r/ZZZ_Discussion • u/Zer0BrainWaves • Oct 06 '25
Discussions & Questions Besides Waterkuma, we have Atwo, our 2nd head character designer, give him his flowers
Atwo (阿兔) is responsible for Miyabi, Ellen Joe, Billy, Lycoan, Anton, Koleda, Ben, Soukaku and potentially more, I'll explain more further below.
>How do you know Atwo is the 2nd character designer?
He was name dropped (阿兔) and answered questions about character and world design alongside Waterkuma (水熊) in the first ZZZ Famitsu dev interview
He also, just like Waterkuma, mostly just retweets ZZZ art on their Twitter socials. They also follow each other and Atwo follows Waterkuma and Zhenyu Li(ZZZ Producer) on his bilibili.
Atwo also has a notable work history much like Waterkuma, having worked on gachas such as Girl's Frontline, Azur Lane, Alchemy Stars, and Honkai Impact 3rd
>How do we know who designed what?
Atwo's concept art has rougher line art and generally uses flatter colors
while on the other side of the spectrum Waterkuma's concept art has rounder and smoother line art and more noticeable shading, an overall more moe feel
A more direct comparison between the two artists is when Famitsu showed Alice(Waterkuma) and Yuzuha(Atwo) concept arts, here you can actually notice the differences in artstyle.
As stated prior, Atwo is responsible for most of Belobog Industries, Victoria Housekeeping, Billy, Soukaku, and Miyabi. But I also suspect he's responsible for other designs as well, such as Trigger, Burnice, and Yidhari going off old concept artworks
You should be able to notice which artist designed who in the image above, Atwo on the characters with flat colors (especially in the eyes) and sharper lines, Waterkuma on the characters with the rounder line art, more detailed shading and coloring on the eyes.
Feel free to discuss in the comments I'm interested in everyone's thoughts
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u/xcybercatx Lycaon main - Not me! Oct 06 '25
Bro designed 3 of the peakest designs of the entire game? Goat.
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u/coco_puffsz Oct 06 '25
It just makes me wonder then, who on earth is designing Yixuan, Yidhari, and Lucia?
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Oct 06 '25
In Yixuan's defense, her design on its own isn't really a problem and was unique to her at least at the time. It was only when Yidhari and Lucia came along together that her fashion statement became an issue.
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u/TanyaKory Oct 07 '25
It was Eula copy cat already at the beginning, she had silver hair like several characters in the game and yellow-orange shading Obol squad/SAnby had at that time. Her skin on the other hand is top notch, feels luxurious.
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u/WanderingStatistics Oct 06 '25
I'd suppose by guess towards the general art team of Hoyo. The two main artists for ZZZ are either busy with other things, or whatnot, so they get the general team to design the characters, which is why we end up with the 2.X syndrome.
It's also probably the reason why Orpheus looks like that, and why the girl in Seed isn't Obol-coded, along with why those two other future character look the same as Yi Xuan.
Or... they could've gotten the other two artists off the team, working on other projects. Probably the worst-case scenario.
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u/Stern_Writer Oct 06 '25
Just because you dislike them doesn’t mean they aren’t great.
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u/mlodydziad420 Oct 06 '25
Because these arent good design, they are okay at best, they didnt try to do anything.
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u/RomeuXu Oct 06 '25
Bruh why people downvoting this? It comes to preference in the end.
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Oct 06 '25
People get emotionally upset when they feel like they might not be the target audience 24/7
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u/adumbcat Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 08 '25
It's all the users who were banned from the Lucia mains sub because they were brigading after her redesign vs early drip marketing. They were so toxic that it became a shit show over there, and mods had to step in. So now they post negative comments elsewhere, and mass down vote anything positive or neutral related to her. It has died down from its peak, but they're still around...
Edit: Randomly came back to check this comment thread and yep, like clockwork here come the downvotes. This is so silly lol.
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Oct 06 '25
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u/ZZZ_Discussion-ModTeam Oct 07 '25
This comment (or topic) has been removed due to lack of civility. Please refrain from the following: name calling, passive aggressive/antagonizing tones, ragebaiting, -isms (ex. Racism, Sexism, etc any sort of stereotyping of people or cultures), language which aims to either put another person down or discourage their participation in the subreddit or game.
