Directional Portraits and Psychology

[EidolonDreams]

So I've noticed something, and it's been bugging me.

All of the stock character portraits and the vast majority of game devs have characters facing to the left, with a select few being changed to front-facing (toward the viewer). But my default instinct when drawing is to draw partially right-facing portraits (facing the text box).

I realize that, at least for a horizontal battler, left-facing makes some sense... your characters' portraits face the same way that they do in combat. And I can see the same being true for front-facing portraits with vertical battle games...

But really, how important is any of this? Is this good game design, or am I totally overthinking it?

Can I leverage doing what I'm inclined to do anyway to stand out in a good way, or is this going to bug people?

 

[arsMori]

Supposedly, many people find it easier to draw faces or heads facing to the left (I do). I'm trying to Google things about this thing, and the stuff I saw say you'll draw people facing to the left more often as someone who is right-handed or has a "read from left to right" native language. Some say their drawings just turn out better as facing the left.

Personally, I don't really give thought to the direction my character's heads face. I've only purposely made a character look to the right because I wanted her to face the opposite direction of her twin brother's face portrait.

 

[EidolonDreams]

This was actually something I considered mentioning in my post, but decided to wait.

I would think that, if you read left-to-right, it would make more sense for your characters to be facing right. Like "leading lines" in art, where is this person looking? Are they focusing us back on something present, like the text box, or staring into the off-screen void that we can't see?

 

[gstv87]

RM is a japanese product heavily influenced by light novels and manga.
japanese manga is read right-to-left.

 

[HOLYMOTHER]

I would think that, if you read left-to-right, it would make more sense for your characters to be facing right. Like "leading lines" in art, where is this person looking?

RM is a japanese product heavily influenced by light novels and manga.
japanese manga is read right-to-left.

I'm not sure the logic here follows. I'm sooner inclined to say it's coincidence that the portraits face the opposite as the direction of Japanese script. Here's an example of the reverse being normal.

When the ancient Egyptians wrote right-facing hieroglyphs, which would be read right-to-left, any human figures depicted in imagery accompanying the hieroglyphic also faced right, and vice-versa, save when the imagery was accidental to the text. There are exceptions of course, but this was the norm.


The text above the sculptor describes his name and title, above the statue the same respectively. Itjau the Head Sculptor and the high-ranking priest Henenit the Black.

Moot point as far as the thread concerns me, anyway. All my portraits face front!