Sam Fennah / FailSafe42 - Atheist furry who dropped out of college; sperged to Bionicle fans about God not existing #SAVEBOB

[Locomotive meat]

Couldn’t tell ya man, but I like watching them rumble

 

[Kyria the Great]

Something that Fennah continues to fail to understand much like other artists in the same vein is that most of all the best and memorable characters have a simple but well thought out design. Mario for example wears the red hat, shirt and blue overalls. Sonic is blue, white and flesh with the spikes going to add detail. Pikachu is designed like a cartoon mouse with rather basic colors. Even a character like Solid Snake has a simple design with a rugged look combined with a bandana and his sneaking suit.

 

[AngryTreeRat]

Something that Fennah continues to fail to understand much like other artists in the same vein is that most of all the best and memorable characters have a simple but well thought out design. Mario for example wears the red hat, shirt and blue overalls. Sonic is blue, white and flesh with the spikes going to add detail. Pikachu is designed like a cartoon mouse with rather basic colors. Even a character like Solid Snake has a simple design with a rugged look combined with a bandana and his sneaking suit.

To toss on another detail. Silhouette is an important factor. Keep it distinctive. If you're into monster hunter, you'll see the fandom see a silhouette of a returning mystery monster and we all get hyped for the upcoming announcement of a specific monster and we're rarely wrong.

The best character design though I say is often seen in fighting games. Since their visual design has to communicate everything about them, and that also is often shown in silhouettes. Take Street Fighter's Ryu. I know everything I need to, and can pick him out from a long list of video game characters just by his silhouette. Colour only enhances such.

I can tell he's a serious martial artist who trains hard, to the point where he runs himself ragged, to perfect his technique just from that bandana, pose, torn clothing, and muscular build. No colour is needed. He's shoeless, showing he's honed his hands and feet into his weapon. He also doesn't care about his appearance or anything else beyond fighting, as shown by his lack of shoes and torn clothing. His only accessory that stands out is the bandana, which has the practical function of keeping sweat from his eyes.

The addition of colour shows simple uniform, a black belt to show mastery, red gloves and bandana to add some colour to draw the eye around the white design and to improve readability in motion. The gloves show how serious he's about fighting, protecting his knuckles as he throws thousands of punches in training and in fights. It also makes the torn clothing and muscular physique more noticeable. He's nothing but "master martial artist" through and through, and he's serious about it.

He demonstrates your points perfectly, while also showing how simple yet distinctive he is just in silhouette.

To pick on Fennah's mascot for a bit, while I know nothing about Lucy from her silhouette or design (something less critical for a character from a more narrative focused media where getting to know the character is part of the engagement factor), I do know that she's one of Fennah most distinctively designed and readable silhouettes. Though finding a good image example currently isn't doable while mobile fag. Her hat has a distinctive slant, her posing often shows she's mentally unbalanced, her legs and limbs show she's not human, but rather a more wild animal like character, with her fur noticeable, as too often are her floppy ears. Her wide smile also stands out with upturned cheeks, and her tail playfully twisting behind her. Yet her toned musculature, visible in legs and arms, show she's a powerful and predatory creature.

The real issue with Lucy becomes noticeable in colour with her spots. They clutter what's close to a solid design. Her red and white colour scheme is fine, as are her heterochromatic eyes. The lace, scarf? Collar? I don't actually know the name doesn't show in silhouette, but in colour it can add a bit of a sense that she has some degree of refinement to her, that she is a bit more intellectual than you might first assume.

The red dominating her right breast draws the eye nicely, as does the single red ear, and the large red spot on her right thigh. That along with her slanted hat and massive grinning red lipped mouth filled with needle teeth and heterochromia makes her seem unbalanced and help add to the sense of mentally deranged. The stripped tail makes the twisting swaying motions of it seem even more twisting, not to mention her toned physique leaps out more adding to her sense of danger, assisted by aforementioned teeth and red claws drawing the eye to danger.

If all the red spots other than those on her right breast and shoulder, left thigh, right ear, and left eye were removed she'd make for a rather solid and clean design. One that brings to mind a sense of a deranged predator nightmarishly playful clown creature, like something out of a particularly twisted wonderland. You can leave the red claws, striped tails, hat, scarf, and heterochromia as well, they don't clutter up the design like those spots do.

