Same-face and Non-same-face

joannekwan 2016-09-07 00:02:46 UTC #6

Here's a drawing I did a while ago stripping my male characters from three separate series of their hair and facial hair showing the difference in their faces.

I try my best to make everyone different and unique when without clothes/color.

Inspector_Spinda 2016-09-07 01:35:50 UTC #7

yes. I follow Demon House. Your faces are very good

joannekwan 2016-09-07 01:44:25 UTC #8

Thanks!

NickRowler 2016-09-07 04:27:20 UTC #9

Same face...

Sailor Moon...they also have the same bodies

The Care Bears...

Strawberry Shortcake

Tho personally I don't think I should be too judgemental...a lot of my characters have very similar faces.

joannekwan 2016-09-07 04:37:33 UTC #10

Okay, the Care Bears one cracked me up! XD

Can't really blame shows that were just meant to sell merchandise though, it's cheaper to use the same molds and patterns for toys.

shazzbaa 2016-09-07 04:48:28 UTC #11

People keep talkin like anime is the epitome of sameface but like

america is not immune

As for my own characters --
I did that Character Variety Meme not too long ago! I've done this one a few times before and it's really helped me notice when my characters were too similar in ways I didn't realise. Relevant excerpt:

I definitely have a tendency towards scrawny guys, but I try my best to make everyone distinct even when my preferences are showing. :>

MidZM 2016-09-07 04:56:17 UTC #12

It can be difficult at times but I do try to keep a bit of diversity in how my characters look from one another, especially in the chin and jaw region. (Some of these characters are drawn in the older way and some are drawn in the newer way if some of the clothes/hair look a little odd)

Though sometimes characters will take on the appearance of others if I make a slight line failure

AnnaLandin 2016-09-07 05:24:37 UTC #13

As someone who struggles with partial face-blindness - I can recognise people when I meet them, and I know what people look like, but if I try to visualise the face of someone who is not right there in front of me at the time, I find I can only visualise their face as individual features, and am unable to assemble those into a coherent face; it's a bit like alphabet soup, only with facial features - I am constantly fighting to make sure I don't get stuck in the same-face swamp.

The first example that sprang to mind from someone else is Junjou Romantica:

I know you won't believe me, but there are actually six different individual characters on that page, and not just colour-swapped repeats of the same guy over and over again.

But as I said, because of that partial face blindness, I push my own characters' faces into being as different from one another as I can manage:

Inspector_Spinda 2016-09-07 05:39:22 UTC #14

maybe it gets easier if you practice drawing some people from life first? has anyone tried this successfully?

jennula 2016-09-07 05:46:07 UTC #15

I really love all the examples here <3

I really like looking at people's facial features, and sometimes, I need to just stop looking at them because I get weird ^^; I really like constructing faces and make cool ones (but I hate drawing portraits of people I know, haha).

For SPEJS, I've tried my best to make the four main characters as diverse in faces, silhouettes, heights, body types and so on, to make them easy to recognize from each other, even if I drew them in just black and white.

mintycanoodles 2016-09-07 05:53:30 UTC #16

i mean i could keep going but

tbh tho same face syndrome doesn't usually stop me from enjoying something. sailor moon, adventure time, plenty of disney movies - they've got sfs pretty bad. still enjoyable.

StrangeVision 2016-09-07 05:55:42 UTC #17

Aw man, I gotta show a non-same-face anime after all those examples to balance it out! Good ole' Cowboy Bebop. Quality anime don't suffer so painfully from the same-face situation. At least not as blatantly.

Mharz 2016-09-07 10:21:54 UTC #18

Well I gotta site a same face comic that is not anime, so here:

I'm a fan of Archie don't get me wrong. Sure there are some characters that are unique but most of the time they look the same especially the eyes. Heck I'd even confuse Alexandra Cabot (7C) from Veronica if it weren't for that white highlight on her hair.

On a side note, a non same face I could site albeit not comics is Professor Layton series.

Some girl characters might look the same but most of the time the have many variations.

