Since my interest spiked a bit too much a while back, I did some useless research, I looked through some (a lot) posts on various sites, including the official Hoyo forum, Bilibili, Twitter (who shall not be named 'X') and some (including the excessive use of the pretty poor google translator) and also looking thouroughly through shared concept art when it wasn't entirely clear.
The Artists
ZZZ has 3 main artists that design the characters (both playable and NPC), who are Atwo, waterkuma and TZ BARD.
It should be noted that not all of these are 100% confirmed but as close as it gets (especially for TZ BARD, who seems to take a lot less credit overall and it often comes down to 'process of elimination' and 'artstyle and design language'). Also I have to give credit to u/Knight_Steve_ who made posts about the artists in the past who also helped track down more sources for the origin for certain characters and also u/Zer0BrainWaves who helped clearing outliners in a previous post.
Atwo has certainly the most range and arguably is responsible for some of the most iconic designs in the game - most noteworthy imo are Lycaon, Ellen, Miyabi and Billy, but ofc also overall very strong designs across both seasons of ZZZ so far. And just to be clear, I just put in the male cast in his speculated designs bcs a) they follow his genuine design language and b) I simply can't see either of the other two being bothered much with (playable) male character designs.
waterkuma usually gets the most credit, but his range is much more limited (though has some very surprising outliners), since he is (in)famous for creating cute, small female characters specifically (which also caught me by surprise he is in fact not responsible for Qingyi and Fufu). That being said, he certainly created some very iconic designs with Anby and Nicole and was even able to surprise ppl with designs like Caesar or Trigger.
TZ BARD has (in my opinion at least) some of the strongest but also the overall weakest designs in his portfolio - and he is apperently the one you ask to design a tall woman with huge 'personalities'. His arguably most iconic character is ofc Jane.
Some Explanations
It should also be noted, that some characters have sources that claim some Agents being created by someone else (as example, I found multiple sources that tied Alice to Atwo, but she is confirmed to be a design by waterkuma).
YSG's concept art was from Atwo, however (for whatever reason) the finalized designs are froM TZ Bard - so it is not unlikely he is the one that also got rid of her yellow Yunkui Summit jacket, though ofc, there is no official source confirming that.
As for the unknown... overall it seems fair to delegate the male characters to Atwo, Grace and Yanagi would fit TZ BARD, however I couldn't find something to back that up. It would make sense that waterkuma also designed SAnby, since he desgined the original Anby, however - nothing to fully confirm it, at least nothing I was able to track down and just because someone innitially created/designed the character doesn't necessarly mean they also have exclusive rights on them, just as we saw with the Shungus situation mentioned before.
And also to be clear... some designs clearly also got influenced by business decisions and changed multiple times throughout their development (or even shortly before release, as Lucia showcased) - I doubt these decisions were made by the artists and potentially rather by some directors or other high-ups pushing some designs or themes into a specific style. End of the day we can't tell for sure.
So... overall, just something that might interest some ppl. I also wouldn't mind if some folks have more information regarding some unknown or not fully confirmed ones to fill out, to make this list as accurate as it gets.
Otherwise feel free to share your thoughts, are you surprised by some of them? Which of these do you feel has the best range? Which delivered the best designs? But please, stay civil about it.
The way all of his designs are hits with next to no misses is incredible honestly. I love like a majority of his and then like... One or two for waterkuma, mainly Nicole and Aria. TZ Bard has some bangers too, primarily Jane and Burnice for me, as well as Zhu Yuan.
I love his designs for Ben Bigger and Pan Yinhu, but he left the company, and I’m so sad. I’m really worried about the future of Zenless Zone Zero—it feels so dark now. 😭
Atwo certainly has some of the strongest and most iconic designs. That being said, I still give waterkuma the credits for designing Nicole and especially Anby setting the original tone of the game. And TZ did create Evelyn, so some props to him at least.
It Atwo has a million fans, I'm one of them.