Which illustrates how less can be more. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. Keep it readable.

 

[anliteralidiot]

To toss on another detail. Silhouette is an important factor. Keep it distinctive. If you're into monster hunter, you'll see the fandom see a silhouette of a returning mystery monster and we all get hyped for the upcoming announcement of a specific monster and we're rarely wrong.

The best character design though I say is often seen in fighting games. Since their visual design has to communicate everything about them, and that also is often shown in silhouettes. Take Street Fighter's Ryu. I know everything I need to, and can pick him out from a long list of video game characters just by his silhouette. Colour only enhances such.
View attachment 3417369
I can tell he's a serious martial artist who trains hard, to the point where he runs himself ragged, to perfect his technique just from that bandana, pose, torn clothing, and muscular build. No colour is needed. He's shoeless, showing he's honed his hands and feet into his weapon. He also doesn't care about his appearance or anything else beyond fighting, as shown by his lack of shoes and torn clothing. His only accessory that stands out is the bandana, which has the practical function of keeping sweat from his eyes.
View attachment 3417381
The addition of colour shows simple uniform, a black belt to show mastery, red gloves and bandana to add some colour to draw the eye around the white design and to improve readability in motion. The gloves show how serious he's about fighting, protecting his knuckles as he throws thousands of punches in training and in fights. It also makes the torn clothing and muscular physique more noticeable. He's nothing but "master martial artist" through and through, and he's serious about it.

He demonstrates your points perfectly, while also showing how simple yet distinctive he is just in silhouette.

To pick on Fennah's mascot for a bit, while I know nothing about Lucy from her silhouette or design (something less critical for a character from a more narrative focused media where getting to know the character is part of the engagement factor), I do know that she's one of Fennah most distinctively designed and readable silhouettes. Though finding a good image example currently isn't doable while mobile fag. Her hat has a distinctive slant, her posing often shows she's mentally unbalanced, her legs and limbs show she's not human, but rather a more wild animal like character, with her fur noticeable, as too often are her floppy ears. Her wide smile also stands out with upturned cheeks, and her tail playfully twisting behind her. Yet her toned musculature, visible in legs and arms, show she's a powerful and predatory creature.

The real issue with Lucy becomes noticeable in colour with her spots. They clutter what's close to a solid design. Her red and white colour scheme is fine, as are her heterochromatic eyes. The lace, scarf? Collar? I don't actually know the name doesn't show in silhouette, but in colour it can add a bit of a sense that she has some degree of refinement to her, that she is a bit more intellectual than you might first assume.

The red dominating her right breast draws the eye nicely, as does the single red ear, and the large red spot on her right thigh. That along with her slanted hat and massive grinning red lipped mouth filled with needle teeth and heterochromia makes her seem unbalanced and help add to the sense of mentally deranged. The stripped tail makes the twisting swaying motions of it seem even more twisting, not to mention her toned physique leaps out more adding to her sense of danger, assisted by aforementioned teeth and red claws drawing the eye to danger.

If all the red spots other than those on her right breast and shoulder, left thigh, right ear, and left eye were removed she'd make for a rather solid and clean design. One that brings to mind a sense of a deranged predator nightmarishly playful clown creature, like something out of a particularly twisted wonderland. You can leave the red claws, striped tails, hat, scarf, and heterochromia as well, they don't clutter up the design like those spots do.

Which illustrates how less can be more. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. Keep it readable.

On silhouette: one of the best examples silhouette works is, imo, is Bad Apple!!

Every character is connected, and you can tell through their visual design. They're all cohesive enough, and no one stands out above the others. Even the ones with horns feel "correct" because we see enough people with hats that we can just swap out the two.

None of the Kiv have this. All of Sam's OCs look out of place as shit next to each other.

 

[Draaq]

On silhouette: one of the best examples silhouette works is, imo, is Bad Apple!!

Every character is connected, and you can tell through their visual design. They're all cohesive enough, and no one stands out above the others. Even the ones with horns feel "correct" because we see enough people with hats that we can just swap out the two.

