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It's definitely supposed to reference that.. I think that's quite clear. I wasn't around for previous Aiko's but I can see this one is intended to be used for that FF Square Enix look that's very popular. A lot of the games I play have similar looking characters. You have Sakura for anime now...
I hope I can find the YouTube clip to back up my claims, as someone actually put this notion to the test. The person took a tablet onto the street of a major Japanese metropolis and asked various citizens what nationalities several random anime characters might be. He did try to find people who were not familiar with the properties displayed (otherwise, the participants would likely know throgh narrative context).
As odd as it may seem to westerners, several of the people questioned assumed "wide eyed" characters were Japanese, even if the anime or manga character presented had fair or techno colored hair and did not wear attire that would imply an Asian culture. Older characters (like men in business suits or shopkeepers) with less "stylized, round" eyes) were sometimes identified as Asian, but Chinese or Korean rather than Japanese.
Obviously such a survey could not be fully impartial as it was just one man presenting the comments from maybe a dozen people at most. But never the less, I found it fascinating that some of the interviewees saw the characters as Japanese whereas a sizeable portion of people from the western hemipshere would perceive them as being of European descent. The person running the channel speculated that people in general "project" those element with which we identify unless there is some overt visyal cue that clearly suggests otherwise.
Point being, there's a decent chance that someone from Japan would see that "blond" haired, wide eyed girl as, well, Japanese.
Again, if I can find that video, I'll link it. I found it quite fascinating.
Sincerely,
Bill
I'm looking forward to seeing what you find out. I really want to buy Riza, but not if I also need that convertion pack.
Aiko hasn't been anime looking since Aiko 3.
The thing is, you assume that the girl's hair is actually meant to be blonde, but the average Japanese already knows that it isn't necessarily so. The alternate coloring of manga and anime character hair really has more to do with trying to make the individual characters significantly different from each other (and, in the early days, simnply a way to save on the cost of ink.) Given that, in the majority of mangas the majority of the characters are supposed to be Japanese, that would mean a ubiquitous sea of black, artists began leaving much of the hair in outline form or filling it in with zip-tone and, as color was introduced to printing and via animation, an informal color code began to be developed as a shorthand way of suggesting base character traits.. sort of an extension of the western stereotypes of the firey redhead, the mousey brunnette, etc. see: https://sotaku.com/anime-hair-colors-mean-one-personality-guide/
interesting read from Redfern and Cybersox ..thanks
I'm not into FF anymore, was a long time ago ..but from ads I've seen, I agree A8 looks like that character. I used to apply "realistic" textures to A4 to make her look less cartoon ...
Computer animation seems to have evolved into more realism, even in cartoon work .. maybe its just what I see and not really reality, given the breadth of it all
That's why I placed the word blond in quotes, as a kind of caveat qualifier. Being a monochrome image, it could have been red or a sky blue.
Thanks for the link. I've read discussions about the symbology of hair color in manga and anime, so it's nice to have ready access to one of those "studies".
Sincerely,
Bill
She looks great with just her morphs- no A7 or A8. I'll be posting some comparisons very soon.
Correction: This is her default load, 100% Riza and 60% Aiko 8, mid render:
Here's she is with just 100% Riza, I'm rendering this one currently to fix my graphic on the next page:
Well, I think she's very cute! I'm waitng patiently for The Girl 8 now and hoping and praying for the Freak to return one day.
Riza without the needed addon
I have only been buying 8 because I'm fairly new and was filling up my runtime with the free bundles, so no buy from me.
Oh yes, that's definitely a must have. :) To confirm, that's with A8 but without A7 to A8, right?
I still use A3, since it was pretty good approximation of an anime girl; although now there is Sakura that takes that spot, so Aiko is more like a generic FF/Disney movie girl. Which is not bad to be honest.
They used to sell a product called Aiko toon, which was giving yet another different type of animated figure, using the same A3 base. In the end depends from what you want to accomplish, the figures nowadays seems to converge all in the same direction, while in the old days of 3.0 figures (A3, V3, M3), you could see a very distinct separation among them. I like the new Aiko figure, but what I don't get is if she can actually use previous Aiko and Genesis clothes/characters, or if it can only use Genesis8 and Aiko8 products.
Genesis 8 Female has built in clones for the previous three generations of Genesis, so most and hair clothes made for Aiko 5-7 will fit just fine with no extra work... though shoes may be an issue... If you have Sickleyield's V4 for G8F product you can also use most clothes made for Aiko 4. To use AIko 3 clothes on Aiko 8 you'll need to have way of adapting the clothes upward to either V4 or Genesis. The cheapest way to do that is to fit the clothes to Genesis using https://www.daz3d.com/a3-and-h3-shapes-for-genesis, save that as a preset and then refit it to G8F.
As for characters... Cayman Studios makes a Victoria 4 UV set https://www.daz3d.com/legacy-uvs-for-genesis-8-victoria-4 that will let you use A4 skins on G8F, and a lot of the later skins will work as well if you have the right UV set adapter, but there's no easy path for A3 skins yet, or morphs, since GenX2 only converts up to G3F.
