Fire Emblem Heroes is known for commissioning many artists to provide artwork for its massive cast. While some fall under Awesome Art, some others unfortunately fall under this, sometimes even done by the same artist. It may be because of some weird proportions, the artist's style making some characters look much younger than they look, or facial designs that don't look right.
- Miyuu's artwork of Eliwood
◊ and Athena◊ are quite infamous for having eyes that are so large they make them look creepy. Or very janky. Eliwood also has unappealing colors, especially for the Durandal. At least his Resplendent in Askarian garbs is better. Athena's illustration, on the other hand, doesn't look too far off from her art here. - Regular Chrom◊, drawn by Ebila, was subject to ridicule by the fanbase due to the weird body proportions giving him an appearance that makes him look very frail and skinny, and his face makes him appear a lot younger than he is, making the entire piece appear uncanny. Ebila's later Chrom art were much better received though.
- Rebecca◊, drawn by Hoshino Lily, has eyes which are excessively shiny and large, giving them an unnatural white glow that makes her appear freaky and with empty eyes. Also, her attack portrait has a detail that can't be ignored: the bowstring on her bow completely disappears in that artwork, as shown here◊. As a result, this is considered one of the worst if not the worst character art in Heroes. While she later received a Young alt with a much better design, that reputation followed her for years, and she wouldn't receive that alt until almost six years later.
- Cordelia's◊ official art by Ueda Yumehito has proportions that don't quite work (particularly her shoulders being much wider than her hips and the relative sizes of her arms and legs) and a mouth that sits too low on her face and at an angle. The colors used for her are also dull and Cordelia's frown makes her look like she's bored out of their mind. Other characters drawn by Yumehito, Oboro◊ and female Robin◊ look fine at first, but their feet look too small for their legs to support. There's also the fact that all of the characters art done by Ueda have facial designs that look somewhat janky compared to the other artists, such as the weird facial expressions for both Oboro in her special art◊ and Hinata in his attack art◊ that makes them look like they have to rush to the bathroom.
- Fujisaka Kimihiko’s art of Jakob◊ makes him look unhuman due to how unnaturally pale his face looks. His attack art◊ gets the worst of it, having big crows feet near his eyes with a creepy smirk on his face.
- Zaza's portrayal of Sophia◊ draws a neck that is way too thin to properly support the shaman's head, leading some to call her the "giraffe mage". Lissa◊, drawn by the same artist, also has eyes that are creepily far apart and with an unnerving stare, leading many to point out that she looks like an alien.
- Lloyd◊ by pikomaro, while fine from a technical standpoint, has lots of little details that make the assassin look off. His skin is unusually pale, the colors are dull and have very little contrast, with the color green on his outfit looking almost grey like his jacket, his eyes seem unfocused, his mouth seems to lack a top row of teeth, and his trademark goatee is barely noticeable. Some critics have gone as far as to say this portrayal of Lloyd looks more like an unhinged drug addict than a stoic professional killer. This made him notorious for the low quality of his art, and while he received a Fallen alt by Kita Senri that is much better in quality, it took seven years for him to get a new alt.
- Daisuke Izuka's artwork for Luke◊ is considered underwhelming in comparison to the other characters he worked on for the game because he looks skinnier than usual, in particular his head, and he also looks small, almost as if the art is zoomed out somehow.
- Many players aren't fond of the art Gaou provided for Mae◊. It's often pointed out that because of her disproportionately large head and eyes, she looks much younger than she really is,note made even more awkward when you take into account she's appears rather...heavily endowed. This is also partly with the comparison for the character designs in Echoes that are praised overall, so that also hurt, and she still doesn't have a Resplendent that improves over the original. Young Summer Tiki's art◊, on the other hand, is generally agreed to suit her much better.
- Soeda Ippei's art for Arden◊, his face in particular, is rendered in an unsettling realistic way, making him stand out. Dorcas◊, by the same artist, doesn't seem quite as unsettling, so it's possible it's Arden's expression that pushes him into the valley.
- Tailtiu◊ by Shioemon has bright colours that fit her cheerful personality, but her art has been accused of having rather unsettling blank eyes that 'stare into your soul', although fans of the art defend that it fit well with Tailtiu's personality and character arc: A cheery girl that hid insecurities that ends up spiraling down to depression and dying as a sad woman which would more likely have that 'blank eyes'. Thankfully her Resplendent version, by kaya8 is also considered improvement especially with the eyes no longer being blank.
