Why do all the girls have the same face?

General Discussion
21

I hope some people don’t google “human face golden ratio”.
It could blow some minds.

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22

Ain’t as bad as Disney, but they need to be careful with the consistent ‘round face, big eyes, high cheekbones, small button nose’ thing.

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23

It unfortunately confuses heterosexual men when women don’t conform to a singular doe-eyed, come-hither sameface. If you recall, when Moira was released there was a lot of confusion about whether she was “the first MtF trans character” because she had a slightly more angular face.

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24

Eh, I honestly don’t see it at all.

Most have pretty symmetrical and conventionally attractive features (though tbh, the males mostly do too) but the similarities pretty much end there. Eyes, noses, lips, eyebrows, they’re all pretty different and distant. Well, they do all share high cheekbones but that’s true of all the males too…

And I’m saying this as someone who is often quite bothered by Same Face Syndrome, even though Blizzard pretty much sticks to the Golden Ratio, they detail quite well and every design ends up quite distinct.

Also, I really disagree on the male score, most of the differences are down to facial hair, dwarfism, being an ape, or wearing a mask. Otherwise, besides some muscle mass differences, they all follow pretty similar rules to the women in terms of cheekbones and jawlines as well as all having very symmetrical features. Junkrat is really the main outlier.

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25

So are you saying as an artist. Sombra has the same facial features as mercy.

And you do realize both females are Swedish

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26

Well all humans kinda look the same except with slightly altered features.

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27

… pretty incensing there. I also personally don’t find symmetra or tracer attractive, but given that Moira was SUPPOSED to be androgynous (gonna go with this since they gave her the ziggy-stardust skins) I don’t think that reaction was unwarranted.
… I don’t mean to derail too much however.

I get you’d (op) like more extreme faces in the future and that’s cool. Yes some wacky outlandish variation to the females would be welcome, but I don’t think the art team is lacking in vision or perception. If you remember that post with all the unused hero’s there were some pretty good ones there too: Mama Hong and … whatever spider tank lady was named.

… I guess I support more variety but I’d like to see it just happen, not because they’re afraid of making another pandering character. I do note that the callout sometimes does need to be made (looking at you LoL), but I really would like to think with a team as imaginative and inclusive as we’ve been shown they are just waiting to surprise us.

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28

I’m an artist as well, albeit a trash artist, but saying all the ladies look the same is BS. Maybe it isn’t as obvious as you want them to be, but I see the differences in their features. Eye shapes, noses, lips, and head shapes.

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29

Thats because 90% of the male roster is wearing a mask of some sort…

it could be that their faces seem exaggerated because you can’t actually see their faces

Except for mccree and hanzo, but when you look at them they seem basic AF too

Ok, a white cowboy and a samurai archer dude. boring, basic.

30

This. Characters like Genji, Rein, Reaper, Soldier are all quite distinguishable because they have masks.

It would definitely be nice if at some point we got a female hero who had a mask on for the cool vibes on default, but we’ve had bunch of female heroes lately that I suppose skins are much more likely.

31

Well actually, 8 of the 13 men don’t wear masks, and Soldier, Rein, Genji, and Reaper (who do wear masks usually) all have skins that show their faces, and hey! Their faces all have different jawlines and structures.

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32

Its worth noting that alot of male and female faces in animation are based of about 20 slightly varied faces per sex, with slight variations to those features added for individual identities.

Keeping all the faces similar like that greatly aids in keep facial animation consistant and quickly reproducible. That’s why, as others have mentioned, all the main characters from a lot major animation companies look like they are siblings.

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33

Because the women have to be “attractive” for boys/men to want to look at so they go with the “safe” look which just so happens to be as you call it the “same face” look. At least their bodies/silhouettes are quite different though.

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34

Complain about female characters “looking the same”, and yet no complaints when the entire male cast save for Lucio and Junkrat are all generic beefcakes with no body type variation? Nice.

It’s honestly such a silly argument. The women in this game are all just as different and varied as the men are. Being attractive doesn’t mean 'same face".

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35

Is this just a long way of saying we need more Mama Hong in OW? :wink:

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36

Well, Shrike and Tal Ana have masks. Technically Pharah has a helmet in game though you don’t see it on the character select lol

37

I noticed what I like to call the “disney syndrome” as well. But hey, anime gets away with it too.

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38

I mean, they’re also brothers, so…

I hear what you’re saying here, and yes I am WAY down for adding some cartoony women. But in terms of “realistic”, I still think there’s a lot more room for variety than Blizzard have chosen so far. I have a big beaky nose, my friend has a birthmark on her eyelid, I know people with soft jawlines and others with chiseled cheekbones, overbites or underbites, long necks, thick necks, etc. etc. And I’m pretty sure we’re all pretty realistic. :wink:

I love this game and I truly do appreciate that it is m-i-l-e-s better than most when it comes to the design of its female characters, but it’s still seems to falling into the trim-waist, doe-eyed, sameface tropes that an awful lot of game design has.

I remember logging into WoW for the first time and seeing the difference between the male and female trolls, and the male and female orcs, and going… dude, really? Overwatch is a lot improved over that, but still kind of hanging out in that zone, IMO.

I don’t think Brigitte should have been designed like a femme-skinned version of Torb, but just to look at their characters side by side, there’s basically no family resemblance. I understand she takes after her mom, but still. She could have a bit more of a nose or a bit heavier brow without looking like a dude.

You’re not! I think she’s very striking. Maybe “cute” isn’t quite the word I’d use, but I’ve never understood the outcry about her being “ugly”.

Preach! I’d love for a caricature character or two.

…Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Doomfist, and Roadhog are “generic beefcakes”?

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39

All the easier to animate with dearie. Can get kind of boring sometimes though.

40

I have to say I agree. Brigitte in the animated short is cute as a hell, but in the game she just looks… generic. It’s really disappointing.

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