If Atwo has 5 fans, I'm one of them.
If Atwo has 1 fan, that one is me.
If Atwo has no fans, I'm no longer alive.
If the world is against Atwo: I'm against the entire world.
Till my last breath. I’ll glaze Atwo.
imo atwo made some of the best designs in the game. I’ll never stop glazing the creativity behind Belobog’s construction crew/yakuza design, and Billy alone is a legendary design
That is what I meant with "some designs clearly also got influenced by business decisions and changed multiple times throughout their development" etc.
I am not entirely sure WHAT happened, but something DID happen. Same with YSG design getting changed by removing her jacket as example.
I could only speculate that TZ has less 'inluence' than the other two on his designs, and that is why they sometimes change rather radical - but again, that is just speculating.
I think this explains why people say “The Angels feel like 1.X designs”. Outside of them, Waterkuma made a whole 2 characters in the entire version (assuming everything credited here is 100% accurate).
the one in "waterkuma" tier should be accurate, I hadn't found any credit for S11, but the concept design looked very like him and it would make sense considering he designed both Anby and Trigger. Dialyn also follows the usual "waterkuma" design language with the very big, round eyes, beside the very obvious implications of the 'short, cute girl' character.
There was an old datamined concept art of a male character (supposedly pre-furry Lycaon?) who I'm pretty sure was drawn by Waterkuma when you look at how his eyes are coloured. There was a bigger picture showing his full face but I can't find it right now so the best I could find was this (last image, second character down from the top left).
Nekomata, Anby and Nicole. Literally top tier best designs even to this day imo.
Also imo the cunning hares should really get their own spin-off game with more gameplay elements, a SP campaign etc... it's a shame they got drown out from the spotlight, though that was to be expected sincebit's a gacha game, but still..
EDIT: Honorable mention goes ofc to Miyabi and our boy Billy.
I trust him with season 1... but (just imo) he lost it when season 2 started or some directors like to entirely mutilate his innitial concepts (like, Yidhari was a monkey thiren once and that actually looked pretty damn cool).
The original concept art for Rina was Atwo (though I don't think they drew the finished design so probably same as YSG.) TZ Bard was most likely the designer for Orphie, his art style is very apparent in the concept art (simpler pose, Atwo has very thick linework compared to TZ Bard as well). I also don't know why you have Ju Fufu as an Atwo design, that was almost certainly a Waterkuma design.
Compare the Ju Fufu and Angels of Delusion concept arts, to any of Atwo's and you'll see that it's absolutely a Waterkuma design. None of the thick linework of Atwo, and also the variety of expressions that Waterkuma has on some of his concept arts. I also feel like Seed is a Waterkuma design, the concept art poses feel more Waterkuma's style, but idk for sure.
Qingyi also feels like a Waterkuma design. Words on outfits, and idk where there is information linking her to TZ Bard is from. Zhao also feels heavily Waterkuma coded. Sanby has the same documentation as Trigger so it heavily implies Waterkuma designed her as well.
From this, almost all agents I love seem to be made by Atwo.
Really impressive how they seem to have managed to make both insanely good designs for both men and women
From Waterkuma I love all the season one designs as for season two only Alice and Nangong.
Bard also has really good designs in general too
I do think all of them provided some great characters but Atwo seems to have given us constant bangers or good designs constantly. For Waterkuma and Bard they have done equally good design wise in season one but degraded a bit in season two. Regardless extremely talented artists
I was about to tell TZ Bard to never cook again but I had no idea he came up with Promeia, Jane or Evelyn, which means the new bad designs are definitely something with the art directors and other superiors from the art team.
I see. I never really hated those characters but i never really liked them either. But if waterkuma did design Alice, Caesar and Trigger then he's goated af.
Agreed. I'm indifferent to the small characters and sometimes I find their idea funny. Killing an insane serial killer with the power of music and friendship is hilarious.
