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specialized-rexan · 6 days ago

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(none of the following is me criticising you @ op, and of course you're not obligated to read or respond to this. it's. a lot. this reblog is mainly me rambling aloud for myself. seriously, when i say "i find this post funny," it's more along the lines of "i'm entertained at myself and my own fandom / character design tastes."

also @sir-subpar, you're tagged because i very much appreciate your comments and screenshotted them. they're just. near the very end of this long post XD)

i find this post funny because it came out about a year before the show, and, huh, i didn't realize how much Vivzie had already said about Lucifer as early as 2022. mainly i find it funny because the two characters who i was obsessed with before Hazbin Lucifer / Hazbin Hotel are even MORE ''boring'' than Lucifer

they're almost basically him but without hair. e.g. Black Hat from the show Villainous:

(the screenshots i picked are from a sort of "later" design of him, about a year and a half i got into the show, but i'm okay with that because it turned out a lot of what i'd first seen was probably fanart anyway, although i hadn't been aware of that)

the other character is a fandom-created ''opposite'' version named White Hat. (design varies by creator, but usually White Hat is essentially Black Hat but with a different outfit color lol)

(character design rambles on why Black Hat's design might "work" while Lucifer's "doesn't" under the cut. ...sort of. also me yapping about me a bit lol. but yeah Black Hat's definitely of the aforementioned "tumblr sexyman design" category, no arguments there)

despite Black Hat's design being even more "boring" than Lucifer's, my first impression of him right off the bat was he was some ''big bad boss'' character right off the bat. ...and i'd thought he was a Hazbin Hotel character (lol). (i found Villainous in early 2019 before the Hazbin pilot but was casually following the pilot's progress just enough to know if it ever got canceled or anything)

so what's FASCINATING about all this is that the main difference in visual communication between ''boring'' Lucifer and ''even more boring (but not actually)'' Black Hat is probably shape language

Lucifer is (often because his design's not consistent lol) round and short while Black Hat is angular and tall. i don't feel like recapping shape language lessons (INCREDIBLY BASIC gist for this post's context can be "round" = approachable, "angular and sharp" = villain), and most people are already aware of height stereotypes when it comes to leadership positions

(there's a lot of triangles on the Lucifer screenshot i picked with the epaulettes and his wings out, but he still has his round face, round hair, round puffy pant legs, his hat brim is rounder than Black Hat's, and even his chest and eyes are is rounder rather than sharp. better look at Black Hat's eye in the previous screenshot)

(i also find it fascinating that, despite Lucifer's design being far more busy than Black Hat's -- the stripes on his shirt, chains on his coat, the cheek circles, all the items on his hat -- he's described as "boring" in a way that makes sense for this post's context: blending in with the other Hellaverse characters)

i'm just going ''huh'' and also ''lol''* at the original post because the only difference seems to be shape language, and the choice to make Lucifer rounder seems to be a purposeful one since he's supposed to be a "goofy" angelic character

(*again not going "lol" at the original poster. i actually agree with the point that Lucifer maybe doesn't stand out enough among the cast. and i only say ''maybe'' about him not standing out "enough" because of ''writer/designer intention'' / ''whatever you want to MAKE the intention because Vivzie's intentions change often lol'')

(*and my ''lol'' at the overall post is more about how my reasons for getting obsessed with Lucifer aren't related to his design at--OH HOLD ON. OKAY, TAKING THIS RAMBLE OUT OF TAGS AND MOVING IT TO THE BODY OF THE POST NOW HA (and editing punctuation and such as necessary to make it into a functional post body, e.g. image of Black Hat rather than just giving a search to look up :p)

(and now adding random Lucifer screenshots every once in a while because walls of non-story text without images, especially ones written by me lol, murder me)

SO. OKAY. YES. MOVING MY RAMBLE FROM TAGS TO THE ACTUAL POST

(OH MY GOSH LOL I'M ADDING THESE EXTRA IMAGES AFTER TYPING EVERYTHING UP, AND HAVING SUCH A HYPED IMAGE FOR "YES MOVING TO THE ACTUAL POST" IS UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS SO I'M KEEPING IT)

