Ayyy how are you all?
Welcome to another essay blog complete with pictures I annotated and arranged myself. Today, I'll be complaining about the faults this series has. Not that anyone is concerned or anyone will do anything about it.
Feel free to zoom in or click on a photo if it's too small. Soz about any kinda pixilation.
Illustrations[]
I know very much that literally no one cares a bit about the illustrations of the series but I do so much. The series's drawings were what inspired me to draw when I was younger and they've influenced my drawing style so so much. And now I'm going to insult them and rant about them because there's a really annoying thing about the illustrations for a drawer like me.
And that is thefact that they reuse the pictures. I know, it saves effort and takes less time but seriously. I've noticed too many times when they reuse the same characters as different characters. It all looks the same. The illustrations are also inaccurate.
- Example 1: The Angels
I'm pretty sure if I studied a real girl's legs this closely, I'd be considered creepy.
Once, centuries ago, when I was tracing over a drawing of The Angels on my iPad (where you can zoom in at, like, more than 200%) I noticed something weird at the end of Emilia's dress and there are two things it can be. 1. It could be the lines of a previous drawing of The Angels dancing but with the legs slightly messily erased and redrawn. Or 2. When drawing on something digital, if you don't like a part, say, the positioning of an eye or a leg, you can move it. The illustrator must've been careless when moving it. Also, Lexy's pointing gesture is the same picture as the original dancing one and I can tell it's the same one because the proportions and positioning of the arm looks the same, only smartened up a bit. I admit this one’s petty but bear with me.
Still focussing on The Angels, there's the moment when they wave goodbye to the girls in Jessie the Lyrics Fairy. That's the same drawing (but neatened up) as the drawing in Destiny where they met the girls in the lobby.
Another Angels moment is in Destiny, when they are gasping because their clothes have gone missing. That image is used for when they forget their words in Jessie. And humorously, the phone in Emilia's hand has been replaced with a microphone lolz.
What's the point in reusing Angels pictures? Is it because the young kids would forget who they are unless they reuse a recognisable picture of them?
This one is where I just ask: "why...?" The dance instructor in Faith the Cinderella Fairy, Rosie. She is literally Jessica Jarvis, the model in the Fashion Fairies series, but with a glammed up dress and a ponytail. Please. That's just a new level of laziness. If it doesn't take enough effort to design a new girl or boy for the background, is it too much to draw a new girl for a character with an actual speaking part?
- Example 5: Kirsty and Rachel, like, in every story
I'm pretty sure Kirsty's body has just been rotated. Her hands give it away
Extremely noticeable in Daisy the Festival Fairy and the series drawn in this style onwards. Every picture of the girls is one eyebrow raised standing in the same position. Due to the more constant use of digital devices like tablets and computers to draw, it's obvious they copy the bodies of the girls and just redraw their head position, or their mouths, or their arms, to keep consistency, but for me, it's too boring.
- Example 6: Daisy the Festival Fairy
From an old blog
Again with Daisy, I pointed out in one blog that Mr and Mrs Tate were drawn instead of Mrs and Mrs Walker. Another mistake is where Rachel or Kirsty, I can't remember, is drawn with leggings when the opposite girl was described to be wearing them.
- Example 7: Gravity
Pretty sure hair doesn't act like that when you're upside down, Kirsty. Even if it might be tucked into the back of your shirt.
I can tell you that most of these reusing occurrences are connected to a certain drawing style which means one illustrator just loves using images over and over again. Although I do respect this illustrator's detail on the background people.
I’m not a fan of the copied and pasted drawings. These illustrators’ drawing skills are fine but when they draw one good picture of Rachel and Kirsty and reuse it, it kind of disappoints me.
Christmas Fairies[]
Christmas fairies used to be the highlight of Christmas for me. In fact, two years ago, I made a schedule to read every single Christmas fairy book I owned (that must be 8) each night leading up to Christmas. It was awesome. However, the recent fairies are just getting a little unnecessary. I had a ‘what is the most unnecessary fairy’ blog planned but I don't think I’ll write it. But I made this chart about the Christmas fairies and the most irrelevant one is Elsa the Mistletoe Fairy, whose job is done by at least 5 other Christmas fairies.
To be honest, all the Christmas fairies’ jobs might as well be done by regular fairies but I guess they’re in charge of it at Christmas time, fair enough. There's only so much you can look after at Christmas.
Repeated jobs[]
On the subject of repeated jobs:
- Erin the Phoenix Fairy is in charge of humour, as is Mimi the Laughter Fairy and Addison the April Fools' Fairy (though she's in charge of humour for one day a year which kinda sucks).
- Rihanna the Seahorse Fairy is in charge of friendships. As is Becky, maybe Juliet, Florence and the Friendship Fairies.
- Imogen the Ice Dance Fairy and Isla the Ice Star Fairy too.
- Tiana the Toy Fairy's second adventure features the girls having to find her magical candy key so the Land of Sweets won't be in danger. Well, that sounds very much like a Candy Land Fairy's job, doesn't it (which even then sounds like a Sweet Fairy's job.)? Her actual job is to make children share their sweets, which sounds like the Sharing Fairy’s job.
Rejected fairies[]
It is obvious that ideas that didn't make it into the original group get grouped together. An obvious example is the fairies of multiple animals.
- Animal-associated fairies: the Pet Keeper Fairies, the Baby Animal Rescue Fairies, Butterfly fairy, the Ocean Fairies, the Baby Farm Animal Fairies, the Endangered Animals Fairies, and I guess you can count the Magical Animal Fairies. I'm excluding that group because their jobs aren't to protect their animal species, but an aspect of life. They are clearly grouped but do you really need that many fairies? And what's more desirable about "baby" animals than regular animals? Please.
- Sports-based fairies: the Sporty Fairies, the After School Sports Fairies, the Gold Medal Games Fairies, the Games fairy, the Sports fairy.
- The Sweet Fairies and the Candy Land Fairies have the exact same jobs but for different sweets.
- The Fairytale Fairies and Storybook Fairies. I'm pretty sure most the stories the Storybook Fairies look after are also fairytales. And fairytales are storybooks too. Even worse, they're BOTH 4-fairy series so they could've grouped them together.
Bad production[]
We have a whole page of mistakes and errors.
I'm too tired to carry on typing now. I just needed to get all this stuff out there. Don't get me wrong, I'll always like the series because of the great past its had but I don't quite enjoy the new stuff. Have a good day!
LexsJBTalk 20:27, January 23, 2017 (UTC) (updated 26 September 2020)