I did only one costume design since I was came to this company. Seems our game planners and I had no common consensus on costume design. lol
(edit Dec 6, 2012) About this dress and what those patterns meaning:
The leftmost small one is the original character design also the reference of my design. It was too conservative and simple, my job is re-design a whole new one for game players to wear.
The original game character is the daughter of Huangdi (The Yellow Emperor). All that decorations and patterns are based on cottonrose hibiscus and night-blooming cereus. Cottonrose hibiscus means noble, royal, and perfection. And night-blooming cereus means recious, chastity, and spirituality. According to she is a young princess, I used some butterfly symbol on small part to show her lively and fragile.
I prefer the original one over the new one. The new one for sure has more details but sometimes less is more. The original one nails the royality and elegance of a princess perfectly while the new one's modern hair style and cleavage make her look rather like a modern cosplayer than a real ancient princess. Too much cliche for my taste.
I agree with you about the cleavage. I do prefer the extra detail on the skirts in the newer version (it's very pretty), but I don't think it's necessary to chop away half of the bodice in the process. Why can't people make girls in video games realistic?
This reminds me fondly of that one captain in the 0 division in Bleach that had all of those skeleton arms and an eye patch I believe... This is very impressive and intruiging, i love this immensly.