Yeah I take notice too (and I also get a little annoyed when people refer to creatures as "he", this includes Nintendo). My sister complains how the female characters look too, like she'd want one female character that's stubby, has a big nose, etc, and we'd like it. There's a reason she likes Toadette a lot, after all.
And it's probably a reason I got so attached to the male characters rather than the female ones in general. I don't concern TOO much about what characters I do want to use since, well, I'm too attached to Mario, but it's more noticeable in other games.
Anyway all three princesses at least are drawn with being a derivative of Peach in mind, I believe. I always thought Rosalina and Daisy were a kind of "otherworldy" Princess Peach, with Daisy in the Sarasaland place and Rosalina conveying a bit of familiarity but also distant to make her seem more mysterious. I know if that there's a female character we can drastically redesign, it should be Daisy. She's supposed to be a tomboy but that's hardly expressed in the games, so I thought, why not just exaggerate that aspect?
I don't think Peach, Rosalina, and Pauline I'd consider "boring" however and I will also dispute that Peach's personality is "boring" at least.
So anyway I did look at a bunch of female athletes like Kim Chizevsky-Nicholls and whatnot, so why not have Daisy be built like a bodybuilder. This isn't a princess you want to mess with, unless you're fond of taking the form of pretzels. I feel I could've exaggerated this more too.
Also I'd probably redesign Pauline but I'm not sure, her current appearance doesn't bother me, as I don't mind diva ladies. But she doesn't seem to be much of "Mario's girlfriend", especially a lady who exists in the same plane as Mario? Peach, Daisy, Rosalina have the royalty excuse. Pauline imo should be like this common Italian-immigrant New York city lady who also struts with a big nose like Mario and has baby proportions like him. Maybe like this below.
Well, zelen, if it makes you feel better, at least the French do think Petey Piranha is female.
But then people would complain about a topless female character in a skimpy bikini.
Speaking of lack of representation, there's also no black characters to speak of. Like all characters with a skintone generally have the same skintone. Pretty funny to think about when this kingdom is populated by colorful freaks like Yoshis, Toads, Piantas, and so on. If I were to make a black character, I'd redesign Kid from the Camelot sports games to give him black skin, similar to how he looks in Mario Golf 64.