None of the Kiv have this. All of Sam's OCs look out of place as shit next to each other.

Who’s that Pokémon?
You have a furry deer next to a big-tit alien goliath. Now that I notice… it looks like a collection of someone’s OCs from different fandoms.

 

[AngryTreeRat]

View attachment 3420123
Who’s that Pokémon?
You have a furry deer next to a big-tit alien goliath. Now that I notice… it looks like a collection of someone’s OCs from different fandoms.

Holy fuck those height differences it never registered before how extreme it gets. These are several drastically different species, with the size variation being too drastic to be closely related at all. The common ancestor is way back there and evolution went wild. That said, with the median height being around 9 feet, I assume they come from a planet with plenty of oxygen, or other chosen preferred respiratory gas, a greater gravity than earth, and they likely have a plentiful biosphere to provide nutrition. So not a wasteland super overpopulated and over urbanized planet.

There's actually several very good silhouettes there. I can't tell you who they are because Fennah has character overload with names I forget and a critical failure of showing his characters often enough to reinforce them in my mind, but he's got a few good ones there. Notably they are the clothed designs. The ones that read well are, numbered left to right, 3, 6, 10, 12, 13, and 20. Of these only two I recognize enough to have their names jump out to me. 3 as Lucy and 12 as Fontaine. No one else has been reinforced in my mind enough that I recognized them without second guessing myself, or if I did it was still a case of terrible silhouette. Either too busy or too generic to stand out.

I couldn't put names to many of these if they aren't Fennah's primary wank material or made an impression once, but I can say that those six characters I picked out, only 20 wouldn't feel like they were from the same character line up if normalized in height. I could see them all existing in the same anime. Something with a Victorian vibe, or as a particular "faction" in a fighting game.

And while you made the Pokemon joke, the fact you can, if you're an up to date fan of Pokemon, still play that little game shows how damn good their design is. Not only that, but unless you see a very recent Pokemon on the more complex side, typically a legendary or mythic, beside one of the simpler gen 1/2 pokemon, they still look like the same franchise. There is a bit of a design philosophy shift between gen 1/2, 3-5, and 6+ that can make it them look out of place beside each other sometimes, but in a way that makes older games seem like they were "unfinished" compared to the newer designs. Interestingly, these divides are technological divides. Getting back to Fennah, his failure to achieve that is a major downfall of his here.

 

[Fluffiesaur]

Holy fuck those height differences it never registered before how extreme it gets. These are several drastically different species, with the size variation being too drastic to be closely related at all. The common ancestor is way back there and evolution went wild. That said, with the median height being around 9 feet, I assume they come from a planet with plenty of oxygen, or other chosen preferred respiratory gas, a greater gravity than earth, and they likely have a plentiful biosphere to provide nutrition. So not a wasteland super overpopulated and over urbanized planet.

There's actually several very good silhouettes there. I can't tell you who they are because Fennah has character overload with names I forget and a critical failure of showing his characters often enough to reinforce them in my mind, but he's got a few good ones there. Notably they are the clothed designs. The ones that read well are, numbered left to right, 3, 6, 10, 12, 13, and 20. Of these only two I recognize enough to have their names jump out to me. 3 as Lucy and 12 as Fontaine. No one else has been reinforced in my mind enough that I recognized them without second guessing myself, or if I did it was still a case of terrible silhouette. Either too busy or too generic to stand out.

I couldn't put names to many of these if they aren't Fennah's primary wank material or made an impression once, but I can say that those six characters I picked out, only 20 wouldn't feel like they were from the same character line up if normalized in height. I could see them all existing in the same anime. Something with a Victorian vibe, or as a particular "faction" in a fighting game.

And while you made the Pokemon joke, the fact you can, if you're an up to date fan of Pokemon, still play that little game shows how damn good their design is. Not only that, but unless you see a very recent Pokemon on the more complex side, typically a legendary or mythic, beside one of the simpler gen 1/2 pokemon, they still look like the same franchise. There is a bit of a design philosophy shift between gen 1/2, 3-5, and 6+ that can make it them look out of place beside each other sometimes, but in a way that makes older games seem like they were "unfinished" compared to the newer designs. Interestingly, these divides are technological divides. Getting back to Fennah, his failure to achieve that is a major downfall of his here.