Aiko 8 can use Genesis 1, 2, 3 clothes/hairs, Genesis 3 chars' skin (base UV). And if you convert/autofit Generation 4 clothes to Genesis 3, you can use them on Genesis 8 too.
Thanks for that. She does not look that different from the promos. The A7-A8 add-on is only $3 in my cart (no idea why the discount is this steep), so I could consider that, but the A8 base is obviously a lot more money.
Thanks for the clarification; so there are ways to retro-fit the new Aiko; it is just a lot of work :)
What about previous Aiko characters? Same as for clothes and hair? I see few of the A7 and A6 characters that would look nice with the new A8 body and outfit.
I like her as is but I still may mix her as I usually do. I don't know what the Aiko 7 for Aiko 8 is but it was $2 something so I got it. As a matter of fact her deal was pretty good because along with the pro bundle I got every add on character plus 2 textures a little over $50 with my coupon. Not crazy about either hair thought, just a matter of taste.
Excellent, thanks very much for testing this! (you too Emullens)
Agreed. Her head doesn't seem to match her body either, it's too big or something. But some of the PA characters not in the bundle look cute and I bet would mix with Karyssa or Teen Josie well. I really don't like A8's facial sculpt as is, but the PAs spun magic on it making it cute. Salem, VYK Rose and P3D Riza look great! I wonder how different they would look mixed with Karyssa rather than Aiko 8?
She does make a really passable stylized guy on G8M. This is just the head morph transferred with no extra morph tweaking yet. I particularly like that the eyes don't seem to be screwed up, because that's always a pitfall transferring stylized morphs.
You're welcome! I just restarted DAZ and loaded her up with all defaults, and she doesn't even show that she's using A7 morphs, though that's a handy one to have for $2.
She loads with her own morphs at 100% and Aiko 8's body at 60%. I forgot to check head morphs, thought I was checking whole thing. Just a sec.
ETA: She also loads with Aiko 8 head morphs at 60%. So I have no idea why the product page says she needs the other one. She looks great in all tests though- with or without Aiko 7 or 8. I'll have a side by side comparison in a few minutes.
Ooh, thanks @Llynara! Do you have VYK Rose and Salem too? I'd love to see what they look like alone or with Karyssa but no Aiko 8...
Wow, that looks great! Now I'm rethinking her! I think the main reason I didn't like her is because, like Victoria 8 she looks too masculine for my taste. But as a guy, she looks awesome!
Could you please direct me to a tutorial how you did that?
Wow! Looks great! You could mix and match with male morphs and definitely make a very good Hiro 8.
Yes, I picked up both, I can do them next. I'm sick today so this is a good distraction. Aiko is cheering me up.
I have a feeling that if you get the Aiko 8 pro bundle, it will add an extra discount to the rest of the sale like the Edward 8 bundle did... I may have to rethink this...
Not easily, no. There is a way to manually transfer morphs from G3F to G8f, but it's not simple and you would have to first transfer or purchase the basic shapes of the previous figures as well. But, as I said above, the majority of the Genesis 1-3 skins can probably be used if you have the right UV set add-ons.
I haven't bought any G8 characters yet, and probably will skip entire generation, but I hoped Aiko would be something more anime like character. She's kind of cute, but not what I was expecting, so pass again. Still, out of curiosity how old do you think Aiko 8 is? To me she looks like she's definetely not 18 yet. I kinda thought that Josie was the teen character, and Aiko would be around 18-20. Maybe I'm just getting old, and everything under 30 looks like a child. Hah, to be honest, Taylor Swift looks to me like she's about 18 years old, so I'm not really good at guessing age
Greetings,
Wow, that's really adorable; thanks for that.
As for Aiko 8, I feel that characters like Star or Sakura take up the mantle of 'anime-esque' plenty enough. I'm comfortable letting DAZ, and the PA that actually does the character modeling, evolve Aiko as they see fit, and enjoying the result as it comes out. I'm quite happy with what I've seen of Aiko 8, and there's a few images I've seen (e.g. mixing Aiko and Karyssa) that I feel like hits the perfect, 'Manic Pixie' character archetype.
I also think the Sci Fi outfit is badass (all Yura's ever needed was someone to do their promos for them), the maid outfit is cute (and more dForce is appreciated, which is a common thread among the things I'll list!), the Cherry Blossom outfit is..okay, I guess (the lack of a hem just feels...lazy), both of the hairs are fun, the characters are reasonably cute, and the kabuki mask is a cool bonus! The Phoenix clothes have cool boots, and skintight pants (that would be awesomely repurposable if they didn't have that weird divot and buckle). The Aldeberan outfit is slickly done, and the open morphs look great in the promos. The Jumper (dforce) outfit is super-adorable, and a perfect antidote to the sometimes-too-sexy outfits. It still looks really, really nice, without needing pulchritude to achieve it. P3D's done a great job with Riza, of course, and she's a must-have. (If she'd been a base character, Riza 8, I'd have bought her Pro Bundle too! :) )
Frankly, I don't understand using nostalgia as a reason not to buy her. Aiko 8 is a great character, supported by great extras. I feel like that's enough to call it good and pull the trigger.
-- Morgan