BECAUSE, WHILE I THINK THE WRITING IN BOTH VILLAINOUS AND HAZBIN LEAVE A LOT TO BE DESIRED (and they also both hilariously have the problem of characters disappearing into the background, except in Villainous's case it's "villains with dark uniforms unintentionally disappearing into dark backgrounds." you can see that issue even in the second screenshot i chose for this post), LUCIFER SNUCK BY AND ACTUALLY GOT ME OBSESSED WITH HIM DESPITE HIS CHARACTER DESIGN

I GOT OBSESSED WITH VILLAINOUS ALMOST SOLELY BECAUSE OF THEIR CHARACTER DESIGNS. (i also very much enjoy the designs of the other three main characters, Dr. Flug, Demencia, and 5.0.5.) I GOT OBSESSED WITH LUCIFER BECAUSE OF HIS WRITING. YET THE WAY I MOST OFTEN DESCRIBE HAZBIN TO PEOPLE IS "I ENJOY IT/LIKE IT A LOT/LOVE IT, BUT IT'S NOT GOOD (BECAUSE ITS WRITING ISN'T GOOD)"

okay, saying i got obsessed with Lucifer "despite" his character design isn't FULLY accurate. i don't think it's terrible. but i was neutral toward his design. just this week i literally posted more than a few thousand words on why i like Lucifer, but it mainly sums up to "he's INCREDIBLY relatable and entertaining."

so.

huh.

(i'm almost certain i had this ''HOLD UP'' moment with one of my friends months ago XD because my going "OH MY GOSH THE WRITING" about Hazbin ep 5 [Lucifer's intro] feels very familiar. except my ramble at the time iirc was more about "i had incredibly rare CERTAINTY in my first messages while watching ep 5 that i wouldn't watch it as many times as the other episodes because of the superficial aspect of how bad its animation comparatively is. yet i've, very surprisingly, watched it FAR more than the others because i love Lucifer so much."

comparing Lucifer's roundness to Black Hat's sharpness also feels like something i've pointed out to said friend before, because "HAH Lucifer could almost be a White Hat")

the overall pacing of the episode is crammed and odd, but it's enjoyable. and Lucifer is there. big bonus points for that last part.)

(i emphasized "incredibly rare CERTAINTY" about how i wouldn't rewatch ep 5 as many times as the other eps because i almost always--HA. EXAMPLE RIGHT THERE--say things like "i'm almost sure" or "it seems likely" rather than just stating things firmly, just in case i turn out to be wrong lol. but ep 5's animation was SO BAD to me that i was certain i wouldn't be able to look past it on Hazbin rewatches. yet i was still wrong)

topic jump, some great comments because they work with the concept Vivzie had in the first place but give alternatives for how her concept could have been used for Lucifer's design:

OH DANG AND ONE LAST POINT I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION BUT ALSO HAD ME GOING "HUH" AND "LOL" BEFORE I STARTED RAMBLING (well, i kinda said this earlier, but not so clearly):

Black Hat, even with my thinking he was from Hazbin Hotel and even with him hitting all of the criteria for what makes Vivzie's designs bad and repetitive, still stood out as a notable design for the Hazbin universe. (and i don't think i've ever seen a single person criticize his design.) he still seemed like a leader character. (which probably comes down to shape language and his design being "tall"-coded)

(i actually thought his design had been teased like, "oooo look at this Hazbin Hotel character you have to look forward to oooooo" because i suspect some of the first images i saw of him were behind the scenes not-colored-in images from the studio, and i didn't save them because i was avoiding Hazbin spoilers.

i earlier said "a lot of what i'd first seen was probably fanart" because this is the first DEFINITE image of Black Hat i saved, which is fanart and also not colored. and also seems to very much belong in an adult cartoon lol [it's not nsfw or raunchy in any way. it's just. thirst posting XD] )

tl;dr:

Lucifer is a short and rounder Black Hat;

Black Hat and Lucifer's designs have diametric shape language (sort of but i'm cutting down on wordiness lol);

