Not Tropeworthy: Fanart At First Sight

Note: This thread was proposed by Adept.

A discussion from the Is this tropeworthy/Chairs? thread raises concern about the tropeworthiness of "a character/work already attracting fanart before the actual release of the piece of media", because fanart are not necessarily bound by any time frame. Unlike, say, writing a piece of fanfic using backstories, worldbuilding facts and character relationship dynamics that could eventually be Outdated by Canon, one doesn't really need to know any story context behind a character—not even their name—to draw them. From an artist's point-of-view, there are no noteworthy difference between a fanart drawn right after the teaser drops, and ten years after the work is released. Hence, stating that "people has been drawing fanart of this work/character from the moment the first trailer is dropped" is not saying anything more worthwhile than simply mentioning "this work/character has lots of fanart".

Results (wick check)

• Work/character attracts a lot of fanart with no further context (40/80)
• Character attracts a lot of fanart because they are good-looking (16/80)
• Fanart for a character's new look/costume/redesign (8/80)
• Miscellaneous context (7/80)
• Speculative designs (3/80)
• Others (6/80)

Analysis:

50% of the trope's usage basically boils down to "Character gains a lot of fanart the moment the trailer is dropped/X months before the work's released/etc." which as mentioned are not noteworthy. Most of the examples that offer additional context are basically just gushing over the character's appearance (20%), which are usually discouraged. 10% are about fanarts of existing characters that got new design/outfit/art style that are popular among the fanbase, which seems to just be aversions of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. Out of the miscellaneous usage, the only one that could potentially be spun as a trope on its own is the "Speculative Design", i.e. when a named character doesn't have an official design yet, but people try to come up with their own designs anyway. However, given that there's only 3 examples of those, I'm not sure how feasible that would be.

Proposal:

Honestly, the fact that a work generated a lot of fanart long before its official launch (or the moment any sort of official material is released) is more of an indicator of how anticipated/popular the work is. The fanart itself isn't really important. But I'm not sure if this phenomenon is tropeworthy either. "Work is popular/anticipated by fanbase" will probably just become a magnet for needless gushing. Cutting is probably the best way to go.

1. Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed: The Reid and Cassini mentors received a ton of fanart since the base version of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 released, even before they were confirmed to be older versions of Shulk and Rex.
2. It (2017): When the movie was coming up and the teaser trailers showed what they looked like, it didn't take long for people to start drawing fanart of the Losers and Pennywise.
3. Puyo Puyo!! Quest: Puyo fans tend to draw fanart of the various alts of the characters the moment they're announced, even if they don't actually get added to the game until days later.
4. Cookie Run: Every time a new Cookie appear, fanart pops up soon after.
5. The New Order Last Days Of Europe: Before the release, several characters of the unreleased game have been used in memes such as Albert Speer, Ulrike Meinhof and the rest of the DSR, the two Svetlanas of Komi and Scorza.
6. The Force Awakens: When the movie was coming up and the new characters were previewed, there was much fanart for Kylo, Rey, and Captain Phasma just based on looks alone.
7. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart: Rivet, at the time unnamed, got fanart posted on Twitter just minutes after she was briefly onscreen when the game was announced during the Playstation 5 reveal video.
8. Positive Reaction: Tangle the Lemur and Whisper the Wolf, Dual Goddesses of Obtaining Fanart At First Sight
9. Sonic the Hedgehog: Tangle the Lemur and Whisper the Wolf, Dual Goddesses of Obtaining Fanart At First Sight
10. Them's Fightin' Herds: The fighters got their fair share of fanart when first revealed, even new characters tend to get a few handfuls of art within a day or so.
11. Hazbin Hotel: When the short was first previewed, fans absolutely loved Charlie, and she got a good chunk of fanart in the days leading up to the short's premiere.
12. My Little Pony (2022): Violette Rainbow, the young unicorn with vitiligo, amassed a sizable amount of fanart when they first appeared on the issue 14 cover months before her name or anything about the character was revealed.
13. Steven Universe: The Movie:
    • Spinel was already getting some fanart before the film's release despite not being named yet. Once she was revealed in full and more of her backstory known, her popularity exploded.
    • Steg ended up having a similar reaction within Bara loving circles.
14. My Little Pony (Generation 5): As a design for a bedspread depicting Sunny, Izzy and Pipp was accidentally released ahead of schedule, fanart of those characters started appearing a good few months before any official confirmation of the movie, its title or its contents did. Afterwards, once the promotional campaign proper got underway, fanart of the new characters started popping up within a few hours of each new trailer or screenshot being released.
15. Homestuck 2: Yiffy, the daughter of Jade and Rose, spawned tons of fanart and speculation on her character after only appearing for a few panels and only speaking in barks and growls.
16. Overwatch: When Lifeweaver's abilities were revealed, the community's first reaction (other than copious fanart, anyway) was glee and/or horror at the sheer trolling potential of Life Grip.
17. Touhou Project: Being a series about various magical females of different species, this happens whenever a new game is set to be released and showcases a new character. Some designs are more popular then others.
18. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The JOJOLands: As soon as Jodio's design was revealed, he instantly received a huge amount of fanart, before his name or anything about him was even known. Since his initial reveal only had his face, much of this fanart only has him from the neck up. A common theme in this early fanart is giving him a rabbit Animal Motif or depicting him with a pet rabbit, as the first teaser image for Part 9 had a rabbit in it. This is notably the first time this has happened to a JoJo character in the West since Part 9 is the first part to debut after the series' huge Newbie Boom following the release of the 2012 anime.
19. Mina the Hollower: You can bet Mina got plenty of fanart after the game's reveal, especially from furry fans.
20. Ring Fit Adventure: Dragaux attracted fanart as soon as the game was announced.
21. Steven Universe: When the End of an Era artbook was leaked online, the thing fans immediately latched on to were concepts for both Morganite and Rhodonite's coponents, who all received multiple pieces of fanart before the day ended, and many comments about how cute Rhodonite's Pearl and Ruby were or how many were surprised that Morganite resembled Aquamarine and not Emerald.
22. My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Sunset Shimmer showed up in a toyline months before her official debut in the first Equestria Girls movie and started getting fanart almost immediately. Furthermore, since her first toy was part of a Masquerade Ball-themed toyline (which had nothing to do with the plot of EQG), fans mistook her mask for a lucha libre mask instead, which inspired a short-lived trend of depicting Sunset as a Masked Luchador.
23. Kirby and the Forgotten Land: The second trailer featured Kirby fighting a female leopard boss named Clawroline. No sooner after the direct the trailer was in ended, Twitter was flooded with fanart of her.
24. Splatoon 3: Upon their introduction, the idol trio Deep Cut, who are handling announcements and Splatfests this time around, received quite a large amount of fan art after their introduction in the Direct.
25. Free!: The anime had hundreds of fanarts of the (then) four main characters before the anime came out later in 2013, solely based off of Kyoto Animation's proof of concept short.
26. Monster Cereals: Carmella Creeper received some after a leak of her box.
27. Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: Ruby and Chelsea both quickly received fanart mere hours after the trailer's release.
28. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: When the designs for the reboot were revealed, there was plenty of fanart for Adora, Catra, Bow, and Glimmer before the series premiered proper. Some even had them standing alongside or meeting their 80s counterparts.# Total Drama: When the Pahkitew Island cast was revealed in 2014, they got a good chunk of fanart before the season even came out. The same applies to when the first promotional image of the cast of Island (2023) was revealed, especially in Scary Girl's case.
29. The Little Mermaid (2023): Fanart featuring Halle Bailey as Ariel began appearing almost as soon as her casting was announced, well before the film's release date was even confirmed. This has only increased since the first official look dropped. A popular subject is drawing Halle's Ariel in the dresses Ariel wore in the original film.
30. Sonic Frontiers: Sage, the mysterious young girl who appeared at the end of the Nintendo Direct trailer, quickly received a great deal of fan art not long after Sega properly revealed her.
31. Unikitty!: The side characters got fanart before they even had their names revealed, let alone before the series started airing.
32. Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Fans latched onto the first boss, the Water Lily siren, and fan art was quick to follow after she was first revealed.
33. Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2: Plenty of fans took the opportunity to draw art of newcomer Vanilla following her reveal in the overview trailer.
34. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: Arcee has had a lot of fanart made of her ever since her new design was shown in the trailers.
35. WALL•E: There's a team of Star Wars fans in California that were already making life-sized remote control R2-D2s when the trailers for WALL•E came out, so they decided to make a life-size WALL•E as well.
36. Sing 2: Porsha received hundreds of pieces before the movie even came out.
37. Smile PreCure!: Despite the fact that the Bad End Pretty Cure were little more than glorified Monster of the Week material, they got fan art the moment they were revealed.
38. Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): Pretty much any new characters previewed usually gets some new fanarts on social media of them before their debuts. Tangle was first, followed by Whisper. Then Belle and of course Kit and Surge. Starline and Clutch are the only exceptions so far as they debuted within in the pages of the comic rather then be showcased early.
39. Wynncraft: A lot of characters are subject to this. Notable examples include Lari, Qira, Maxie, Ava and sometimes the artist's player character.
40. We are the Main Characters of the Demon World!: The manga was already ripe with fanarts three months before it even began, as a sneak peek of the character designs was unveiled on October 31, 2019.