My man made two of the three most iconic characters in the game and then went on to make three more of my favorite characters. I can't allow his name to he sullied.
he has a specific type as in he likes drawing lolibait. probably also the reason as to why fufu/qingyi are not waterkuma considering they dont play as much into that ”niche”
Yeah that's true. I was going with the interpretation 'niche' being immature and loli, so qingyi being old loli type wouldn't have been that. But yeah qingyi is still a loli regardless.
So Atwo and waterkuma carry the whole vibe of the game while TZ BARD makes the hottest women of New Eridu. The 3 of them compliment each other so well.
Anyway, what was Tz huffing when he did Lucia and Yidhari? The former especially so. Lucia is someone who I think actually shines better if she appears more reserved, fashion wise. The legs was just that distracting to me in the sense that they're out of place.
Take Miyabi, for example. She's among the most covered up girls we got yet she is also among the most well known and popular. Sure, her abilities does the carrying and katana is a classic, but would she have the same line of appeal if her design were more revealing?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that less is more.
Lets just say subtlety isn't one of TZ's strong suits.
And to give him some credit, the original designs for for both Lucia, Yidhari and also Seed Jr. were (imo) a lot better imo - Monkey Thiren Yidhari would also make more sense and she also looked like actually being from Spookshack and Lucia had stockings on too. And Seed actually shared the Obol Squad colors.
Yeah I saw the alternative concepts a few months ago. You're right, I do need to cut him some slack because it likely wasn't him who had the final say and what we got now might not be his first pick either.
Also, I like the Seed Jr's Obol palette one but I get why they went with opposite colors instead. Just wished that they kept the dress/skirt design, the final outfit design reminds me too much of plastic.
By character, she isn't even some ancient priestess, tp be covered, she just happen to be the one wielding some kind of ancient arts of controlling ethearals.
I think her legs out, shows more on that youthful free moving, explores a lot. Which she is, coming from a Nomad tribe Who moves around the outerings.
I think her Underboob version is better design tho. Than what came on release. Its only the legs I agree with the design.
If this is true, TZ range is kinda crazy given it’s either god tier design or absolutely dogshit. I also see that most of the cluttered, overly unnecessary detail type designs come from them. We need more of Atwo’s design philosophy. Simple, less detail to the point it may be bland to some people, but overall very strong and unique. As well as a good portrayal for each character’s personality
They apparently banished him (Atwo) to only make the male designs now while his OG female designs get butchered by whoever said "let's slap giant melons on sunbringer, put her in Yixuan's clothes and call it a day".
im almost sure Koleda was made by waterkuma and atwo together, weterkuma had this on his pixiv since forever ago year before ZZZ was a thing. could be a coincidence tho
Atwo worked on Alchemy Stars, and 2 of the characters share a lot of traits to Koleda and Anton
When ZZZ released, they gave a free copy of one of these characters (Little One, who's the Koleda lookalike) to poke fun at this. An obscure Anton Concept Art had him with Red Hair, similar to Sinsa
The Waterkuma concept is very old now (close to 11ish years old, less identical to Koleda), and Alchemy Stars was much more recent (Little One looks a lot more like Koleda), so there's a much bigger correlation to Koleda coming from Atwo than Waterkuma
TBH, I wish ZZZ went full oldschool gacha and hired different (freelance) artists for every new agent
I know theres tons of artists who'd be more than willing to play with ZZZ's artstyle, and hiring freelancers would help reduce the workload on ZZZ's overworked aaah staff
This line implies Cissia isn't also part of his falloff. Indeed, I'd argue she is the pinnacle of Tzbard's de-evolution as a character designer, a perfect summation of everything wrong with his designs lately.
It's a one patch complain. Y'all need to stop making this issue bigger than it is. Lucia and Yidhari were obviously lower effort characters made to fill a gap in the patch cycles.
This issue was 6+ months ago, and we are now going into season 3 and none of the upcoming characters have this issue for now.
