Animenews sits down with Naoki Yoshida interview

[Mhikail]

The issue with the Viera is that, if you look at them, they're basically humanoid save for their long rabbit ears and their heels. We already have a mostly humanoid race with animal ears in the Mi'qote. When we looked at those initial Viera concepts, it just seemed like a Mi'qotewith bunny ears instead of cat ears. It simply wasn't different enough. Especially when we did the male designs… they didn't look beastly enough, they were just a little too cute. We wanted to make something that was original to the Final Fantasy series, and to do that, we decided to step away from the Viera.

Can't help but laugh at this a bit. I'm not roaming through posts but didn't he say that they wanted Au Ra females to look like 'girls you wanna protect' and no, they're not dragons, they are demon motifs.
The original Au Ra design was way different from the final product.
The Au ra look like a mix of Hyur/Elezen with scales. Nothing about them look all that different.
If you wanna do something different they should of done this;

To look like a demon, they don't have fangs or claws or anything. They actually look elegant as hell, even the dudes are
standing prim and proper. If the team would like to make a new race...please make the races look less humanoid
at least....If people want Viera, stuff them in but after that, find that creative spot already. Too many kawaii crap here
and I like cute stuff as much as the next person but Jesus.

[Teslo]

I've mentioned it time and again, but a more bestial race wouldn't fly for the simple fact that a bestial race would be... A Beastman race!

In Eorzea the races are split between the "Civilized" races, those that are humanoid, and the "Beastman" Tribes, those that are near-human (Ixal, Amal'Ja, Sahagin) or only vaguely human-shaped (Kobolds, Goblins, Moogles). Player character races will always have humanoid faces, because once you step away from that you're getting into the near-human Beastman territories. In addition to lore reasons (Which, I admit... Lore is often ignored or bent to the point of ridiculousness), there's still issues like making the armor sets fit on the new Beastman frame, which I suspect would be a nightmare with a race that's more bestial in nature.

[Roda]

Can't help but laugh at this a bit. I'm not roaming through posts but didn't he say that they wanted Au Ra females to look like 'girls you wanna protect' and no, they're not dragons, they are demon motifs.
The original Au Ra design was way different from the final product.
The Au ra look like a mix of Hyur/Elezen with scales. Nothing about them look all that different.
If you wanna do something different they should of done this;

To look like a demon, they don't have fangs or claws or anything. They actually look elegant as hell, even the dudes are
standing prim and proper. If the team would like to make a new race...please make the races look less humanoid
at least....If people want Viera, stuff them in but after that, find that creative spot already. Too many kawaii crap here
and I like cute stuff as much as the next person but Jesus.

[Forever crying into the void, mourning what could've been]