Needs Help: Characters.Touhou

Ok, let's do this properly. I know there has been discussions about the nature of the images on this page regarding the use of fan art instead of official art for various reasons. Problem is that those discussions seems to have never gotten anywhere and as such, the problem has stagnated.

For whatever reason, Touhou seems to have been treated as an exception to the rule ever since images where started to be used on it's character page years ago, seemingly out of personal preference of the original poster. This is of course done without consent or sourcing of the original art creators which is needless to say, a problem as well as rude to both them and ZUN as well.

Therefore a change should be made properly this time into official art. However there seems to be a divide regarding what art is to be used leading to the aforementioned stagnation. There are some who want ZUN art, there are those who want art from the art books and there are those who want to maintain the status quo.

Hopefully this should be the last time a discussion such as this will be necessary and that it will put the issue to rest.

Okay enough babbling on my part, what are your'e opinions on how to solve this conundrum? I am fine so long as we don't have to see another image with the "fanart" label. All other pages use art from their source regardless of quality, so why should Touhou be any different?

Opened, although I'm not certain at all that this will be productive. I have little familiarity with Touhou aside from what exposure I've gotten through the wiki, so I'm pretty much unbiased when it comes to a depiction of the characters.

edited 9th Jul '15 6:10:22 AM by Willbyr

One of the biggest problems with the whole thing (and what spawned the discussion) is that it is impossible to find a consistent art-style. As such, we need to improvise. Here are my suggestions, based on categories.

• Main character page: Either we need to update the picture or remove it
• Reimu and Marisa: Use whatever art is best for them. Since they have appeared in almost every game, they get a special threatement.
• PC-98: Use whatever artwork they have. If they don't have artwork, use sprites. Exceptions are Yuuka, who would use her Phantasmagoria of Flower View and Alice who would maybe use Perfect Cherry Blossom artwork
• Windows: Use Zunart for the game they deputed in. If they appeared in any later games, then it is fine to use those arts. No Alphes art
  • For mini-boss characters, since almost none of them have official art, it is best to find art from print works, even if it means chopping pages from the mangas. Example with Lily White [1]◊
  • There are few characters who are The Ghost (and a tree), so they might not need any artwork.
• Side Games: Use art from the games they originated from.
• Other Official Works: Use art from the artists from those works. Which I think is the case currently, unless something happened with Maribel and Renko.

edited 9th Jul '15 7:01:28 AM by TPPR10

How you suggested is how I think it really should have been from the beginning. And regarding your question on the supplementary materials page, they are already dealt with, the only exception being Rei'sen.

The only thing left is for those who has had no appearance whatsoever such as Youki and Myouren.

I support that in general.

Since the character pages are organised after which game the character originated in, it only makes sense to me to use the art that was used in the game they originated in. I'd rather see the art of the original creator representing the characters he created, rather than interpretations of the characters by fans.

The main reason I don't buy the consistency argument is that the actual art isn't consistent in itself anyway. It's a large franchise with a variety of art styles

I agree with TPPR for the most part, but that Lily White artwork doesn't look quite right. I'm fine with different art styles, but I feel it would look much better if we used official art with a transparent background, or none at all.

The only problem with her is that only official art of her are from PMISS and sprites. Daiyousei, Koakuma and Momiji are worse since they only have their sprites. That is why I made that suggestion. Some other pages tend to opt out of using screenshots or chopped pages if no official art is present.

What about characters who have multiple designs?

• The characters who were brought over from the PC-98 games to the Windows continuity (Reimu, Marisa, Alice and Yuuka)
• Mima's weird schoolgirlish design from her first appearance, and her later more wizardly one.
• Marisa again, due to her PC-98 incarnation switching from short red hair to long blonde hair.
• Yuuka again, due to her PC-98 incarnation appearing twice in normal clothes and nightgown
• Yukari's PCB and IaMP outfits.
• Keine's human and were-hakutaku forms.
• Mokou's appearance before she became immortal.
• Mamizou's human disguise.