1. Dragon Age: During Gamescon 2020, BioWare released a behind-the-scene teaser to promote their next game. While the video mostly consists of concept art, it hasn't stopped the fans from immediately latching onto the few characters introduced in it, most notably the Qunari woman who has received a lot of fanart despite not even having a name yet (she has thus been affectionately dubbed "Qunari wife" by a good portion of the fanbase).
2. Pokémon: Likewise for the player characters and Gym Leaders if and when their designs are ever showcased, especially if they're cute girls or women.
3. The Bad Guys (2022): The main cast (especially Mr. Wolf and Diane Foxington) got a lot of fan art from the Furry Fandom pretty much the second the first trailer dropped.
4. ENA:
   • The moment Season 2's ENA was revealed in the Dream BBQ trailer, fans very quickly began making fanart of her because of her cool and unique design.
   • Fans instantly started making art of Taski Maiden and Coral Glasses after their designs were revealed on Joel G's Twitter, as fans instantly fell in love with their cute but unique appearances.
5. Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed: Glimmer has received a lot of fanart thanks to her beautiful design and resemblance to Pyra.
6. Street Fighter 6: An unusual example. Because of a Content Leak that occurred mere hours after the game's announcement trailer at a Playstation State of Play in June 2022 which revealed official concept art for the game's entire roster. This lead to a majority of the game's cast receiving fan art months before they we're officially revealed. Cammy in particular was a huge recipient of fan art thanks to her drastic re-design and once she was finally officially unveiled at the February 2023 Playstation State of Play event, the amount of fan art she was getting increased tremendously.
7. Goodbye Volcano High: Despite the reveal trailer's poor reception, Fang garnered a fair amount of fanart due to their memorable character design.
8. Elemental (2023): Thanks to her design and the general popularity of fire-based characters, Ember instantly gained a flood of fanart the moment viewers first saw her face.
9. Splatoon 3: While Harmony has always been the most popular (non-idol) Splatband character among fan artists, her lack of an in-game model meant that her popularity was still limited to the most hardcore fans. However, she instantly received a large new bevy of fan art when she was shown off in the Direct, owing to her Moe design and quirky nature.
10. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
    • Iono received lots of fanart upon her introduction, owing to her cute design and bubbly personality.
    • Professors Sada and Turo instantly received fanart after their reveal due to their very attractive designs.
    • Mela of Team Star became popular soon after her reveal and received a lot of art because of her cute but cool and threatening design.
    • Grusha received a flood of fanart after his reveal in a trailer, including some slightly less-than-safe-for-work designs from artists who either mistakenly thought that he was female or were more than happy that he was indeed male.
11. Resident Evil Village: Early promotional material featured Lady Dimistrecu, one of the game's main villains. Fans of the series and people unconnected to the series were enamored by her endowment and amazonian height, leading to art quickly appearing. It didn't hurt that a lot of Village advertisement to the lead up was based around her—ironically, Lady Dimitrescu is the first boss the player encounters and ends up out of the story relatively quickly.
12. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope: As soon as Midnite was shown at the end of the "Gameplay Presentation" trailer fanartists wasted no time pumping out various kinds of art for her within hours.
13. Encanto: Mirabel started getting fanart when the movie was first announced due to her ordinary character design as well as Luisa for her muscular design, something that hadn't been seen much in Disney females.
14. Spooky Month: The moment Carmen appeared in "Tender Treats", an influx of fan art was sent her way, owing to her curvaceous figure and snooty personality. The revelation of her being Roy's mom has also caused fans to embrace her as the series' new MILF figure after Lila, helped by them both being voiced by Elsie Lovelock.
15. The Lovers (2023): Sara and Sirena became this for the short's fandom, instantly generating a multitude of fanart on Twitter thanks to their design and brief dynamic as glimpsed in the official trailer.
16. Infinity Train: The series had an active subreddit and fanart from the initial 5-minute pilot, released over a year before the show was officially released. There were even fan complaints when the art style changed between the pilot and the show — some people preferred "pointy-chin Tulip".