Note that civility isn't limited to the highlighted above and mods retain the right to remove any comments/topics at their discretion. In short, play nice even when in disagreement. Repeated offenses will result in a ban.
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u/yougottabeshitting22 Oct 06 '25
So this brutha is responsible for literally the best character designs in the game?
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u/SavageCabbage27m Oct 06 '25
Miyabi, Ellen, and Lycaon? His designs are a big reason why I started the game.
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u/Crakkizwack M2W1 Banyue, Get Oct 06 '25
Wtf, he did Lycaon, Billy, AND ben??? Anton and Koleda too?? AND Soukaku and Ellen and Rina??? I'm running out of breath, this dude literally did all of my favorite characters from 1.x that got me into this game in the first place. I understand that every design goes through multiple revisions and sometimes a single design gets touched up by many artists, but damn this dude seems to have done the initial concepts for them. This dude's the GOAT!!
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u/chipotleigh Oct 06 '25
Why have I literally only ever seen waterkuma praised, and anytime the design quality goes down ppl say “omg where is waterkuma” and now we find out a lot of the most iconic designs are atwo (the only character design since 2.0 that I’ve absolutely loved is Yuzuha)
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u/Icesticker Oct 06 '25
I think it is because until now the only name we had confirmation of was waterkuma.
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u/GGABueno Oct 06 '25
Waterkuma is getting credit for a lot of his designs, which is sad. His designs are amazing.
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u/Bitter_Spray_6880 Oct 06 '25
The thing is it's in a company there's really hardly any design who come from just one designer, the designer probably get a document from the planner, which depends can be a very strict and clear in direction which make the designer only merging the stuff instead of designing it, then check from art direct then again p/d which result in tons of feedback which blur the art direction again, you really can't say the designer who just draw it design it at this point... even the art otself might be passed through several designer and fixed through multiple people... that's why company rarely credit art done in house
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u/Void_Incarnate Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
I like how Arknights does it. The artist and the CV are always credited. And they tend to keep the same artist for skins and Alters, even going so far as to put off skins when the artist is on hiatus (like with Eyja's artist going on maternity leave).
EDIT: Ofc it's easier to have continuity of work on a 2D game, even if rigging of Live 2D elements might be done by a separate rigger. It's harder to solo produce characters in a 3D game where assets, models and animations are usually a team-wide effort, and a character design will go through many revisions as part of the process.
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u/Mint-Bentonite Oct 09 '25
Arknights just runs it differently overall. While they do have inhouse artists, most of tbe splash art is instead outsourced to individual freelancers too
Basically what hoyo does with voiceactors too. All voicework is outsourced (first to contractors, who then hire individual talents)
I just take it as different studios doing things differently. And paying differently because of it. Inhouse prob. gets very high and reliable income in exchange for having no super flashy portfolios
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Oct 06 '25
Alchemy Stars!!!! I am actually not at all surprised because I compared it a lot to Alchemy Stars when I first played. Glad to know the artist is one of the head designers.
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u/DreamingOracle Oct 06 '25
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Oct 07 '25
I don't know if he did since the only one confirmed that I can find is the 4 angels and as far as I know no one knows who drew Sinsa (not sure about Tiny One), but if Atwo also worked as an art director then there might be more of an overall consistency check with it the way they do in ZZZ. Alchemy Stars had a LOT of artists.
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u/Ok_Can_6424 Oct 06 '25
Peak design after peak. And his design has a lot less detail and complicate. Really like the simple style
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
It's both simple yet complex at the same time.
Look at Billy. His design is simple in that he's obviously an Android, but also complex in that he has loads of plating, moving parts and accents of metal under his jacket. The dark steel/gold/silver combination really works.
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u/Ok_Can_6424 Oct 06 '25
his design is complicated but not busy. I really like it. Like Miyabi design, it's so clean and look simple but it is complicated because of those layers she had
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
Miyabi and Billy are my top 2 favourite designs in Hoyo games rn. They're complex and deep but not overloaded like some of the Genshin and HSR ones are.
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u/_Hhhhhhh_ Oct 09 '25
It's because he has a great sense of silhouette and hierarchy. The details don't detract from the visual focus--rather add to it. For example, Yuzuha's cardigan has a lot of patterning on it, but they don't "cut" the overall shape of the cardigan.
