Design in men's fashion is often very utility-based, while for women it's more often about look over utility, or style over utility. How do you balance that, since we're often making outfits that work for both men and women?
TL;DRJeremiah Lee keeps most clothing concepts gender neutral and follows each brief's intent, whether utilitarian or otherwise, changing cuts only when design specifically calls for a gender-tailored look.
I do understand where that question is coming from. So the thing is, I try to keep the clothing gender neutral, right? There are some cases when we make them specifically cater to a specific gender sometimes, but I would say about 80 to 90% of the time I try to keep them gender neutral. So I'm not accentuating this character's figure too much. It's kind of very broad. I wouldn't put cuts right here, and then I wouldn't put an ab thing right here. I wouldn't do that because obviously this wouldn't look good on a female, right? And so I keep that in mind, and I've done it for so long at this company and for Star Citizen, so it's kind of a natural habit for me. But I try to keep them as gender neutral as possible. Sometimes design will call out that it has to be specifically tailored towards women. Then that's when I might change the cuts of things, but the overall look, the overall feel of the character, I will do that based off of what that character is. So if that character is a very attractive individual at a bar, maybe it's like a James Bond type of villain that's trying to seduce a player or something, then there's a look that I would research, right? And so seduction would be one. So I would drive that drawing or that concept in that certain direction. But regardless of gender, if the direction of that concept is supposed to be utilitarian, I'll make it look utilitarian, right? Gender doesn't really play a factor in concept unless it's been specifically called out. For instance, Twitch Pacheco looks very utilitarian, combat-focused. She wasn't sexualized in any sort of way. She's not wearing a bar dress type of thing. That character happens to be female and she's wearing tactical gear. It really depends on the brief, and then the concept artist will follow that brief.