There are lots of characters who have multiple outfits apart from these, but most of them are just variants on the same design for more casual/formal situations or hotter/colder weather (and some of it is just Depending on the Artist).

I do think characters like Youki should still have a picture, since his fan design is so well established and consistent.

edited 9th Jul '15 8:01:14 AM by Prime32

Momiji has art in SoPM. Black and white, but better than nothing.

Sprites seem fine for characters without real names in the first place.

I agree with most of TPPR's suggestions, ZUN art or better for game characters and manga/artbook art for others. Essentially doing what Touhouwiki currently does (with exception).

I think we should still maintain having multiple artwork for characters with multiple designs so long as they are important.

Touhouwiki uses the most recent in-game art for every character where possible. This includes Kasen, who stopped using her manga art after appearing in the games (also the Three Fairies of Light, but their game art was drawn by the manga artist anyway).

edited 9th Jul '15 8:15:18 AM by Prime32

All right, so, hi everyone I am horribly nervous but also glad to be posting here, since in the past discussions in the Touhou Thread, I had been quite vocal on this topic (to be precise, I was an avid advocate for the Alphes-Style-Artwork that we have currently). I will not be arguing much anymore, however, since it stresses me out too much, I'm bad at arguments, and I feel that my cause is already lost, anyway.

But, before anything else, to get started: I was under the impression this discussion thread was about which art style in general to use on the Char Page... but it seems like "Using Official Art" already seems like a foregone conclusion to everyone here? Is there room for discussion there? I mean that genuinely, btw , not maliciously. If really no one else except me favors the current Alphes-Style anymore here (please speak up, if there is anyone!), then I'll gladly give that cause up and work with you to improve the page according to the Official-Art-Style.

i like the way it has been for months

dont see why it has to change

I like what we have currently. Ideally for me, it will remain thus. The art's nice.

If that's not an option anymore however, I won't argue.

Koakuma has an appearance in the totes canon Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth.

It is not a very big picture but it is bigger and more distinct than her sprite.

I'd say we go with the best quality art available, given that it sticks to their original/most common official design. Official art for preference, but if there's no official art for a character that lives up to the quality of the others then properly credited fanart. Zun's designs are great, but while he does his designs and damn near every aspect of his work at pro-level, his art I'd say is his low point.

I think a question that needs to be asked is why quality (of the art, not the image quality) should be a concern at all. This isn't an art gallery.

Very glad to now have some other people here on the "How it currently is is fine"-Side But...

I have to admit, Clarste does make a very good point here. My gut-reaction to it is something like "But...but, but, I want new people discovering Touhou for the first time here to have a good first impression, with pretty art!" And then I realize that that is pretty lame, as far as arguments go.

Good quality indeed gives a good first impression on the newcomers, we can't deny that. Though in a way it seems vain, but in some cases, we can see what kind of character they are from their appearances (before I get in the fandom, I looked around the character page and take liking on characters from the games I haven played yet from there because of this reason). And there are cases of Characterization Marches On and newest look; Miko's debut fits with her modest stance in ZUNart, but sure as hell doesn't picture her hamtastic personality and image in later games.

If we use the artworks from Gensokyo Chronicle, I really fear the varying quality of the artwork. Azuma Aya's artstyle is pretty in general, but in SOPM her grayscale coloring has terrible visibility. I can barely see where Nitori's hair begins and ends, along with Yamame's dress. If we're going to use ZUNart, then the question becomes how we're going to give the artless characters some visual?

In general, I'm actually pretty confused with just what kind of argument we have against the alphes-style parody for most of the characters.

My argument against alphes-style is sort of not because of the style itself, but mainly because that Touhou page is like one of few pages in any character page I have visited which has opted out for fan-art instead of official art. Keep in mind that before that, we didn't even try to keep consistent fan art quality.

