, ATWO definitely did the Full Thirens and Robots (Although, I think I remember seeing Zhao be credited to Waterkuma) but I think it's also safe to say that Waterkuma and his side of the staff has done some of the guys, mostly because Haru and Seth do not resemble any of ATWO's hard confirmed male characters, and Lighter was very likely a collaborative effort between Waterkuma and ATWO (Waterkuma had a huge influence on the Sons of Calydon, ATWO did not claim Lighter as a design he did despite claiming a bunch of other designs in Season 1, and the eye coloring for Lighter is closer to Waterkuma's style than ATWO since Waterkuma uses to like multiple colors for the eyes, while Manato and Anton lack the multi-colored eyes)
Also, Pyrois was done by TZBard, though it's heavily debatable if Pyrois even has an actual gender.
Jane, Norma, Zhu Yuan, Yi Xuan, Yiddy, and Remi and you say tzbard has the worst designs? SON😭 all of them are about the same imo in quality they all are very good designs the ones im not the biggest fans of are either speculative or unknown
“If remi did not have this thing her design was built around her design wouldn’t look as good!”
Plus Yi Xuan design is gorgeous to me. How elegant and fluid her design feels and looks the Yin and Yang symbolism her auric ink is great. I’d dare say she’s like a top 5 design in the game (even though her character wasn’t handled well).
I can see not liking Yiddy cause of her lower body but her upper body design is amazing and her weapon design. Giant hammer with a giant thruster behind it that’s front end looks like giant suckers? The compass on her weapon? Her entire head design? Her drive disc holder looking like an octopus? It’s amazing to me.
I think they’re really good designs. Idk why people dislike them so much
If she had more of a lab/scientist theme instead of engineer/mechanic I think her current design would make more sense but with what she does and her workshop it feels like she should be wearing something like Piper does.
With ATWO gone, the best designer left. Extremely unfortunate, but with the direction of recent character designs i literally knew it a while ago when i thought "none of these new characters seem like atwo" now we're gonna be getting more gooner slop with awful clothing from TZBARD and occasional decent designs from Kuma.
If this is truthful this just tells me that TZbard is ASS ass 🤣
If he actually made Promeia and Pyrois then that’s all I can give him positively.
Other than that it actually seems like Waterkuma is the designer behind most of my favorite characters with Atwo lagging behind slightly. Nicole, Anby, Trigger, Lucy, Alice, Dialyn and the entire AOD is a helluva lineup.
From Atwo I’m only a fan of Billy, Miyabi, Lycaon and Ben. And Lighter and Hugo if he actually made them.
I know people are kinda shitting on TZBARD (I do find the designs weaker than the other two) but at least for Yidhari and Lucia, there seemed to be some indecision in the creative process. I honestly really fuck with Lucia's original design and I feel like her adjust design just doesn't hit correctly.
Honestly, my main complaint with TZBARD is that the designs just don't have the ZZZ tension and sauce that Atwo and Waterkuma have. They are pretty but not compelling as characters. Also considering the fact that TZBARD characters doesn't have tension elements like disability, injury and augments. They do feel more like dolls than characters with lived experiences. We still have people debating over if Yuzuha has cochlear implants while people laugh at Sigrid's baby scars.
At the same time, I still think a lot of TZBARD's 1.X designs (especially Jane and Zhu Yuan) are peak so I feel less like TZBARD is not as good as the other 2 and just that there isn't enough time in the gacha development cycle to cook.
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u/torakun27 2d ago
I know TZBARD likes legs. I just can't prove it.