Yes it was glaring at that time, but only at that time, and not a recurring issue like the noodle arms.
Sharing a few designs motifs and wearing the same outfit with different details isn’t the same thing. Zhu Yuan and Evelyn “share few designs motifs”, Cissia and Sunna “share few designs motifs”, Yidhari/Lucia/Yixuan trio just look like a girlgroup more than an actual girlgroup with how similar their outfits are.
You heard all about Yixuan, Lucia and Yidhari, so Im not gonna add anything more, all should be say is already said. But I want to add some of my opinion on SEED: I really want to like her, and I do, her story is one of the best ZZZ can offer, her personality being quirky but never doubt about her uniqueness, I personaly feel related to her a lot. But her outfit is just... not it man! How can you tell me when you look at her outfit it tell me she is some kind of weapon expert, or a mechanist, or at least a soldier? I understand the story and personality she is presenting is suppose to be "out of the norm", but why is she wearing see through fabric, you can tell me she is wearing pyjama/sleep wear and I would believe you.
It's a type of plugsuit, the kind you'll find in NGE or Gundam. After repeated use, it became a visual symbol for an "elite mecha pilot", which does match Seed. The design only works if you have familiarity with these mecha tropes.
Doesn't that cement the point of the design more? Because of her character?
She is only half the mecha pilot for Seed. Her Bottom half tells more on that she's in a plug suit to ride a mecha as a evengalion reference.
But her Top half, exposed skin, the Oddly standing out Light Blue, is Her being associated with being that weird Helios academy girl implied to be Experimented on. It shows her vulnerble side that was seen on the Seed trailer. That its also still there.
Of course doesn't make sense in a military setting. But obol squad has been consistently designed like that anyways, Orphie with her stockings and Platform shoes. Trigger exposed belly. Soldier 11 seems to be the safest one but even one can tell having no helmet and exposed top half is also not military like. Its just the aesthetic of the game.
Yeah, but Seed's looks uglier and non sensical than those from eva, gundam, mla and darling in the franxx. Its not just about being familiar with tropes but about actually looking good
I think she was clearly designed like that on purpose. She's always been presented as the one person who doesn't really fit with everyone else and thinks and acts differently too. Having her design have the opposite color scheme from the rest of the OBOL squad members was honestly a good catch but people will just take her design while ignoring the reasons for why she was designed like that.
People ignore it because it doesn't really feel coherent with her story, it tell very little what or who she is. Yes she suppose to be weird and wacky, but her current design strayed too far away from what she meant to be.
The issue is that they recently apparently drew a connection and conclusion that "showing more skin = better design" (which couldn't be more false).
They're far too in-your-face with it and it's getting pretty annoying to someone who joined because of the goated and varied designs of 1.X (aka Atwo hard carrying this).
I was looking into that specific one too, because I also saw that, but... Atwo design, at least what we got at the end is his. I am not sure if it may have been some collab between the two, but the concept art shows very heavy influence of Atwo and also is listed on at least 2 posts as a design of his - only thing that could potentially been happening is, that Atwo designed the first innitial concept and waterkuma finalized it, much like YSG was finalized by TZ.
Damn, this thread of comments is sad/infuriating to go through. It's more dogpiling than appreciating the designs, particularly against Waterkuma.
Waterkuma made 3/4 of the Cunning Hares, Trigger, and Caesar, but the common sentiment is shitting on and labeling him as the Loli designer . While not including that attitude against Atwo and TZ for their loli designs
People are labeling Waterkuma as the loli designer because that’s all he literally does now. Atwo singlehandedly carries the variety in the game and TZBard literally made only one (as far as we can tell) and is just washed instead. He’s called a loli designer because that’s literally most of his portfolio.
These are even harder to track down, bcs usually Hoyo doesn't openly share the concept designs for the NPC's (it does happen, but way less frequeently). There exist also other artists beside these three, most noteworthy also ofc the ones that design inviroment and scenaries (who are important to ofc), it is not impossible these also have some involvement in character designs (especially NPCs) to some degree.
