Survey Results (Pixiv Fanbox)

This is gonna be a small update and a post on the survey results, just because I enjoy analyzing data. By update, I just mean a small update on my part. I tend to get seasonal summer depression around this time of year, so I'm not terribly chipper at the moment. Very lethargic, with no real desire to do anything, so this post won't be quite as long as some in the past. I'll gloss over some things here and there, but I'll try to keep it entertaining at least. If nothing else, you can scroll through to get various pictures I've made. Like this one.

I'll be posting summer time pictures of various FF gals that are in the top ranks of the survey, as well as my own top 10. And maybe a couple of the least favorites for giggles.

I’m largely going to gloss over some of these results, just so this post isn’t huge. And because some of the questions aren’t terribly interesting in general. Like the first two questions. It’s kind of what you’d expect, especially after the last survey. Instead, I’ll hop right into the favorites and least favorites, since that's kind of the most interesting thing in general. It's always interesting to see people's likes and dislikes in these kinds of things. At least, it is for me. Might not be for everyone, but I enjoy this stuff.

This was honestly a little bit annoying to get a graph of since there's so many characters, but I wanted it just for my own ease of conveying the results. I will say once again this is less a poll on favorite "animation" and more favorite "character". I'd probably say about 10-20% of people actually voted on their favorite animations over their favorite characters. Just how it is. Aerith, once again, takes top spot. Then, a little bit of a gap we get Luna, and with almost no gap, Tifa. Tifa actually was second place for the majority of the survey, it's only been the last couple of days that things swapped, and it's a 'barely' thing. Could easily change in a few days as more results come in, but yesterday(which is when I got the graph and wrote this) with 805 submissions, this is where it stood. Figured it was a good place to stop it, and I didn't want to do further adjustments for a small handful of extra results. 800 is a good number to go out on, anyway. That's the number I figured I'd get by today anyway.

Still, 2B gets fourth place, and I'm not upset by that. 2B is in my top ten animations, just because I did put extra effort and time into those than a lot of the others. I am actually quite proud of the final animation in her set, so her getting fourth place is fine by me, even if it is mostly just a character contest.

Iris comes in next, with a single point difference with the "Other" Tifa, followed by the other Luna. Then we've got A2, who is also another character I would rate highly(which I will rate after I get through the survey results of the best/worst animations). Then comes Gentiana, who - while not in my top ten - is in the upper twenty. After that, some slightly interesting results. Kyrie, Yuffie and Nayo are all pretty close together, which I find mildly amusing. Bootleg Yuffie(Kyrie) is actually higher than Yuffie, which I would agree with. Both on an animation basis and just being more attractive. Character wise, she is Bootleg Yuffie, so not that interesting, but a nice character design all the same.

Obviously, Y'shtola is in between Nayo and Yuffie, but still. I just found it kind of funny these three were all more or less together in the results, since they're all kind of tangently related in a way. Nayo first appears in Yuffie's DLC and of course Kyrie is bootleg Yuffie, so the fact they're so close to one another in results is just funny to me. Still, the interesting thing is that - barring the Nier characters - Y'shtola is the only non-VII and XV character in a long string of them. It isn't until after Aranea that we start seeing great varience in the characters. Such as Lulu and... oh no... no... hrrrggh.... nnnghh...

Sorry, I threw up in my mouth a little, but this picture sure was a palate cleanser. Where were we? Oh, right, Cindy. She's actually below Aranea this time, interestingly enough, but higher than Serah. Admittedly, I forget the exact number the previous survey was at, but I think I called it around 420 responses, since that's a funny number and that's where it was at after a week. We're almost at double the amount of submissions this time, so I would expect the 'middle results' to be more switched up than the top results. Just a general expectation.

Obviously, with this many characters, I'm not going to do a complete play-by-play, but I'll comment on a few additional characters. Jessie's Mom is in the upper half this time, instead of the lower half, which I'm happy to see. Queen is the best performing Type-0 character, another thing I'm happy to see. I did put some actual effort into her final shot, after all. Though I don't have her in my own top ten, go figure. Edea lost six votes from the last time, which is a big RIP. Alyssa has the exact same amount of votes this time as last, which is funny to me. Nora is a major RIP moment, but I will admit I did her dirty. Guess I'll have to do something with her at some point to make up for it, but that'll be some time from now. After all, I did say I'd be doing Jessie's Mom again if people kept voting her as least favorite...

