Mediocre Okawara?

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Aegis
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flamingtroll wrote:Except there has yet to be multiple MG iterations (I honestly think Freedom and Strike Freedom is the samething, not to mention various versions of them), various scales HG or just normal grade, MSIA and so on of the Astray Gundams and the 5 GAT-X.
*coughsStrikeGundamcoughcough*

And you kinda opened yourself up when you called SF and Freedom the 'same thing', ya know. But moving on...
Which mean Okawara wins again in doing a good job in doing what Bandai would want- a design that sells. Your reasoning would apply to any suits that look different in any series. They approved things like Babi, Zno and all kinds of fugtacular things. That doesn't mean Sunrise suddenly approve of "original" designs.
And what the heck does having multiple iterations of models have to do with the topic of Okie's creativity? The answer is it has absolutely nothing to do with the debate whatsoever.

You're saying that Sunrise has such huge control over Okie that they practically control his every move down to the very last panel line, which is simply not true. As I said, if that were truly the case, either the rest of the designs followed suit with the GAT-X series, or the original 5 would've looked even more like the current batch of Gundams as opposed to the various Victory/X/Wing/F-91 designs. So based on that, the reason for Okie's designs being the way they are has very much the way Okie's creativity.

Whether those designs sell or not is something else entirely altogether (although the many boxes of SEED D models priced at 500 yen lying around shop floors says quite alot). If Sunrise gives the nod to have those 'fugtacular' designs approve, then that's an issue with Sunrise decision making as opposed to Okie's drawing ability. If Bandai feels there should be many iterations of Freedom and Strike Freedom, then that's also their decision to make.
And IMO, The Okawara gundams followed GAT-X's designs pretty well, due to probably the fact that he also cleaned up the original 5, which allow their styles to blend better together.
He removed panel lines and details, covered up the exposed frames and literally inserted legs and stylings akin to F-91 or Wing onto them. I will give him credit for the fact that the druggy trio Gundams look more unique the way the ZAKU does, but the Okie stylings are still very noticeable compared to the original 5 designs, particularly with the limbs.
Not just that. The perfect example would be the original sketches of the 5 GAT-X that was posed not too long ago and the resulting line art of the actual thing. Their proportions and some details are quite different from what you see in the final product due to the different styles. Just look at the legs and the head proportion for example. The head design is also somewhat modified to have a more conformed "gundam face" style.
Their proportions are different only because that's Okie's drawing style as opposed to someone telling him to, say, draw their feet huge. That, plus the fact that we're merely looking at just one rough draft as opposed to all of them. Again, clean-up is about making the rough drafts presentable for animation purposes so that it would act as a guide to the different animators who have the daunting task of drawing the designs out consistently. In other words, Okie basically took the roughs, followed the notes, and copied it as according to designer's guidelines. Any sort of consistent 'flow' between designs simple means that all the twenty plus animators or so would end up being able to draw out the Gundam exactly the same as each other.
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AU_Gundam MK II
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flamingtroll wrote:As for the comments on Okawara's rehashes designs in Destiny. I am pretty sure he is not the one alone that decides one day to just "homage" his own designs with a blend of blocky MSG styles and the SEED style that came before it. I am pretty sure it's part of the marketing strategy of Bandai as well. My guess is that bandai is trying to get the newer Gundam fans to be interested in or at least used to seeing UC style MSs (which is still the bulk of model kits sales).I don't think they would be a very good example of the "lack of originality". Most of the SEED's ZAFT's non-gundams are still fairly original in style, despite being yet another set of mono-eyes.
That is quite dumb. UC is the Gundam universe appearing the most in games. Several versions of UC gunpla are out. With all that UC produce, there isn't a need for such. Heck, for the most part, that killed Destiny's originality.

But onto Okawara. His CE designs lack uniquity. All seem very generic. Plus, they all share (somewhat) the same proportions. Too much referal to the previous series.

On the note of the initial GAT-X designs, I would have preferred Blitz there WAY more than the Okawara fine-tune. The Okawara one didn't really look nice and didn't give much of a close-range unit feel. Heck, it even had Wildschwein boosters.
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Kurando
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I hate people saying that everything he has designed now is a copy of the f91, Does the strike noir look like the f91? no. Does God Gundam look like f91? no. Does Destiny Gundam look like f91? no it looks original even thought it stole the f91's after images, The design physically looks original. I hate all this stupid Okawara bashing and I still think his designs are awesome.

His designs still look awesome and just because the destiny copied the wings of light and after images dosen't mean you can say that the whole design is unoriginal, Thats an insult to a perfectly cool design.

Strike noir is another example of a very original design. With anchor hooks (hooks with a wire attached to them) on both his hands, both his feet and on his back, railguns and swords built into his wings and dual pistols. HOW could you say thats unoriginal!? people say the whole seed series has unoriginal designs, which is not fair at all.

God gundam... well do I really need to explain? there is no other Gundam like the God gundam
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Kavik Ryx
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Please read the thread before going on a rant. No one is bashing Okie. All that is being said is that he has had very few innovative or unique designs in recent years. And personally, I can see the F91 in the God Gundam and the Destiny. Also, the Wings of Light were Katoki initially.
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Aegis
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You're the second person to twist people's words. No one is saying they look like F-91 down to the last detail. No one here is questioning Okie overall as a designer. Read the posts again and actually understand what they're implying, and THEN reply.

Oh, and by the way, Okie didn't design the Strike, ergo didn't design the Strike Noir, so there wouldn't be any complaints about having that F-91/Gundam X/Wing feel to it. Just so you know.

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Chris
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I think this thread has gone on long enough, and it's just going in circles now because people obviously have vastly differing opinions on the issue.
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