I was just thinking about details I really enjoy in character/costume designs, and I've realized that there's a general class of features that I really, really dig: holes in clothes to support non-standard anatomical features. Ear/horn holes in hats, backless tops for wings, tail holes in pants, that kinda thing. Especially hats. I love me a demon woman with a hat or hood that has holes for her horns.

How about the rest of the class? Are there design touches that are a nearly automatic win for you?

--G.
I also seem to have developed a thing for characters who appear to be blindfolded but don't act like they are, like 2B and Trigger
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

The philosophy of having to make tail holes in chairs actually really tickles me.

This brings about the image of you having to explain that you're poking around FurAffinity and e621 for the clothing, really.

>This brings about the image of you having to explain that you're
>poking around FurAffinity and e621 for the clothing, really.

My usual range stops at kemonomimi and doesn't extend to full furry, but there are exceptions. Some franchises have very advanced "I'm not a furry, BUT" characters. (Looking at you, Pulchra.) :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

My personal favorite are juxtapositions that look natural, like a girl riding her lion sword-valet to school. You could easily make such an idea be very over the top, but no, it just fits.

Sidenote, I'd watch a whole series about the girl and the lion sword-valet. Or just a lion at a school in general. Maybe as a member of the student council, seeing as lions are sticklers about the rules.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Haibane Renmei has a touch of this, with the scene of her new clothes getting wing holes cut in it.

... Though I also remember being particularly charmed by how Misha's wings in Pita-Ten seemed to be selectively physical. (It being some time since I watched the anime, I can only assume there's some scene where someone or something touches them to make this stand out from the pack of "This just isn't explored or explained.")

Maybe I just like wings in general. >>

-IA.

(received information not interpretable)

LAST EDITED ON Oct-24-25 AT 06:23 AM (EDT)
 
For a while, back in the late 80s, I was quite taken with a style of dress where the bodice is connected to the collar, and sleeves to the bodice, leaving the shoulders bare - e.g., Psylocke's original costume (see below), or Sylphie the shopkeeper from Capcom's Forgotten Worlds (1988).

https://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Psylocke-Marvel-Comics-X-Men-1987-pink-costume-big.jpg?x

I haven't seen many examples since then, so I'm guessing it fell out of fashion just as quickly. The only ones I can recall offhand are worn by Padme in Attack of the Clones (2002) - the pale yellow "Lake Gown" and (in a rather infamous scene that practically defines "mixed signals") the black "Corset Gown".

LAST EDITED ON Oct-24-25 AT 06:28 AM (EDT)
 
See also whatever Sylia's wearing here.

LAST EDITED ON Oct-24-25 AT 12:29 PM (EDT)
 
I think that a good hat can make a marvelous addition to one's image. On a roleplay place, I once played one of the megaman zero reploids (Burble Hekelot/Frog), whose only concession to the idea of NOT being a neon coloured panel line robot was that he really liked to wear a very eclectic assortment of hats. It eventually became his defining feature and what others recognized as his funny gimmick.

I've tested it out to varying degrees of success since then, putting hats on otherwise non-humanoid or non-anthropomorphic robots (WALL-E style stuff), and it really helps me spark off.

Of course, the same can also be said for non-robot and human characters- things that immediately come to mind are the fact that many of Sakura Kinomoto's unique costumes in Cardcaptor Sakura usually include a REALLY NICE hat.

And to say nothing of Girl Genius' jaegers, for whom the whole idea of a snappy hat is practically a fundamental part of their nature.

"And any plan in which you lose your hat is...?"

"A bad plan!"

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

> holes in clothes to support non-standard anatomical features.

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised there's not any reference to this in Interspecies Reviewers; it seems like the kind of detail that series lives for.

-IA.

(received information not interpretable)

This will surprise precisely nobody who knows me, but: A long coat or cloak. Specifically one weighted such that the bottom parts of it bellow out a bit when walking or running.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."