The overall best Favorite to Least-Favorite ratio is definitely Iris at 235:8. Good job, Iris, proud of you. Admittedly, once again I noticed some people vote the same characters in both categories, so... not the greatest objective judge, but still. However, once again Jessie's Mom tops the chart in terms of normal, non-troll character picks. And at this point, I don't know if it's because you're aware I threatened to do more of her after last time, or if some people just have abhorrent taste and don't like a really good MILF. Considering some of the other characters up there - and the likes of Ultimecia... I'm just guessing some of you have abhorrent taste. Sorry, I couldn't hold my fingers any longer, I'm afraid. SMH.

Hope has quite a few more least favorite votes than Alphinaud, where last time they were tied. Maybe because he showed up in the Strapon video, so people were as butt hurt as he was? Who knows! Either way, the Lightning Strap-On video is up there too, right next to Jessie's Mom, which is another sour spot for me. I think that video is pretty good, overall, but I guess it's not to everyone's taste. Fair enough, I suppose. But Jessie's Mom...

I'm judging. Judging hard.

(I just thought this idea would be funny, btw)

Anyway, since we're on the subject, I'll go ahead and give my own Top 10 for the both.

Top 10

#10 – Ultimecia

Despite my post after her release not being terribly happy with the remake animation, I will say that overall I think Ultimecia’s set was pretty well animated overall. It is the only one with something other than the finisher that has a more in-depth animation with the slowdown on the blowjob. It’s hastily done, and not terribly impressive, but that alone is more effort than most of the rest. For that, it gets a spot in the Top 10.

Additionally, I had to put more effort into her just because I kind of screwed up the rig somehow(genuinely don’t know what I did – the rig for the non-Maiden version is fine, but I didn’t realize that until after I’d animated everything), and she had some severely broken legs. I managed to salvage it, for the most part, but that did require more (unnecessary) effort on my part.

#9 – Gentiana

I think the sideways, crossed-leg animation remake is pretty good as far as remakes go. It’s likely due to the fact I didn’t actually reference the original, and just went off memory so I wasn’t sitting there spending time trying to get it ‘just right’ and only making things worse. Beyond that, solid animation work overall. I mostly just like how everything came out, even if it isn’t anything amazing.

#8 – Cinque

Kind of an odd one for some, probably, but I really like the ‘on-the-back’ animation. I’ve actually tried to do that pose before, but this was the first time it not only came out looking decent, it came out looking good in my opinion. While the rest is pretty bog-standard stuff, I managed to impress myself with how easily I managed to do that particular animation, so it gets risen in the ranks just for that. After all, this is a list on who I think have the best animations, not necessarily who I think has the hottest animations, and definitely not who I like the most(see my tier list for that).

#7 – Lightning(Strap-On)

From a purely technical level, they’re nothing special. However, I don’t typically do three or four characters in a shot, and while they are pretty low effort and stiff, just for the fact I did them without any major issues cropping up… they’re alright in my book.

#6 – Scarlet

To be honest, there isn’t anything particularly special about these animations, but the reverse shot is the best rendition of that particular shot in the whole series. It’s used a few times, but this is the one that came out best in my opinion. Beyond that, the rest are all solidly done, nothing too glaring in terms of low effort, outside maybe the blowjob.

#5 – Nayo

Just a solid overall set, albeit with nothing too interesting. I don’t really consider her reverse shot to be the same thing as Scarlet’s, since Scarlet’s is thrusting and Nayo’s is grinding, but while Scarlet’s looks better and is better animated, I do find Nayo’s hotter. I also had somehow forgotten I didn’t animate the blowjob until a few days before release and had to throw it together really quickly. For how quickly it was cobbled together, it came out better than I would have expected.

#4 – A2

Technically not an official character, but I do like how her set came out overall. Just a solid set overall, with only the hair being a particular issue. But that’s less an issue with the animations, and more my weakness with making long, loose hair work in general. Especially when it isn’t the highest quality model to begin with.

# 3 – Jessie’s Mom

While her set is fairly bog-standard in terms of the poses and what not, she was the first one I did with those poses, so I find that her animations are better than the subsequent characters that are essentially the same. I also just find her very attractive – and far superior to her daughter – so this is a bit of a biased spot. Couldn’t help it.