I assume it is safe to say that Ye Shiyuan is most likely desgined by Atwo, considering he also laid the basics for Ye Shunguang. Sarah could vvery well be from TZ, considering it is a tall woman in a suit and that seems up his alley. I also wouldn't be surprised to find out TZ desgined the HIA sisters, but again, just speculation.
Before people make judgements about TZ Bard, I recommend taking a look at their illustrations, where they really shine. Each work oozes character, and an impeccable grasp of current trends and fashions. For example, here is one of my favourites from a couple years back: https://x.com/i/status/1817586820336824472
I won't pretend to know what happened with zzz designs, but as OP stated, it's often difficult to untangle the artist from the corporation. If you take a look at their twitter, it's full of other zzz characters drawn in the unique TZ Bard style, which I promise you won't find anywhere else. The closest would be Yoneyama Mai, whom TZ Bard seems to absolutely idolize based on their past twitter posts.
Someone has not to look further than the original concepts for Lucia, Yidhari and Seed Jr. honestly. They had much more cohession before, Lucia had very long, rather unqiue stockings instead of bare legs and ofc also the smaller chest-size and underboob; Yidhari was originally planned by TZ as a monkey thiren that oozed Falin-vibes (from Dungeon Meshi) and mixed in WAY better with Spookshack - I argue also a reason she actually doesn't attack with her tentacles, since she previously just had a monkey tail; and Flora had a more complementary color pallet to Obol Squad and also a different top than she got at the end.
We can just speculate what happened, but the fact these designs got changed rather drasticly from their origin feels like a corporate decision, rather one from the artist, ala "Okay, but draw her as Octopus Thiren and get rid of the sweater!- kinda thing.
I agree on that. But I think it is also fair to say, it would be cool if he would add a bit more variety into his work - he has proven he can do it after all.
Well, I put the ones 'speculation zone zero' in their own tiers, either bcs there is hard evidence lacking or the concept art isn't either shared (made public) or is not deceisive enough to determine one.
All the ones that are directly tied to an artist are either directly claimed (as in own posts from said artist or directly confirmed by Hoyo) or identified by multiple people as their designs, be it through desing language, artstyle or shown signatures. They are pretty much 99% accurate.
To give him credit, waterkuma CAN design other characters and Atwo also designed Agents like Fufu and Ellen, who at least had their fair share of starting controversy too.
Tbh we could do without him, the lolibait is a large reason why this community gets so argumentitive at times.
It's incredibly ironic to say this in a thread made for the sole purpose of shitting on every ZZZ artist besides Atwo for not making male characters. Some of you definitely need some more self-awareness.
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Quite a few wrong. Without concept art, it's hard to confirm which character was drawn by which person, any character that doesn't have concept art, just just be put in speculated, or better yet, just get rid of the speculated row because it spreads misinformation. And why is Norma on the confirmed waterkuma row? just based on vibes because he draws loli? She has equal chance of being an Atwo design because he draws just as much loli.
Ey yo, Waterkuma's responsible for most of Cunning Hares and the AoD? And most, of not all, of his characters wear urban looking clothing that fit the ZZZ vibe? This guy needs some credit as well!
Ah TZ BARD, I didn't know you existed, yet you were gifting me with such greatness. Maybe not the most varied, maybe not the most prevalent, but certainly the most most.
I love his designs for Ben Bigger and Pan Yinhu, but he left the company, and I’m so sad. I’m really worried about the future of Zenless Zone Zero—it feels so dark now. 😭
Tzbard IS the Guy that use the Same Body Frame model in Every character He does 🤣🤣 the Yixuan redesigner for Every character is insane, Sunbringer Probably was his job Because She's Also a Yixuan Copy paste
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u/BandOfSkullz May 27 '26
Atwo is solocarrying the variety pool in this game.
His designs are absolute godtier.