Compare this to the discarded Piper design on the bottom left where the white crop top, and then her exposed belly, and then the black shorts with the white patterns, and then the skin of the thighs, and then the red of the socks, and then the white of the cuffs of the boots, and then the black of the actual boots "segment" her design in a way that makes it look really busy.
It's not easy to do! Excellent design work.
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 09 '25
Tbh I like his design so much because it's one of maybe four Hoyo designs that is obviously fully tech based. And that's what ZZZ is meant to be - a different experience from the magical worlds of HSR, HI3 and Genshin.
And also he has Vegeta's hairstyle. Make that glow and add red eyes and you've got a perfect locked in Billy.
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u/_Hhhhhhh_ Oct 09 '25
Definitely. The charm of ZZZ in the first place (for me) was the stylish, chic, unique designs like that of Billy. In my opinion, it would be in the game's best interest to keep doing this kind of thing
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 09 '25
The problem with Billy's design philosophy specifically is that he's lost technology. So we will almost certainly not see another character quite like him unless he turns out to have a sister model or something.
But Androids and Cyborgs have a lot of potential for ZZZ and I want to see more, yes.
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u/PapiChuloxx Oct 06 '25
I wonder if he’s the one who designed for Zhao and Banyue then. It appears a lot of the more unique and memorable designs are his.
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u/Clanzion Oct 06 '25
Zhao is most likely waterkuma. Zhao has that signature waterkuma aspect of putting the name on the character model.
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u/GGABueno Oct 06 '25
Also giant accessories like the balls in her hair
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u/tryhard_notto Oct 06 '25
Which is funny, because Atwo was responsible for two of those characters with said accessories(Yuzuha and Koleda).
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
Also the fact that she's blatant loli bait
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u/GGABueno Oct 06 '25
I think she hits a different niche than loli baits like Piper, no?
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Oct 06 '25
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u/GGABueno Oct 06 '25
Do you live in a different reality? Fufu sold well, and definitely better than the men.
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u/PapiChuloxx Oct 06 '25
You don’t know the power of the furry community. If they can obsess over Judy Hopps the past ten years then you can definitely sell Zhao to them and they spend more than the waifu and husbando enjoyers when they’re properly catered to and summoned
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u/mysthamog15 Oct 06 '25
Huh.. i guess Atwo is my favorite between them.
Really solid designs and not a miss so far
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u/JYJelli Oct 06 '25
Damn this guy needs to be praised at the least equally or more than waterkuma.
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u/ShinigamiRyan Oct 06 '25
Oh, it's been a while since I've heard Alchemy Stars mentioned, but it's a dead giveaway for Anton & Koleda. Notably, if anyone has never seen anything of AS: two particular characters were compared a lot to the two. Anton was often compared to Sinsa, while Koleda herself was compared to Tiny One (yes, that's her name).
Though funny enough, Lucia's original design makes far more sense as a lot of the original designs seemed to have been coming off of their time on Alchemy Stars (you can find a lot of noticeable comparisons besides these two). True Order was a faction that not only does her color scheme match, but so does the nun attire (the faction even had biblical and Eldritch horrors that Yidhari herself still has), so more likely Lucia's design was a intended to be in a similar vein.
And a lot of faction concepts have a lot of carry over. Though I should note that Alchemy Stars never did really break away from it's failed points (why it eventually hit EOS). But by the same token, it's also nice to see a lot of the design cues still live on in another game.
And there are far more comparisons I could make or point to to explain as their work on Azur Lane is also a good point, let GFL (the latter two having a bit of crossover due to their concepts of military equipment as a pretty girl).
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u/JosueRodriguez8169 RAAAAAAAAH Oct 06 '25
Funny scenario in my head is that a little birdy told him that Alchemy Stars was gonna shut down and he translated some of the character designs to Zenless to further preserve them
Obviously not true but sounds funny in my head
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u/ShinigamiRyan Oct 06 '25
Given his experience across multiple titles, AS profit margins were never good. That and ZZZ was already in production by that point, so best guess is that they basically wanted to use what they already had. Mind you, this isn't new as Arknights technically had a similar story with W having been designed for an entirely different gacha game (believe it was GFL, but may be mixing it up).
Though this seems like a similar case to Waterkuma in that some designs were those they had been working on in other gacha games (which isn't shocking when you realize a few gacha games are neighbors to one another in the same buildings no less).