#2 – Kyrie Canaan

To be honest, there isn’t anything particularly special about the Kyrie set, but I do find that it’s overall very solid. The only weak-spot is the reverse shot, and I’d honestly swap it with something else if given the chance. Possibly a doggy-style shot of her on the table with her wrists held behind her back, in the way the missionary shot had her wrists grabbed. It’d be more fitting, and would make it four-for-four in terms of having some of my favorite animations. As is, it’s only three-for-four. Still, it’s the one my brain always thinks of when I try to think of my ‘favorite animation in the whole series’.

#1 – 2B

Overall a solid set with no major animation issues. Additionally, the final shot had more effort put into it than a lot of character’s four animations combined, which I think shows. It was an idea I had back when I was making the 2021 2B set, but wasn’t quite comfortable with my skills to pull off how I wanted. I will say I tried back then, but I couldn’t even get the static pose to be what I wanted, but it all came together seamlessly this time. So, for just the fact I could get it done in a particularly hectic month of animating, I’m quite proud of it. So much so, I had to ‘tease’ it with the Banner/PFP that I used for most of the project.

Bottom 10

#10 – Jessie

Animated after Jessie’s Mom and Fran, who she shares a lot of positions with, and the result is – in my opinion – trash. Very poor work overall, and was just numb routine as I went through the motions in a figurative and literal sense.

#9 – Cater

The last character I animated period. And I feel it shows. I did the Lightning(Strap-On) version before Cater, because I wanted to animate those. I just wanted to be done while doing Cater. I also just have no real interest in Cater, so she turned out poorly. Apologies on that front.

#8 – Rinoa

Another character that was one of the last finished, and much like Cater, I just don’t have much interest in Rinoa. The Dissidia NT model just isn’t that good, so I can’t really find attraction in anything I animate with it. Is what it is.

#7 – Lightning

Phoned in as fuck, since they were gonna be Lotinging April Fool’s stuff. Only semi-decent animation is the blowjob.

#6 – Nora

The poses were just copied from the Hope animations for giggles, and the animation work was phoned in because of it. Just not great all around.

#5 – Lebreau

Not much to say about these, other than that I spent less time on these than even Cater. They’re phoned in AF, and I don’t like them.

#4 – Cissnei

I’d really like to be as into the ‘remake’ Cissnei as others seem to be, but I just find her to look very strange. I was looking forward to a remake Cissnei, but yeah… they didn’t do a good job, and I don’t expect it to improve even if she ends up in Rebirth. But that general dislike/apathy of her looks resulted in me not wanting to work on the animations and phoning them in. I do genuinely think they’re poorly animated. Perhaps not the worst of the entire thing, but I have issues with all of them.

#3 – Ryne

This is more a cautionary tale for people: heavily requested characters/things are a weak spot for me. The more they get requested, the more I psyche myself out, since I know people are really expectant of me and I want to deliver… but delivering under pressure is difficult. Ryne is the most requested character from XIV(outside Y’shtola in general, but that was only a request that saw a spike after I already did some animations of her), and so I wanted to try to do something good and/or special… and I failed, personally. I do not like these animations.

#2 – Gladiolus

Now these are animations I struggled with. Gladiolus is too much man for me. I managed to get them done, but it caused some mental damage. Not much, but I did seriously question my life decisions and choices and had a mild existential crisis. I now look at time in a different way. There’s BG(Before Gladiolus), which was a simpler, more innocent time when I had never animated Gladiolus. Then there’s AG(After Gladiolus), which was everything AFTER animating Gladiolus. For better or worse, things have changed. Irrevocably.

#1 – Scrapped Stuff

While there isn’t much scrapped stuff from the project, there’s a bit here and there, so this is a bit of a cop-out. But, if something got scrapped, it’s bad mmkay.

Anyway, moving on from the Top/Bottom 10, we'll head into series discussion. I could have filled out the list a lot more than I did, but I was already making this damn thing a bit too long, so I wanted it to be brief. But I really should have had a Nier/Drakengard option. Only reason I didn't was because I included Nier in the project, so my brain was like 'can leave that off'. C'est la vie. My brain has been kind of mush for a while, and even now that I'm 'on break' it hasn't really been getting better. I should honestly redo this portion at some point, with several additional series that got mentioned. Admittedly... stuff like Overwatch is basically a no-go from me. I started animating because I was sick and tired of Overwatch and knew that the FFXV girls would get basically zero content, so regardless of the circumstances... I have zero intention of EVER doing Overwatch content. I typically try to 'never say never' in regards to that, but Overwatch is one thing I will firmly say "never ever" on. Just how it be.