If my memory serves me correctly, the names of each one are:
3-Lucy
6-I don't recognize this one, probably one of those new characters.
10-Basil
12-Fontaine
13-Teazzer
20-Sombra

 

[anliteralidiot]

View attachment 3420123
Who’s that Pokémon?
You have a furry deer next to a big-tit alien goliath. Now that I notice… it looks like a collection of someone’s OCs from different fandoms.

How old is this, because the last one (all the way to the right) looks like Helgan's old design, before Sam switched her to a naga body.

 

[SquidQuid]

How old is this, because the last one (all the way to the right) looks like Helgan's old design, before Sam switched her to a naga body.

I think over a year old. Fleischer, Luna and Dorothy are omitted so I can only assume that's when those VAs left his discord

 

[Draaq]

How old is this, because the last one (all the way to the right) looks like Helgan's old design, before Sam switched her to a naga body.

A half year old or so? Definitely not too old, it’s been made when he was at the third draft or beginning of the fourth.
He also said himself it’s incomplete.

 

[rodentia]

Helgan animation test is next.
Guess we’ll never see the Yeshua Voice Test-

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I like how her tail is floating in the last image.

"more of a snake design now"
still got them big ol mommy milkers tho dont she sam

 

[AngryTreeRat]

If my memory serves me correctly, the names of each one are:
3-Lucy
6-I don't recognize this one, probably one of those new characters.
10-Basil
12-Fontaine
13-Teazzer
20-Sombra

Honestly, looking them up in colour, these are some of his better designs, and it's near entirely due to the fact they are clothed. Sombra is still a bit messy, worst example of those I picked out, but the rest mostly do well for one simple reason, Sam's costuming isn't terrible. Which is astonishing. Costuming is an important part of creating a believable world. You need it to be consistent and show something about the character. A lot of people fail at this, as they get too ordinary, or too out there and wild from a case by case basis. It's not uncommon that a lot of characters will have such drastically different costuming that they look like they come from a totally different world from those around them. A lack of unified aesthetic is a common issue in costuming.

Good costuming can tell you about culture, social structure, a characters ideals, wealth, social status, position in society, career, even where their loyalties are. Not to mention personality and a bit about the environment they live in. His costuming typically shows urban, and Sombra is the odd one out being "ancient sage", of those you named they all play on similar tropes and styles.

Of those Same does costuming on, they primarily call on tropes of being untrustworthy, and a bit of mystery. Hats which hide the eyes in shadow, a bit dirty and poorly sitting clothing, a sense of "used car salesman". Most notably, his costuming gives me a feeling of "lower class swindler, pretending they are richer than they are as they rob those around them." Even Lucy has this to a minimal degree, but for her it's mostly the feeling of poverty, someone fallen from grace, than of being a swindler or untrustworthy. Each of them looks like they could walk up to you in a sketchy part of a large city and say "good to meet you my friend, fortune must be shining on us this night, as I'm looking for a man to do a job, and you look just the right kind of man. So here's my offer..." Or to try and sell a stolen watch, run some kind of gambling scam, or to otherwise just be shady. The other effect brimmed hats that can shadow eyes can do is make eyes stand out more in the darkness if the right lighting is done, making the individual feel more predatory and dangerous.

I'll see things like this and wonder if Sam actually knows how to do good character design, then he'll make so many other mistakes and I go "nah, dumb luck through sheer quantity". It does go to show though, if Sam spent time on costuming everyone, we might see a marked improvement in his designs. The other thing he needs to do is take a weekend studying anatomy to make sure his creatures stop having inane biology that makes no sense, learn to have some consistent character design, heck it goes one step further, as he lacks consistent creature design, which is arguably an even greater sin for what he's doing, and reduce visual noise.

Creature design has it's own rules, but the major rule he's violating is "set some laws to your biology, and follow them", you can get pretty fantastical while still feeling grounded and consistent. Let's grab Monster Hunter real fast, I'm just going to grab a few monsters I got distinct memories of.