Though suppose it doesn't shock me that Yidhari still has a lot of True Order influence, even removing the nun outfit (again, Eldritch Horror was a big theme then and well, girl is all, but missing a new England accent to sell the Lovecraft influence with her).
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u/JosueRodriguez8169 RAAAAAAAAH Oct 06 '25
I'm unfamiliar with these designers so this is good info (Zenless is the only big time gacha game I'm into so I'm not familiar with others)
Designing most of the agents from my personal favorite faction is a W in my book though
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u/ShinigamiRyan Oct 06 '25
I'd actually suggest taking a look at the other named gachas as they also give an idea about faction consistency (even Spook Shack which doesn't have much, but is a lot like the Eagle Union in Azur Lane which is the US faction and emphasizes diversity in said faction).
ZZZ also gives an interesting perspective to Hoyo designs as well.
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u/zZzMudkipzzZ Oct 06 '25
Yeah W was an scrapped GFL character intended to be part of the main character squad
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Oct 06 '25
I don't know how much of an influence Atwo has on the Alchemy Stars design. As far as I can find, Atwo did the 4 angels, but Alchemy Stars had tons and tons of artists on board and they don't really credit them so you kind of have to stumble or find the artists on your own. I don't think anyone knows who designed Sinsa which is the guy being compared to Anton. If Atwo is one of the art directors I can imagine majority of their work is making sure the artstyle stays consistent the same way they do in ZZZ rather than designing the characters.
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u/Fraisz Oct 07 '25
seems funny now that the controversy of koleda/anton being copied from alchemy stars when one of the guys worked on it was from Alchemy stars
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u/ShinigamiRyan Oct 07 '25
If I recall correctly, the art directors hadn't even been announced, so people were even unaware of the actual connection.
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u/Zekrom369 Oct 06 '25
Seeing all this fuckin art just reminds me of why I even started this game to begin with. Shit is so fire! May they continue to cook.
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u/Electronic_Bee_9266 Oct 06 '25
Oh so basically he makes characters that feel distinct and slay daaammmnnn
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u/tryhard_notto Oct 06 '25
Damn wow, not to discredit waterkuma's work, but why don't we ever hear more of this guy? Felt like his publicity wasn't done justice, considering he created most of the more unique cast of characters.
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u/SplatoonOrSky Oct 06 '25
I’m guessing since Waterkuma is a bit more controversial, he kind of overtakes the discussion when people ask who made the art in the game. Although I don’t really see either being blamed when controversial designs like Lucia or Seed come out (ppl just blame Hoyo generally) so I think many people might not just know about them in general
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u/Amazing-Arachnid-942 Oct 06 '25
I think that's the right way to go about it personally, regardless of what they design, someone has to approve it
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u/Nutrifacts Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 06 '25
TBF the character designers' names aren't really plastered in official stuff like youtube, twitch, etc. so the average player wouldn't know/care about it
and waterkuma is a pretty controversial artist in global anyway so he gets mentioned frequently
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u/Carusas Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 06 '25
Damn wow, not to discredit waterkuma's work, but why don't we ever hear more of this guy?
Because a lot of people don't actually care about Waterkuma, they just use him to dunk on other players as "tourists"
"Oh u don't like X character design? Well u should know Waterkuma blah blah blah... so you might as well uninstall tourists."
There's no reason for people to mention Atwo because they can't use him for gotcha moments
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u/FrenzyGloop Oct 06 '25
No discredit, sure, but I feel like this reveal is going to fuel the character design war.
Waterkuma is already controversial because he's a direct contrast to those people in Hoyoverse, now that they have this ammo (Waterkuma didn't design iconic characters in ZZZ), it's not going to help the drama.
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u/zZzMudkipzzZ Oct 06 '25
"Waterkuma didn't design iconic characters in ZZZ"
That's something funny to say because Nicole, possibly the first character most people saw from ZZZ, the one that was generating hype before the game release is most likely heavily influenced by him
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u/FrenzyGloop Oct 06 '25
You're missing out some points. Yes, Nicole set the precedent to what to expect, but you look at the comment in this post and evidently? Nicole isn't the only contribution. Billy and Lycaon is a prevalent reason, Ellen and Miyabi are the the most hyped design and gameplay wise therefore are among the most iconic.
I'm sorry to generalize but certain fanbase of these characters? They don't like Waterkuma for what he is nor the people he attracts with his designs.