1. Sonic Prime:
   • As soon as Rouge’s new outfit for this series was revealed, fans immediately took part in crafting fanart of it, especially since it was similar to one of Juri’s outfits in Street Fighter V.
   • The same thing happened after the first and second trailers came out, in which ALL the main characters have new outfits for each new world.
   • The New Yolk Metal Sonic design introduced in the Season 2 trailer was quick to gain fanart from many people, including having him interact with other robotic Sonic doppelgangers.
2. My Adventures with Superman:
   • Reactions to this version's Lois Lane, whose design is a Tomboyness Upgrade over the norm, have been positive enough for artists to make fan art over this fact.
   • Likewise, this version of Clark, who's been perceived as a well dressed, lovable klutz, has also received his fair share of fanart love. Unsurprisingly, with the aforementioned perception his Lois, it's common to pair these two together.
3. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes:
   • Annette's new design proved to be a massive hit when she was revealed in the Blue Lions trailer, getting more fanart than any other character within hours of her appearance.
   • Likewise, Marianne's new design with her hair down was immediately popular with fans and generated several pieces of fanart of her.
4. Animaniacs (2020): The trailer featured Animesque versions of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot that got a lot of fanart made out of it even before the context behind said scene, which was an Imagine Spot the Warners had when trying to get rid of a swarm of rabbits, was revealed.
5. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom:
   • Zelda's short haircut shown in the trailers was an immediate hit with fans, which quickly led to plenty of fanart. These fan artworks often give Zelda a weapon at hand to reflect her new status as a free-roaming adventurer, as well as playing on the hopes that she'll be playable.
   • The final trailer on April 13, 2023, introduced the then unnamed Queen Sonia and King Rauru. Despite only briefly appearing in the trailer with no context for who or what they are, they got lots of fanart with various speculations on their exact roles, similar to the then unnamed Rivet in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
   • Following the final reveal trailer and new character art, fan art of "Rehydrated Ganondorf" immediately became popular. Notably, this had already been an art trend four years prior when the first trailer was released, albeit only based on semi-joking speculation.
   • Even though the changes from his Breath of the Wild appearance were relatively minor, Tulin's redesign revealed in the final trailer and official artwork◊ got a lot of appreciation and new fan art due to the Badass Adorable look.
6. The Super Mario Bros. Movie:
   • Fanart of the film's versions of the characters, particularly the penguins, was quick to follow the Nintendo Direct that had the reveal trailer in it.
   • Despite being a pre-existing outfit she's worn in the Mario Kart games, Peach's biker outfit saw a resurgence in fanart after the second trailer, often with the addition of the halberd she is seen picking up.
   • The woman seen in the Super Mario Bros. Plumbing commercial spawned a sizable amount of fanart. It helps that many were amazed by how she looks in line with the Mario series' designs, which is far different from how random humans look in previous Illumination movies.
   • Fire Donkey Kong from the final trailer took off in the fanart community since it's the first time we've ever seen DK use powerups.
7. Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Elephant Mario, the new power-up shown in the June 2023 reveal trailer for the game, instantly became a widespread subject of fanart, especially among furry artists, thanks to it being an anthropomorphic elephant rather than a costume like previous animal-themed power-ups.
8. Pokémon Unite: Lucario has always been a fan favorite Pokémon, especially in the furry community, so people were really quick to jump on the bandwagon when the Ruins Style Holowear for Lucario was revealed. It has effectively become a widely-accepted costume for the line as a whole.