Spoiler: Example images for point

While despite all looking WILDLY different, though some do belong to the same subclassifications, they are all creatures our brains don't immediately reject. A lot of what does that is the fact they all have four limbs, in fact only the really out there monsters in Monster Hunter, such as the straight up seemingly supernatural Elder Dragons, or those that are more based on arthropods than anything else, have anything other than four limbs. Four limbs is a very hard rule that they stick to outside of the designated exception classifications, this helps keep the monsters feeling like they belong to each other, and not feeling completely fantastical. These are also all wyverns, so even when they are feathered or furred they look a fairly reptilian, and finally when you take them out of action poses, you can tell they all move with their head forward, in an animalistic way. After that, a lot of their designs are based a bit on their ecology, and a bit on rule of cool and making a cool fight or interesting monster added in. They also often follow certain rules that could allow you to start categorizing them into subgroups by just by comparing them. You can tell they share common ancestors, even in this fairly small selection, and as you look at an ever wider variety of them, you can start to see some are more closely or less closely related than others. This sells that these are creatures from the same world.

They also got the same "brand identity" thing going, like how when you look at a Pokemon you know it is a Pokemon, how a Digimon looks like a Digimon, or a Transformer looks like a Transformer. You could tell if they were the real deal or not most of the time, just by looking at them. You can tell they go together.

Fennah completely lacks this, other than triple navel and the cross pupils, I would just assume they are all from completely different settings, being redone by the same person. Some of his characters look like they belong together, but then others randomly just have extra arms, or a shitton of tails, and some have massive antlers and others don't, some are covered in weird spikes, others aren't. Their mouth structures don't match, they sometimes have too many eyes, they lack any rules that I can see when I look at them. There's no way they share a common ancestor, let alone come from the same species. A complete lack of rules has lead to a complete lack of identity.

 

[Locomotive meat]

Fennah and RainyVeils can claim that Breasts ≠ sexuality all they want, but when all breasted characters have HUGE heavy knockers, with zero small breasted and/or moderate breasted characters to add diversity, well, it's pretty fuckin obvious what's going on. And no, characters with only nipples isnt repping small breasts, its repping a puffy nipple fetish. Show me a character with breasts UNDER size 34GG and I'll concede

 

[Draaq]

(Kwell is no more, the nipples are now there just to attract with scent like the lamest explanation to keep them)

---

So there was a super hot discussion in the discord about the breast and nipple thing, that basically went for an hour like that:

“Why can’t males have nipples but females do have and even breasts too though breasts serve no purpose at all”
“Because animals have them too”
“But they’re there to feed children, but the Kivs have no purpose for them”
Lots of Fennah defending and confused theories for half an hour
Then it was brought up that it seems to be sexualization if they serve no purpose but are there
Even more Fennah defending for another half an hour and discussing if it counts as sexualization
Ericka joined the chat
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Literally everyone apologized after that like xhhwusbduebd ARE YOU STUPID
Fennah joined the chat

View attachment 3317876
Then we had a stream like voice call in the discord that brought us nowhere anyway and was the usual “gotta explain myself” thing we see every stream.

But it’s so funny that when the admins come suddenly everyone be apologizing for saying their opinion and nodding “yes yes you’re right” because it’s Fennah

Fennah and RainyVeils can claim that Breasts ≠ sexuality all they want, but when all breasted characters have HUGE heavy knockers, with zero small breasted and/or moderate breasted characters to add diversity, well, it's pretty fuckin obvious what's going on. And no, characters with only nipples isnt repping small breasts, its repping a puffy nipple fetish. Show me a character with breasts UNDER size 34GG and I'll concede

Look at the quoted post above, it’s simply them justifying the breasts in the most ridiculous way. The answer to all your questions

 

[UnfortunatelyKivva]

Look at the quoted post above, it’s simply them justifying the breasts in the most ridiculous way. The answer to all your questions

I simply cannot understand why it was not stated that nipples were sexual dimorphism from the get-go. Yes, it's utterly asinine, but it would be such a simple answer without all of the Nipple-Gate semantics.