- Characters by Miwabe Sakura, such as Est◊ and Harmonized Myrrh/Nah◊ (which has been accused of looking emotionless - compared to both Myrrh and Nah) have large, shiny eyes. Her style works for child-like characters like them despite making Est look a bit younger than she actually is, though her Lachesis◊ is considered her worst work due to how much younger she looks compared to her original artworks, which show her as a mature lady. This style also doesn't fit with the character's voice. Luckily for Lachesis, she later got a Resplendent and a Dancer alt that fix this problem, and Est also received a cute Resplendent.
- Some of Penekor's early designs look off in some details. Eldigan◊ looks fine at first, but his hands look skinny, an issue that is also shown with Hot Springs Ryoma◊, who also has a weirdly bent index left finger. Lastly, Saber◊ looks great at first glance, but it's brought down by how off his bottom lip looks, as his mouth looks too large for his face.
- Summer Noire◊, as drawn by Kusakihara Toshiyuki, looks rather off. While no one is saying the artwork looks inherently bad, the Boobs-and-Butt Pose used in her attack portrait◊ makes her look like she is breaking her spine to achieve her pose, which combined with the excessive shading on her breasts, and armpit area, make the artwork look a bit awkward to look at. The artist also attempted to draw her with a muscular figure, which while certainly nice, doesn't quite fit her character, since Noire was mentioned in Awakening to have a more sickly appearance. It's almost as if the artist tried to do too many things at the same time and failed.
- Brave Celica◊, drawn by Hidari note , has received a lot of flak for her odd-looking design compared to the rest of the Choose Your Legends 2018 heroes. Looking closely at it, it's a throwback to her Famicom design◊ in the style of Echoes. While her face in her default and damaged artwork is what fans would expect from Hidari, her attacking pose◊ (keep in mind, attacking poses didn't exist in Echoes) makes her face look really strange.
- Hot Springs Camilla◊ done by lack has very weird proportions compared to all the other Camilla designs. For starters, her arms are unusually long and thin, her left arm is posed in a way that looks like it should be broken, while her right arm is bent in an unusual way as well. Not helping is her face, which looks off because her head is unusually big, making her body look tiny except for her breasts. Not helping is that her hair is also a very light, almost silvery purple color, despite Camilla consistently being drawn with dark purple hair. Her attacking artwork also suffered these same issues, but her special artwork◊ has her have a drunken look to her that makes her look even more off. Lastly, her breasts are made much larger, but her whole body is thin beyond what she used to be drawn as, to the point of ridiculousness. She looks different enough to where if you removed her name, she would look like a new character entirely.
- Maeshima Shigeki's art for Shamir◊ is for the most part fine, but for some reason she is drawn with incredibly pale skin that looks drastically out of place compared to normal Shamir. Compared to her Three Houses art, Shamir's art in Heroes gives her a Raven Hair, Ivory Skin look, making her look like an albino.
- Resplendent Alm◊, done by Nishiki Areku, is good in terms of the details but it's rather unoriginal in terms of design, almost like a color swap, and the default art has Alm looking pudgy, almost like he's gained weight under his face. The issue remains the same for the other forms of the art, but the default one looks the worst with this, making Alm look chubby.
- Resplendent Lucina◊, done by Himukai Yuji, is visually nice thanks to the coloring on it and her outfit's butterfly motif fits very well with the butterfly symbolysm with her character, but the actual content is seen as bad because it looks half-way between a child Lucina, and an adult version. Her body looks like that of an adult, but her face is squished and oversized in such a way that looks like a child's. Not helping is that she looks in general shorter than she should, especially compared to her normal art that it replaces. As a result, her proportions feel off, almost like there are two art styles clashing. It's quickly being seen as the worst designed Resplendent Hero, and that is ignoring the artist's history.
- Mila◊, drawn by Yamada Akihiro, has a lot of fine detail that makes her appear mystical, but while her neutral and damaged art don't look too bad, her attack art◊ has fingers that are weirdly stretched-out and bent in different directions, especially in her right arm, her special art◊ delves very deep into the valley. Her right arm looks freakishly longer than her left and is strangely bent like a curve, the face looks really off-putting and unsettling, and the angle of her body is absurd to the point where she's about to break her back.