1. Pibby: The series' first trailer brought large attention from many people due to its nature as an action horror Massive Multiplayer Crossover involving Warner Bros. properties. Not surprisingly, it led to a huge amount of fan works being made before a premiere date was even announced.
2. Wednesday: As soon as fans saw the first teaser image of Enid Sinclair, they started to draw loads of fan art about her, despite not knowing much about her character beyond her being the opposite of Wednesday. Most of it was shipping her with Wednesday, but there were a lot who just fell in love with her colorful style in a world known mostly for being black and grey.
3. Fire Emblem Engage: Alear's red and blue hair upon their reveal was so striking and controversial that they immediately became the subject of fanart, often pairing them with objects that match their color scheme like toothpaste or Pepsi.
4. Mega Man 9: Splash Woman's reveal really got artists going as, save for Roll, the OG series never had another female robot, let alone a female robot master before.
5. Balan Wonderworld: Being a Yuji Naka property, the game attracted a great deal of fanart before its March 2021 release. Since the plot a characters were similar to his Cult Classic NiGHTS into Dreams…, plenty of the art came from NiGHTS fans excited for a potential Creator-Driven Successor.
6. Dragon Ball Fighter Z: Once Android 21's initial design came up, internet artists went wild and fanart of her popped up left and right, though considering the series rarely had female fighters take the spotlight, it was understandable. While eventually it was revealed that was just her de-powered form and her real fighting form skewed closer to a more female Majin Buu, ironically her regular form would be made playable as well years after the game's release.
7. Hades II: Given the popularity of the first game, the game's reveal resulted in fanart of the characters being made almost instantly, with Melinoë and Nemesis being noted by Supergiant themselves as having received a great deal of fanart mere hours after the game was first announced.

1. Moana: Long before the first promotional images from Moana were unveiled, speculative designs of the title character popped up everywhere, taking inspiration from the designs of characters such as Ariel and Pocahontas.
2. Pokémon: Every time a new Pokemon is announced leading up to the game's release, expect a lot of fanart and speculation surrounding them within hours. This is most common with starter trios, which are typically among the first Pokemon announced for a new generation; not only will there be lots of fanart of the starters themselves, but fan designs for their evolutions will emerge before their actual evolutions are revealed.
3. RWBY: Within the first few weeks after the release of the "Red" Trailer in 2012, fans of Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum were quick to draw fanart despite the lack of concrete information about the show's setting and story. The Animesque-style and initial character designs of the main character Ruby Rose as well as the silhouettes of her yet-to-be-revealed teammates were prime speculation fuel for how the rest of Team RWBY would look like while fans awaited the rest of the trailers to be revealed in the coming months.

1. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: Held a Kickstarter campaign to encourage this by adding extra unlocks based on receiving fanart and cosplay photos of the protagonists. Creators of an unfinished project encourage fanart submission by offering rewards.
2. Sonic Shorts: Parodied in an In-Universe short and combined with Rule 34 in which one short had Sega debuting Shade from Sonic Chronicles and where a fan sees it. Bear in mind that we had only seen her in her full armor at this point. This seem more like a joke about Rule 34 than saying anything about this trope.
   FAN: Oh my god. They got a new Sonic character! I Must. Draw. PORN OF IT!
3. Xenoblade Chronicles 3: While the first two games (and X) didn't receive too much fan art upon reveal due to being more niche, 3 received a bunch of fan art upon its reveal in the Direct. In particular, Mio, Eunie, and Taion were very susceptible to fan art. The particular installment is more popular/anticipated than the previous ones.
4. Mighty No. 9: At the time, many people were on board with a Mega Man-like game and did some art of Beck, both liking his design and trying to help promote the game with fanart of him. Likewise when Dynatron was displayed first with it being thought she was going to be the main villain.
5. Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Sonic's first look was... not well received to say the least when the film's first trailer dropped in 2019 and most fan art usually skewed to the negative. But once Paramount took the criticism to heart, delayed the film and came back with a much more improved design, the fanart followed suit, warmly welcoming it and including the movie version with Sonic's other incarnations.
6. Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus: Denizens: In-universe; after the Mirage Pokémon turn good and are official denizens in the Ninjala Car, the Infinet is flooded with fanart of denizens wanting to have their own partners. Who are drawing the fanart and who are the subject of the fanart?