As for my own drawings. I try to make them to look as different and recognizable from each other as possible but I admit that I'm totally guilty of not having variations of noses... and chin... and mouth. XD Please forgive me.

Kayke 2016-09-07 15:35:51 UTC #19

Even though the art in the show isn't always the best (depending on the series) Scooby Doo is a good example of characters with distinct faces.

Even though the style is simple it manages to avoid the whole 'all the girls look the same' thing that Josie and the Pussycats definitely fell victim to.

Since my style is really simple, I try to give everyone different noses so at least that's something... I also do more subtle stuff, like giving them each expressions that the other characters don't make. The first two faces are siblings, so they have same face on purpose hahah.

(also excuse how sketchy these are, I did them with ballpoint pen on a break at work)

shazzbaa 2016-09-07 17:52:57 UTC #20

Ooo, the humanæ tumblr might be a good resource for this? You could scroll through and pick people to draw, or go to http://humanae.tumblr.com/random to get a random entry!

KSlinger 2016-09-07 19:18:00 UTC #21

I know I keep raising One Piece because I'm a hopeless fan girl, but I endlessly appreciate how different Oda's character designs are throughout the series. Like honestly, they get totally fucking bizarre sometimes. I love it.

Here are some of my favourites.

And here is a compilation fans put together of celebrities that Oda has said he used as inspiration (one or two of these are cosplays though, I think).

Faces and eyes

joannekwan 2016-09-07 19:24:16 UTC #22

One example of great face diversity in a fairly simplistic style is Seth MacFarlane's characters. Questionable content aside, it's nice to see such a variety of face shapes in main to background characters. Even when you have a certain type of woman, there are differences as seen here with Brian's exes.

Kura 2016-09-07 22:56:55 UTC #23

Technically not at anime or cartoon but the Negima live action. Really, it's easier to tell the anime versions apart than it was the live action cast.

I know they are not all copy paste exactly the same, but holy shit it's pretty clear they were casting for a specific facial structure type. And skin tone... well **** all the dark skinned characters no one wants to see that.

Honestly though, I'm not sure why 'same face' is only an issue when it comes to animation when it exists outside of it too, or even why it's such a huge issue sometimes. I know for some, YES it is pushing it, but as a kid I really liked the idea that 'everyone looked like everyone else' and you couldn't tell their character type from the shape the animator decided to use. The idea that if you look a certain way you will end up a certain way just really bothered me. So I actually really appreciated when it when I saw series that did it, (you know as long as it wasn't TOO copy past to the point there was no way to tell the characters apart)

*Please note this is not an attempt at being racist and the 'all Asians look the same' thing. I am Asian and Asian's don't look the same to me, this casting though is really pushing it.

Inspector_Spinda 2016-09-08 00:58:21 UTC #24

Well if this was japan, I'd imagine it'll be tough to find dark skinned actors who were fluent.

wotcomic 2016-09-11 09:02:06 UTC #25

I'm glad someone mentioned live-action sameface, I noticed this happening in sitcoms especially, where the main male characters would look really similar, and the main female characters would have not only similar faces, but the same body types too, only varying in height (and even then, not much). Casting standards, I guess.

Something I think contributes to a lot of anime/cartoons/live action films/tv series same face issues is the "need" (or just desire) to have characters who all fit the ideal beauty standard of one culture. If you're casting/designing characters with that in mind, it's no wonder characters will look the same as one another.

One of the reasons I wanted to explore very different faces, and not get bogged down by making everyone pretty, is to combat my already quite bad sameface syndrome. Let's see:

Old Waste Of Time:

Recent Waste Of Time:

(same 2 characters pictured in both examples, if that wasn't clear XD)

Not saying it's amazing now, but I'm just trying to be more mindful of facial variation. I mean, these two characters above are supposed to be related, but I didn't want them to look like twins!

I find it much more fun to give characters designs based on their personality than by narrow definitions of beauty. Not going to say it's easy though, because it isn't, especially if you learned to draw a certain way!