- Legendary Sigurd◊, drawn by Rika Suzuki, received very heavy praise by many players at the time of his release for the light around him giving him an otherwordly and almost divine look. However, some people also noticed that his attack art◊ looks off, due to the fact that his eye seems to be a bit too far apart from his nose, making it look really strange.
- Resplendent Lilina looks fine visually, but voice-wise, in the English dub, she has voice clips that just comes off as unnatural and awkward, sounding as if they were edited... except they were recorded that way. This voice clip, in particular, sounds less like an actual human talking, and more like someone simply mish-mashed snippets from completely different voice clips in an audio editor app. The weird delivery of her lines is thus more probably an issue from the direction her voice actress received for her voice.
- Though her artwork, drawn by Clover K., averts this due to it being considered one of the best in the game, Fallen Edelgard's◊ Hegemon Husk form, despite being rather fitting, falls under this because of how it clashes with the chibi style used for the sprites. Something about plastering a chibi face on a monstrous body doesn't look right. Also, the fact that the body itself clashes with the other chibi sprites doesn't help either, since the limbs, hands, and feet look WAY too realistic to blend in well. Gamepress even lists the sprite as her weakness due to how ugly it is.Ugly Sprite - The real drawback to using Fallen Edelgard is seeing her Hegemon sprite all the time. Seriously, I get that it’s fitting and all, but still. Also why is she wearing heels while transformed??? Does she have somewhere to be after destroying the world?
- Harmonic Summer Caeda and Plumeria◊, drawn by Ryoma Kitada, look very off compared to the other units released on the same banner they appeared in. However, what makes this art heavily criticized is how Caeda herself looks. She ends up getting the short end of the stick because she was given larger breasts than she normally had, not helped by how vacuumed they are by her swimsuit. She also looks weirdly young compared to how her other versions look, but still having an adult figure. In addition, the art's quality is extremely jarring, as if it looks like the characters were released in the Book 1 era, when the art quality was all over the place. Many players, especially fans of Caeda herself, have since considered this the worst Harmonic artwork released in the game, and the FEH subreddit even voted it as the worst artwork of Gen V as a whole.
- Brave Marianne◊, drawn by Kusakihara Toshiyuki received mixed reactions when it comes to her art. Many fans have pointed out that she looks like she's vacuum-sealed into the dancer outfit she's drawn in, and are annoyed by the Boobs-and-Butt Pose of her attack and special. Much like with Summer Noire, Marianne has very high-contrasted shading on her pectoral and shoulder muscles that seems like it's more to draw attention to her breasts than anything else, while her face is mostly a pale monochrome that looks like it was copypasted from Three Houses's dialogue portraits. The high-contrasted shading becomes more apparent in her special portrait, which gives her a terrifying looking face, though this is because of Maurice's spirit showing up. Her default portrait also gives her a vacant, almost coy sort of staring expression, which some argue is not only creepy, but ill-fitting of a character who's normally somber and reserved even after her post-timeskip Character Development.
- Legendary Tiki◊, by Enkyo Yuichiro, has an issue with her neutral art due to having an open-mouth smile that’s far too-outstretched, on top of having no teeth visible, making her look incredibly odd. Not helping is her crown’s horns appear longer than they do in the other pieces of her art, adding to the weirdness.
- Resplendent Karla◊, while her general art is praised overall, was criticized upon reveal for her face looking rather off, especially compared to her previous art. Many people feel like it looks less like Karla and more like a generic anime character. The uncharacteristically smug smirk doesn't help matters much either.
- Harmonic Bridal (Adult) Tiki and (Young) Tiki's art, drawn by GesoKing, has garnered a bit of minor backlash. While adult Tiki looks fine and dandy, much of the criticism of the art itself was towards young Tiki's face, looking as if she has her adult self's face slapped onto it, with the only change being that her eyes are made a bit larger, making it pretty unsettling.
- Many players find Young Female Robin and Young Chrom's artwork to be really offputting, ranging from Chrom's strangely-drawn hands, to the inconsistent lineart, and Female Robin's hair being janky in her damage art, which sparked speculation that the art was AI-generated. This unfortunately led to most people harassing their artist Hiiragi Akio on Twitter/X and accusing them for using Artificial Intelligence to make the art, only for them to debunk the allegations a few days later.