 

[Draaq]

Fennah's image print test, of course with titties -I love how he just HAS TO SHOW THE TITTIES, highlighting it as an important feature (and is that white crotch hair?!)
Other than that, so far nice. I'd prefer it though if the whole page had at least a background, else it looks so extremely WIP-like and empty - like the original Locket book image (put below). You're paying for the colour printing already anyways so why not use the whole page?

Spoiler: NSFW, alien titties

Spoiler: Original Locket book image

 

[Draaq]

Incoming book cover which for some reason he doesn't post whole. I must say I really like the way Lucy is done in this one - although it looks like a filter which it probably is. Or Flup did it.

 

[AngryTreeRat]

Fennah's image print test, of course with titties -I love how he just HAS TO SHOW THE TITTIES, highlighting it as an important feature (and is that white crotch hair?!)
Other than that, so far nice. I'd prefer it though if the whole page had at least a background, else it looks so extremely WIP-like and empty - like the original Locket book image (put below). You're paying for the colour printing already anyways so why not use the whole page?
View attachment 3477594

Spoiler: NSFW, alien titties

View attachment 3477595View attachment 3477597View attachment 3477598View attachment 3477599

Spoiler: Original Locket book image

View attachment 3477604

Ok, skipping past the fetishes on full display like always, since my current punching bag for Fennah is costuming, where the fuck do the bottom tits go? Like, her costuming isn't awful, it's clearly going for a regal and dominatrix look, it accomplishes that, has consistent colouring, and there's no decoration that looks out of place. As is a trend, all the over design is in her physiology, while the costuming is fine, it's on the complex side, but it's not overkill.

Then we jump back to the tits. It looks to be a corset she's wearing, it clearly is what is compressing the upper breasts so much, but the lower are just gone. Breasts are basically just fat, the remaining tissues aren't important and likely not there on kivs, and I know his breasts are fat based on how they sit. That fat can be squished, but it still needs to go SOMEWHERE. You can tell he's playing to two different fetishes based on if she's dressed or undressed. It's practically two different character designs, and I prefer the dressed design since, once again, his costuming is bearable and hides his awful creature design somewhat.

 

[Draaq]

Very nice hair and fur on the ears - on the tail though the fur looks incredibly sticky and seeing the skin doesn’t make it better (I’m not saying that to just pick on something, I’m serious, look at the far right on the tail tip - really gross). Other than that a nice improvement.
Looking forward to see how he pulls this one off animation-wise.

 

[bird in the sky]

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Very nice hair and fur on the ears - on the tail though the fur looks incredibly sticky and seeing the skin doesn’t make it better (I’m not saying that to just pick on something, I’m serious, look at the far right on the tail tip - really gross). Other than that a nice improvement.
Looking forward to see how he pulls this one off animation-wise.

Okay, I'll be honest, the hair does look nice in my opinion. I feel like its a little bit too slicked back for the position she's in, but I don't think it's bad. I can also definitely see improvement there in the face, hands, all that. This new Helgan model isn't that bad.

Athough, the thing I have an issue with is the fur on the tail. It's not even just because it looks gross, (because it does) but like, it seems like it would be terribly inconvenient... like, snakes rely on the fictional properties of their tails so slither around. I'm assuming Helgan has no scales on her tail, considering fur doesn't grow on scales, unless this is some bullshit rule Fennah introduced.

I feel like he could've gotten away with making her upper body have the fur instead of the tail. Like, as an example, have the fur be something similar to Luna, Halie's OC. (I know Luna isn't apart of the story anymore but I can't think of any better examples.) Then have the tail be made of scales. However, I am starting to believe Fennah gave her fur instead of scales because he doesn't know how to model scales.

Either way, for a 'realisticly scientific' world like the Kivowack, I'd expect him to know that Helgan having a fluffy tail would be very inconvenient. And it's weird because Fennah has (kind of) modeled scales before. How good they look is up for debate, but they would've looked much better than the fur.

Edit: On closer inspection, I can see what looks to be scales on Helgan's arms. So Fennah has pretty much no excuse at this point. What's the point in the fur? Because I seee no reason why it should be there unless she was in a cold area which- to my knowledge, I don't think she is.