Anyway, DOA wins, which I suppose I should have expected. Probably shouldn't have included that one, really. Resident Evil comes in second, which is mildly surprising since it's not something I've ever done, but it is popular so I suppose it makes sense. Tekken got 3rd, interestingly enough. Might be because I did Kazumi right when the survey dropped, since other polls did not really indicate an interest in Tekken. Who knows, though.

Not gonna go over each any every result, but it's kind of interesting. RIP Samurai Shodown, though. Regardless, I'm not gonna take this directly as my 'what I plan to do after this' sort of thing, but I will probably add a few more characters to my poll pool for this, and I will be dipping my toes into various series going forward. FF is gonna be taking a break, but as the summer images imply, I'm not exactly done with it forever. It's my bread and butter, after all.

Gonna just kind of gloss over the rest of the stuff, not even gonna include pictures of pie charts and graphs for most of these just out of laziness. For the question regarding wanting higher than 1080p, it was a 451 "No" to 325 "Yes". Which I'm a little surprised about, but then again there are still a lot of people with devices that can't really handle 4k as of yet. And it isn't exactly the standard, but more a 'premium' thing. The next question is more or less along those lines, with 1080p being highest, 1440p being next, and 4k being last. Well, the additional "other" option makes the graph annoying to read, so that's why I got no numbers. The next is about clothed v nude, which - perhaps because I loaded the question some - has clothed take it over nude at 419:375. Narrow victory, admittedly, and there were several dozen ending comments with the caveat of "clothed, but with the important parts exposed", or "clothed, but by the end nude" as I did with the project as a whole. Fair enough, I suppose.

Gonna breeze through the next few, no vote count because the margins are pretty much 75% to 25% in all of them. Variants over higher resolution, camera variants over no camera variants, POV over third person camera, and finishes over loops. Which that last one is something I very much dread. I really do hate making finishes. I might go a bit hyperbolic at times with it, but seriously... it's something I do not have fun doing. Posing, making a loop, lighting a scene, composing a scene, etc. are all things I have fun doing. But animating a finish is just such a slog, honestly. Largely because I don't even like them.

There was an early comment from an early survey that went "Loop bad climax good. Climax is the goal to everyone who faps." And I'm like... yeah, sure. Your own climax. But by that point, you're barely paying attention to the screen, so the onscreen climax is moot. Maybe that's just a me thing, and it's tied to how I process the post nut clarity, but seriously they don't do anything for me and never have. There have only really been a small handful of climaxes/finishes that I've made that I actually set out to make and enjoyed making. Off the top of my head, it's the Irelia titjob, the Nayo blowjob one, and... that's kind of all I can think of. I enjoyed making the dumb Gladiolus ending of the SuccubIris Secret Time far more than the finish. I dunno, I just don't get them, and I don't enjoy making them. I imagine that disappoints a lot of people, but despite the overwhelming victory of climaxes, I'm not really going to change things up going forward. Otherwise, I will burn myself out and stop enjoying animating, which could very easily lead me to quit. So yeah, it'll be a sporadic thing when I feel like it. The quality will be better in that case, too. I think the project as a whole showed that if I don't personally enjoy something, the quality will suffer.

And lastly, we'll go over the "remaster" selection. Technically at the start of the survey, but I wanted to get to the characters first. I'll also say that the result of the costume is basically the same as last time, so I just didn't feel like going over that one either.

Nothing really to comment on here. Coincides with the finisher results, and then there's a basic even split between canon clothes and nudity, along with some pose/animation revamps. Which I basically take for improving the lackluster animations for some of the characters. This is stuff I will get to eventually, likely in the order of the 'favorite animation' results, but it'll be a while.

Also, I do plan to upload the individual animation videos for the characters at some point. I mostly just don't feel too motivated to do that since it's tedious. But it will happen, even if it's one or two characters at a time. If anyone's got any requests, I'll try to prioritize them. Anyway, with that said, that'll be just about it. Have this one final picture.

P.S. Probably gonna call the poll tomorrow or Monday, just because it's a landslide victory.