Taking a Leaf From Square-Enix - Anime/Manga Sims Re-Imagined

Cultural note: 'Anime' is the Japanese word for 'animation.' 'Manga' is the word referring to the comic books in which drawing style itself originated. Henceforth, I shall refer to the style as 'manga' style.

When creating manga-style sims, some people attempt to re-create an exact duplicate of the drawing style in the game.

A lot of people find that this creates a rather disturbing appearance, especially in comparison to other sims.

When Square-Enix released Final Fantasy VII, the character art was very typical of Japanese cartoon characters - the large eyes, the wild hair, everything.

Several years later, they released a CGI movie sequel to the game. The style was done much more realistically - and the character's appearances had been re-done. Faces were more realistically proportioned and hairstyles had been tamed down. (Although they still retained a very cartoon-like appearance.)

Observe the changes:

Although the characters' facial proportions were altered, they still retained enough of their original features to be clearly recognizable. Also, note that while the characters do not look entirely Japanese, they have a definite Asian quality in their facial structures, especially in the eyes.

As of late, many Final Fantasy games are done in this more realistic style by default. Here are a few pictures.

With that done, here are why manga-style Sims are just... well, weird.


Here's our anime sim; nothing too strange here, right? Big eyes, small mouth, et cetera... the usual.

Unfortunately, the only way to get these proportions right was to reduce the head. If you pull back away from the Sim and remove her hair from around her face, it becomes quite obvious that her head is too small for the rest of her. In order to fit in with her narrow jawline, the neck has become pinched where it joins the head.

Also, if you put them side-by-side with a more realistically-proportioned Sim, at least one of them is going to look absolutely ridiculous.

Chances are good that your NPCs use Maxis faces, which while aren't always the most attractive (in fact, some are downright ugly), are usually at least a sight more realistic than manga-style faces.

If you really want the whole hand-drawn manga character look, then nothing after this point is going to be relevant to you. But if you're interested in making them look a little more native to the game, press on.

Most of the time, manga artists are cartoonifying Asian features. You may have noticed that the CGI Final Fantasy characters have an overall Asian appearance about them. With that in mind, it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the overall appearance of the Asian facial structure - and it's a little more involved than slanty eyes and round cheeks.

The trick here is to de-manga the characters - to re-imagine and visualize them as real people rather than cartoon characters, yet at the same time keep them recognizable. Most of the time, this isn't too hard, since most manga-style faces are fairly generic and are open to a lot of interperetation.

Here's the same anime-style Sim re-done to look more realistic, along with a picture of the 'realistic' Sim for reference. Here you can see that the Sim in the middle carries the facial features of the first, interpereted into a more realistic style, keeping her from looking out of place alongside the 'realistic' Sim on the right.

Tip: Starting with the Asian facetype, use the slider bars under the Faces tab to create and adjust unique facial features. Use the options under the Modifier tab to re-size these features as necessary.


When you're through, manga-style characters might end up looking a bit more like this...

  • Familiarize yourself with the Asian facial structure. Although manga-style characters may not look overtly Asian to us, the artists probably had Asian faces in mind when they drew them to begin with.
  • Study different styles of manga art. Some of it is drawn more realistically than others and may give you some inspiration. (See also Drawing Anime Humans: An Exercise in Thinking at Elfwood.)
  • The eyes and eyebrows are often the most distinguishing features of manga characters; pay extra attention to them.
  • In the case of 'bishounen,' (pretty-boys), I would recommend that you try not to make their faces indistinguishable from women. Although they may look like females to the untrained eye, there is a definite difference in the way females and pretty-boys are drawn - and it isn't just their chests.