I do enjoy accompanying my wife window shopping. It gives me chances to see more about fashion, especially woman’s outfit. I’ve been to Zara, Mango, Benetton, H&M, Esprit, and some department stores.

It is interesting to me and I am always amazed, even until now, about the richness of women’s fashion. They are more colorful, stylish, and have lots and lots of variations. Even just for a single small accessory.

Woman Shops Man Pays

Let’s take a belt for an example. Woman’s belts are available in hundreds shapes, colors, and styles. You could have three big shelves just for a belt (and three giant warehouses just for shoes 🙂 )  And every season, the style always changes according to the latest trend.

Now, men are also more stylish. The outfits are trendy with more accessories. Modern men are more confident to add more colors into their style. Not just only those boring blue, black, or brown.

But why can’t we have more styles and colors in our game character? Why does the next generation game characters wear only brownish, grey-ish, and green-ish outfit?

Maybe it’s because of the game theme. If our game theme is medieval time, then those dull colors are reasonable and make the game more realistic. But if there is still room for creativity, I think it is OK for the character designer to experiment a little bit.

More to see …

Have a look at this Final Fantasy XII character. Well, I am not a fashion expert but I have good eye on fashion 😉

The outfits are still medieval but have some modern touches, especially the upper part. The upper part is quite short and minimum, maybe to make the character looks slim and light. The designer also puts blue accessories on the upper chest and belly to fill the empty space between the pieces.

Well, if you see the other three characters, you will get what I mean. The character designer puts more imagination and fashion for the character appearances (including hair style). It is a common thing that in Japanese games, the characters wear extravaganza and even sometimes, very strange outfits.

If you see this Japanese street fashion (http://www.style-arena.jp/index_e.htm) then you’ll know where these influences come from.