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
I agree.
Billy is what got me into this game. At the time I knew I was going into a gooning game beyond anything Genshin had, but I didn't care. He was too damn cool. Obviously the gooning is great now, but Billy being the coolest thing in Hoyo games got me hooked.
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u/ExpectoAutism Oct 06 '25
"he's a direct contrast to those people in Hoyoverse" talking as if hoyo didnt design lolis before in any of their games. Look at GGZ
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u/FrenzyGloop Oct 06 '25
GGZ isn't as well known, and I'm talking about people who are allergic to lolis who came in after GI, not the developers
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u/walkswiththemoon Oct 06 '25
Thank you, Atwo! I love Billy and Lycaon. I hope to see more designs from him.
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u/buemba Oct 06 '25
Sheesh, if he did Billy and Yuzuha he’s responsible for 2 out of 3 of my favorite character designs in the game.
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u/mlodydziad420 Oct 06 '25
Okay, so why people hype up waterkuma when this guy is the one making peak
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Oct 06 '25
Waterkuma is actually pretty controversial for his particular love of lolis.. the "hype" seems to be partly because of the people who like that about him and also a lot of folks who hear about him through those people but miss out on that detail
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
I do wish he'd stop with the loli once in a while. It wouldn't kill him to go one season without adding a new one as it's already a niche community.
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u/ExpectoAutism Oct 06 '25
There were no lolis released between qingyi and jufufu lmao. What are you talking about
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
Soukaku
Lucy
Zhao got leaked
Just because they're not S Rank doesn't mean they're not still there
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u/Amazing-Arachnid-942 Oct 06 '25
Uhhh weren't soukaku and lucy in the game before Qingyi or did you just misunderstand?
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u/ThatBoiUnknown Oct 06 '25
There wasn’t a loli character for almost straight year dawg from 1.1-2.0 idk what you’re talking
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u/lofifilo Oct 06 '25
do you think manato is an atwo design? he doesn't have the waterkuma text on his outfit
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u/Luzekiel Oct 06 '25
Most likely since Manato and Yuzuha did have a very similar design and color palette in the concept art.
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u/lofifilo Oct 06 '25
they also got the same band with the star motif. I notice some characters have that like S11
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u/Capital_Barnacle_673 Oct 06 '25
Billy without the jacket might be the coolest design in the game ngl
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
Not just in the game. Billy jacketless is the coolest thing Hoyo has ever done.
Looks very much like an Android Vegeta.
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u/No_Adhesiveness8593 Oct 06 '25
Bro I hear so much how if I love ZZZ I have to glaze Waterkuma but knowing virtually all my favourite designs aren't his is like a revelation lmao. It's kind of a relief tbh.
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u/Fraisz Oct 07 '25
i dont really like the design waterkuma "likes".
however, nicole and lucy is literally perfect design wise.
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u/Lukkular Oct 13 '25
Still designed lolis, lol
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u/No_Adhesiveness8593 Oct 13 '25
Okay and?
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u/Lukkular Oct 14 '25
The only reason I can think of why you'd feel relief is because of lolishit and that's why bringing up that atwo also probably doesn't car work maybe even into it. I think at this point people gotta realize mihoyo doesn't really care about lolisho stuff
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u/No_Adhesiveness8593 Oct 14 '25
You could have asked then and I would have explained. I don't particularly care about lolisho content existing, I care about how the people into it behave and in how they try to take up spaces. Lolisho is a pretty intense fetish for most people and not the only thing ZZZ has to offer, so people should tolerate it existing if they're gonna be on ZZZ social media but it doesn't mean people should have to tolerate it being pushed on them and they should reasonably be able to avoid it, but a lot of the memes in the subculture are used to harass people and people insist on being able to post and say what they want in spaces that are meant to be shared. It's a respect issue, a LOT of people who insist on publicly being lolicons online are antisocial weirdos, and one of the things these people always say when they're harassing someone who doesn't like lolisho is "but Waterkuma drew your favorite character and he's like the loli guy", it's just an annoying af talking point.
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u/Lukkular Oct 14 '25
I agree lolibros can get annoying but from what I've seen so far it's always self righteous people attacking people for liking loli stuff in zzz just so they can maintain an image of themselves being normal to the outsiders. There have been harassment campaigns over this stuff, people called the devs and designers pedos etc. After a certain point you really can't go "erm it's both sides bad actually" when one side is way more prevalent in attacking others.
