What is your character design pet peevee?

[KSlinger]

The only thing that bothers me about character design is when older characters are made to look like children or children are made to look like adults, especially where romance is involved. I really like and recommend the comic 'The God In The Field' on this site, for example- it's a beautiful comic and the story is one we all know- but I simply cannot follow it because it really creeps me out.

I guess something in me needs to know that where there's romance involved it's two adults, two teens, or an adult and a legal teen (like really legal, I'll have none of that barely a woman/man shit) or whatever-- so long as it's laid out and I know what I'm looking at.

Also really dislike it when girls and boys (like 16/17 years) are made to look like 30?? What's with that?? If you have a character who looks like an adult and behaves like a bratty child it's extremely confusing.

[NickRowler]

-Super short skirts that would expose a character's underwear if she bent over. (And I'm not talking about porno comics, I'm talking about the ones where they always conveniently have barely enough skirt to cover their butt)

-way too defined boobs under a shirt which should not define the breasts at all.

Like this.

-Super long legs, like in Sailor Moon

-Buruma (Japanese gym uniform), Japan hasn't used these uniforms for years, yet people still like to put them in their comic because they have some weird fetish or something.

[60Six]

This is vague but I think my biggest peeve is when I can simply look at a design and just say "Yeah, you have a Tumblr, don't you?"
I'm not even saying they're bad designs. By all technicalities, they can be great. But I just don't like it when I can tell something is a product of Tumblr (This kind of goes for styles too). Not necessarily bad things by any means, just not my cup of tea.

[joannekwan]

Ooh, I wanna see examples because I think I know what you mean …

[NickRowler]

So more or less a variation of this?

But with more pastel hair or something

[VermillionWorks]

Quite a few people already took the words from my typing fingers.
- Girls dressing sexy when it doesn't fit their personality.
- Some generic anime hairstyles like the "Sasuke" look.
- Character designs that don't fit the era of the story at all.
- Designs with too many details; an overcomplicated design.
...but I guess having crazy designs doesn't necessarily mean it'll kill any chance of popularity. Case and point -

WHAT IN THE NAME OF FRICK IS HAPPENING WITH THIS DESIGN?!

(Seriously though, no offense to Yu-Gi-Oh fans. XD)

....also...
- No effort to give any distinctive features AT ALL. I'm talking when people not only make them all look the same face-wise because of manga style, I've seen people so stuck on a certain look that all of their men or women (I've especially seen this with male manga-style characters) have pretty much the same hairstyle too, or the variations are so slight that only the artist can notice them. Dude, at LEAST give them different hairstyles! I have no hint at who is who!

[60Six]

What @NickRowler posted is probably the best example you can post without directly posting a specific person's work which I'd of course never do. :'D
There are just certain outfits, stylized body shapes, and accessories that a lot of people use in their designs that just scream "This character looks like this because I'm active on Tumblr."
Flower crowns are a prime example. Oh how do I hate flower crowns.

[JessJackdaw]

@Riko Wait... Flower crowns are a thing? How did that take off? D: I guess it shows that I don't get on Tumblr much.

Jeez, reading through this thread. There are so many clichés I haven't heard of, like the pink hair and heterochromia eyes. Don't know how I've avoided it this long...

[Inspector_Spinda]

I do this alot. It is just easy.

[Inspector_Spinda]

Not sure I understand what this means

[KSlinger]

@Riko Me too, I definitely know this but it's really hard to pin down.

[Zanreo]

Jeez, and I'm sorry if this is your favorite thing, but anthros. Sexualized animals are so creepy to me.

Anthros aren't always sexualized though? I have several anthro characters and read several anthro comics and calling any of them "sexualized/sexy" would be a long reach.
I will agree through, even as a fan of anthros, that "sexy" furry/anthro characters kinda weird me out, just... leave that off animal-characters please

As for things I hate, I guess overly-saturated SUPER BRIGHT eye-hurting color schemes but that's really more of a coloring issue?

Overtly sexualized clothing design on women where that sexualisation is out of place. If the purpose of your comic is to portray a sexualised atmosphere in general, or plain erotic fiction, or if the woman in question is flirting with someone and/or about to have sex, then sexualized clothing is just fine. When it's a woman existing in a situation or scene where sex would not factor into her thinking at that time, it makes no sense. Women going on an adventure to fight monsters would not wear miniskirts and bikini-tops. A woman in a professional office setting would not be showing off her panties. When a female character's clothing is drawn ONLY because "hurr hurr boobs" in a setting where that would not make sense, it is blindingly obvious and silly, ESPECIALLY if all male characters get to be fully clothed. NOTE: There is a difference between characters wearing shorts skirts or cute clothes, and characters who are overtly sexualised. A girl in a sundress on a summer day = makes sense. A crusading warrior woman in a metal thong = now you're just being silly.

Yes THIS

[JessJackdaw]

@Zanreo Oh crap, sorry I meant to say "sexy" anthros. I have absolutely no issue with normal anthropomorphized characters. I went and fixed that. I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I thought all of them were creepy. I draw them all the dang time. XD

Anthros are awesome. ; >

[bakasama25]

Buruma? Oh you mean Bloomers. There are a fetish only becouse they're short shorts and skintight. I guess that's why artists keep drawing them.

[jennula]

I dunno, many pet peeves I usually counter with "the artist is probably young, I did the exact same things when I was young" (like adding 100 shades of neon in their hair, added wings and tails and whatnot). I think it's a thing you have to go through and explore =) I probably made some really weird design choices back in the day ("he's got to have blue hair!"), but it's a part of learning =) And I'm still a sucker for tails, even though it'sprobably very impractical...but so cute!

But yeah, as @AnnaLandin mentioned, oversexualizing just because you can without any reason and out of a sexualised context is probably what pisses me off nowadays.

And of course the boob sock, which @NickRowler mentioned. Omg whyyy?

[CelestialNavigator]

You mean this one?

[CelestialNavigator]

@Riko wait, flowers crowns are a thing somehow? If only on Tumblr.
Again, a lot of thing are different there and not in a good way.

@joannekwan Like this?

[joannekwan]

I've actually seen very few AT inspired styles (that wasn't AT fanart) on tumblr, maybe I'm looking at the wrong places.
I was thinking more like this

I can't believe I took the time to draw that …

[JessJackdaw]

That... sort of looks like that one famous gamer Youtuber. Markiplier? Maybe that's where it's coming from? A bunch of fans on Tumblr making OCs based on Youtube stars?

I wouldn't doubt it actually.

[alaingrey]

I can't stand tumblr style like this either, but I think it's so much preferable to emo style, Sonic style or Naruto style, that were so prevalent back when I was a kid following drawing trends.
I figure probably everyone will grow out of this and their bleached undercuts and in four years we'll all have something new to roll eyes over, just like no one has hedgehog-sonas anymore.