I guess on quality, it really matters in the sense of picture quality (pixilation and such). If the official artstyle itself is bit wonky, that can't be helped.

I can understand the desire to keep character's artwork/appearance up-to-date and I don't have that much problems with that.

edited 9th Jul '15 11:57:22 AM by TPPR10

Well, I think Touhou can be distinguished from most works by the fact that its official art isn't drawn by an artist: ZUN's just a programmer and amateur musician who sat down and forced himself to draw. If there's any place to make an exception, I don't think this would be a bad one.

A pro-Fanart-Argument?

Also, I fully agree with Ala Alba. If it is to be Official-Art, then the B&W-Artbooks (which I love dearly, don't get me wrong) are, sadly, right out. The lack of color, the outdatedness of some characters, and, definitely the worst point, the horribleness of the quality of some of the scans are all strikes against them.

I'm going to agree with the sentiment that Touhou is a special case when it comes to official images. While we're not under any sort of aesthetic obligation to promote "good" art, I don't think we're being snobby by choosing fanart when it is, to be blunt, demonstrably better than ZUN's art.

I'm quite happy with the status quo - as others have said the alphes-ish fanart does a good job of faithfully representing the character designs, it looks like something that would have been used in an official fighting game, and it probably won't scare off any curious newcomers. No, it's not by the games' creator, but we use non-ZUN art all the time, just "official" non-ZUN art from the fighting games or manga. Using unofficial non-ZUN art that's nearly as good isn't too outrageous.

But if those (fanart) captions are just unbearably disgusting, and we have to make things "official," my personal order of preference for image picking would be to use the character's most recent

1. non-ZUN but ZUN-sanctioned art from the fighting games
2. non-ZUN but ZUN-sanctioned color images from side material
3. color ZUN art from the official games
4. black and white ZUN-sanctioned images from side material
5. game sprite
6. black and white ZUN sketches

So by this criteria, Reisen Classic would use her SWR portrait rather than her LoLK profile pic, Akyuu would be depicted by her appearance on a manga cover rather than the art on the cover of Akyuu's Untouched Score Vol. 5, poor Minoriko would have two left feet, New Reisen would be a black-and-white panel capture, and Shinki would be a collection of pixels.

Badly inconsistent art, but not consistently bad art.

No, wait, we'd get to argue whether Shinki's appearance in Magus in Mystic Geometries had enough ZUN involvement for her image there to count as officially-sanctioned. And then discuss whether to use Eirin's Grimoire of Marisa appearance over her game profile since the former is focused more on her danmaku, and if the color zoom-in on New Reisen's head from the back of the manga is better than her sketchy black-and-white portrait inside it. And now I'm kinda wondering whether Parsee's picture from Symposium of Post-Mysticism would be better than her Subterranean Animism portrait, and if I should swap around numbers 3 and 4 on my order of preference.

Maybe we should just patiently wait for every character to appear in a fighting game or on a manga cover, so we won't have to use fanart anymore.

I've never gotten the argument to have the most recent images. The past still existed. It doesn't stop existing just because something new comes along. Now, I'm all in favour for picking an illustrative image, but change for the sake of change isn't good. Which is what "newer" is to me.

Also, the argument that ZUN art is bad is just about style. Quality, as far as the wiki is concerned, is about image quality.

Amazing post! "Official Art" is indeed a very wide spectrum and will invite constant discussion over which pics to choose over which other ones just as much as "Fanart" does. At least "Alphes-Style" makes that process easier; consistency.

Using newer, better looking pics for Char Pages is not unique to Touhou, though. Tropers are Humans, after all, and Humans just like to look at better-looking things... just the way things are. Just some random examples: Lara Croft's Pic is new and pretty instead of from her oldest game; The Mario Brothers have new art instead of from 20 years ago; Zelda is all over the place, but both Link's and Zelda's Pics are from at least the N64 onward.