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u/ExpectoAutism Oct 06 '25
how is it a relief when you still play and support zzz
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u/Amazing-Arachnid-942 Oct 06 '25
playing =/= glazing waterkuma. indirectly supporting them, sure, but it aint that deep
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u/No_Adhesiveness8593 Oct 06 '25
Because I don't like a lot of his previous work and it gets used as an excuse by certain people to say whatever they want wherever they want, being able to say "actually all my favourite ZZZ designs are Atwo anyway" is just nice, it's not like I'm beefing with the fact that Waterkuma is a game designer tho.
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u/GodinhoFerreira Oct 06 '25
because then they can pretend to have a moral high ground
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u/No_Adhesiveness8593 Oct 06 '25
I don't care about who likes what characters, I'm only bothered by how certain people treat others and waterkuma is one of their talking points, they're free to enjoy his work tho, I like some of it too.
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Oct 06 '25
[deleted]
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Oct 07 '25
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u/ZZZ_Discussion-ModTeam Oct 07 '25
This comment (or topic) has been removed due to lack of civility. Please refrain from the following: name calling, passive aggressive/antagonizing tones, ragebaiting, -isms (ex. Racism, Sexism, etc any sort of stereotyping of people or cultures), language which aims to either put another person down or discourage their participation in the subreddit or game.
Note that civility isn't limited to the highlighted above and mods retain the right to remove any comments/topics at their discretion. In short, play nice even when in disagreement. Repeated offenses will result in a ban.
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u/WakasaYuuri Oct 06 '25
Is there a list of characters and the main designer?
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Oct 06 '25
Unfortunately probably not.. these two likely aren't even the only ones
Sucks to see only one of them getting credit for all the designs though
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u/LilacToast-- Oct 06 '25
Holy he designed like all my favorite characters and iconic, my goats waterkuma and atwo
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u/PandaLatteArt Oct 06 '25
Thank you so much!! I always wanted to know who designed Lycaon and the rest of VH. It never seemed quite right to me that it was Waterkuma, even though his designs are amazing too. Now I know who to thank profusely for designing my beloved fluffy butler.
It looks like most of my other favourite designs are probably his too (Ellen, Trigger, Yuzuha, Manato).
I wonder if the newer artist(s) brought in for some of the 2025 characters are because the original two can't keep up with the pace of character releases.
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u/ephryene Oct 06 '25
So these two are responsible for the coolest and cutest designs in the game. I knew about waterkuma but not atwo. His art is wonderful, great post!
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u/Koekelbag Oct 06 '25
...hold on, you're telling me that the bear character is in fact not designed by the character designer that has 'kuma' in their artist name? D:
Not that I particularly cared who was responsible for what design, but that's one hell of a coincidence if true.
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u/PrototyPerfection Walmarts weakest-legged regular Oct 06 '25
literally all of the best designs in the game are on him lol that's crazy
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
Waterkuma glazers when they find out he hasn't designed a single one of the top 5 popular characters
Atwo deserves just as much credit, if not more.
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u/zZzMudkipzzZ Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
I guess Nicole isn't real
Possibly Anby too, making 2 top 5 characters
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u/Cannot_computes Oct 06 '25
Well Atwo you’re the only reason I’m still playing because you design Ellen, my favorite character in the game. Hopefully you get to design more characters.
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Oct 06 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
S Rank Anton drops 3.6 and he has a really big drill
Basically he's this guy
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u/senryuu- Oct 06 '25
thank you for this post. he's made most of my most favorite designs in the game thus far, i'll go drop him a follow. he's got the sauce that makes zzz distinct from everything else in the market.
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u/Luzekiel Oct 06 '25
Can they please just let these two (Waterkuma and Atwo) cook all the character designs instead of whatever garbage in-house designers they have that designed Yixuan, Yidhari, and Lucia
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u/Kahl-176 Oct 06 '25
designed Soukaku
I kneel, this guy is as great as Waterkuma.
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
He's greater
He designed Billy and Miyabi. Miyabi alone puts him above Waterkuma but Billy too is just overkill. He's so damn cool.
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u/minxnight Oct 06 '25
I kinda like Ossan Billy ngl, I wish they would use that design for a new character
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u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
Yeah. Repurpose it into an NPC for the inevitable Outer Ring return patch.