Black Hat still could potentially stand out as a Hazbin character despite having a "plain" design that matches common descriptions of Vivzie's designs;

and, even tho i don't think the writing in either Hazbin or Villainous are as strong as they could be, i only got obsessed with Villainous because of the character designs, but i got obsessed with Lucifer because of his writing

okay the end i had my fun lol

Ganna go back to answering the questions in my inbox soon, but for now I’d like to say my thoughts on the Lucifer design backlash. Like Lemon-critiques has said, this whole ordeal is just freaking hilarious and enjoyable to watch, I’m literally scarfing down popcorn while watching people tear this design apart while fans or others get pissy. Here are my personal thoughts. This is me being nitpciky, but while Lucifer’s design isn’t….BAD I would say, it’s just….boring. Like I said before, I don’t mind the ringleader motif, the idea of Lucifer seeing hell as a circus to him isn’t a pretty bad idea, however like most people have been saying, he’s just your generic Vivziepop male character, a skinny twig with a fancy suit, bow tie, beedy eyes, and a sharp toothy smile. Mainly for me, I can understand this backlash because yes, I am one of those critique blogs who thinks all of Viv’s characters look the same, and the features I listed above are exactly why. Characters like Alastor, Valentino, Vox, Seviathan, Sir Pen, even Angel Dust, they all have that sharp generic smile and eyes while of course wearing a suit and being the size of a pencil, and it’s a trend that really is a turnoff for me when it comes to Vivzie’s character designs. It’s so funny because as much as I tear into Helluva Boss, literally THOSE character designs are more distinct and have more variety compared to the character designs in Hazbin, and that’s a problem, especially since said designs in Helluva Boss are more detailed and crazy compared to its spin off counterpart.

So yeah, not only do all of Vivziepop’s male characters look exactly the same and have the EXACT same boring body type, but the design of Lucifer himself is just…..meh. It’s not really something I’d get pissed at or rip into unlike Alastor lol, but I think my biggest issue with Lucifer is that he’s literally the devil, the king of hell himself, and yet he does not in any way shape or form stand out from the rest of the cast. If you were to show me his design and told me this was Lucifer, I would have just said he just looks like some regular dude in this world of Hell, because that’s just it. He looks like your generic standard Vivziepop male character, just like everyone else.

I’m nitpicking again yes….but yeah this design is just….generic. I wouldn’t really be saying this had the rest of the Hazbin cast look different compared to this but….they don’t so lol. I do remember Vivzie once saying along the lines that she was going for a “pretty” look for him, since Lucifer was once a beautiful fallen Angel. THAT I can understand, but to me her version of Lucifer looks more goofy than angelically beautiful, and like I said, he just isn’t intimidating, and there are many ways to make Angel’s look scary, though it doesn’t help that the crew describes him as a goofball. Honestly all I can say is that Viv could have just branched him out more, made him more unique compared to the rest of the cast, instead of the same generic look all of her other male characters have. The concept of a ringleader-circus motif isn’t the issue for me, nor is it that he’s “not accurate” since this is Vivzie’s adaptation, it’s just….not creative and uninspiring. I agree with what Lemon said, I think the reason why this design is getting so much backlash is because they just…flat out revealed one of the most important characters in the show with no buildup or anything. Wether it be people who haven’t heard of Hazbin or have, Lucifer was revealed in the pilot in a background portrait, however I think they should have saved his design for the show, instead of just dropping him now. To be fair however, if they HAD build him up only to reveal this, it probably would have ended in huge disappointment lol. With that, that’s about all I can say. I definitely agree with the people saying how her characters look the same and that he doesn’t stand out….because he doesn’t. I’m honestly glad more people are recognizing the flaws and issues with Viv’s designs however, it’s nice to see people critique her stuff more openly, even if it causes a whole twitter fest of people arguing lol. Mostly people keep bringing up how this is a poor attempt at a “tumblr sexyman”, but for me, that ain’t the issue with his design. Also like…of course it seems tumblr sexyman-ish, it’s literally Vivziepop lol.

#posting right away rather than queueing so i can still get my allotted queued funsies for the day :)#sorry @ my followers. i'm arbitrary about what i decide to reblog to which blog #so here be an INCREDIBLY rare critical post. usually those go to a different blog.#my random decision upon my finding this post was #this ''feels'' better to specifically me for this blog than my other reblog blog. ...ah. maybe because i love the idea of #''i only blog about Lucifer (and ducks and pancakes. and Lilith. because of Lucifer)'' amiably reblogging this post XD #(maybe ''semi-amiably reblogging this post''? bc idk how amiably this might get interpreted but i certainly don't mean any insults.)#lulu meta or headcanon #showtoonzfan #sir-subpar #rexy posting #hazbin critical #hellaverse critical #<- in case any followers have those blocked #notable #<- so i'll cringe less often from seeing me hijack this post than if i put it in my ''lulu notable'' tag XD

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