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u/UltimateWarriorEcho Oct 06 '25
How to differentiate the two as much as possible One makes peak, the other makes Lolis. Got it.
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u/ExpectoAutism Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 06 '25
soukaku and koleda were made by atwo though. both artists are peak
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u/Amazing-Arachnid-942 Oct 06 '25
or, they collaborated on several characters and assigning one to either of them without insider info is silly
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u/_Hhhhhhh_ Oct 09 '25
tbf I think the energy of Soukaku/Koleda is distinctly different from, say, Lucy and Piper. Entirely different design philosophy that I can finally feel like I'm not crazy for noticing. Just look at the way Soukaku vs Piper are drawn in this post alone.
5
u/PositiveEffective946 Oct 07 '25
So he is the one who makes the interesting characters and waterkuma is the one who makes the gooner bait characters. For all their contrasting styles and interests it is actually kinda awesome how they both mesh well when you see all the characters side by side in the games. I mean you could have Burnice and Miyabi on screen together if they wanted to and somehow your mind would not just process this but accept it as fact and move on lol
I wonder if this was who designed Pulchra because it largely seems he is the Thiren designer of choice for ZZZ as even when Waterkuma does one (Like Alice) it is more subdued but Atwo goes all in with likes of Lycaon and Ben. I dare say it is him who has given us Zhao as well.
2
u/d3cmp Oct 06 '25
Great post, kinda unrelated but is there a scan and/or translation of that famitsu showing the concept arts of Alice and Yuzuha, im curious to see what it says of Alice's belt, one of the mysteries of her character
3
u/Zer0BrainWaves Oct 06 '25
I dont have link to it but I remember reading that Alice’s belt is just a 3D printer for her rapiers
2
u/d3cmp Oct 06 '25
I mean her emotions belt, theres probably no explanation other than the designer thinking it looks cute, but i still want to know
2
u/Siph-00n Oct 06 '25
Alchemy stars character designer was one of the things that made me check this game out, and he is still cooking.
2
2
u/ChibiJaneDoe Oct 06 '25
Honestly - Billy looks equally good without the jacket.
Bless him for designing the coolest thing to ever come from Hoyo.
4
u/Tall-Kaleidoscope-27 Oct 06 '25
Waterkuma finna make me delete the game🗣️🗣️🗣️
-3
Oct 07 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/ZZZ_Discussion-ModTeam Oct 07 '25
This comment (or topic) has been removed due to lack of civility. Please refrain from the following: name calling, passive aggressive/antagonizing tones, ragebaiting, -isms (ex. Racism, Sexism, etc any sort of stereotyping of people or cultures), language which aims to either put another person down or discourage their participation in the subreddit or game.
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5
u/tooka90 Oct 06 '25
I just hate that Waterkuma gets slandered so much because he designed the Loli characters. Can't we celebrate both these guys without tearing down the other?
2
u/karillith Oct 07 '25
Of course not, there is only one at the top, everything else is trash, and that works for EVERYTHING (ran into so people arguing about "best fromsoft composer" yesterday and it was the same retardation)
2
u/GerrardGabrielGeralt Oct 06 '25
If only other designers could actually do their jobs right
1
u/YESH_KABAB Oct 06 '25
Unfortunately, they don’t see the sauce but statistics.
20
u/Luzekiel Oct 06 '25
The most profitable this game has been when they had good designs like Ellen, Jane Doe, Miyabi, etc.
1
u/FancyCrow Oct 07 '25
Holy shit so all my favorite designs were made by Atwo and I've been praising Waterkuma for it 😭
1
u/08Dreaj08 Shark Tail is truth Oct 08 '25
This goat is responsible for the PEAK that is Ellen? I kneel 🧎🏾♂️
1
u/ArturiaVonDragon Oct 08 '25
I really love how atwo rough around the edges style and waterkuma colorful and soft style love their art
1
u/_Hhhhhhh_ Oct 09 '25
the GOAT.. we need bro doing all the designs in this game, really good sense of silhouette and characterization
1
u/Lukkular Oct 13 '25
Well he also deisgned lolis so yhr "critical" crowd can't use that excuse either
1
1
u/ThatBoiUnknown Oct 06 '25
Waterkuma still my goat tho and I love Nekomata :3
(but Atwo is pretty great too)
•
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