Curious about player-character Elezen representation

[Jaywalker]

Because they're the ugliest race of them all and no matter what you do you instantly know what race a person is if they choose elezen even if you don't look at their ears because they're that ugly.

I have yet to see any decent looking elezen.

That's just like, your opinion man. Not to mention a controversial one that plenty of Aymeric/Estinien/Haurchefant/Ysayle/etc. fans would certainly fight you on.

Honestly I think Elezen can be totally gorgeous... but I also think that their proportions are unusual and sometimes that can take a bit of balancing. I've noticed that more popular races tend to be the ones with more conventional proportions or else unconventional proportions that play into cute aesthetics and make no effort to pass for conventional. Sort of Uncanny Valley principles at work.

Also, some of the animations are commonly seen as awkward lol.

I normally would be maining Elezen, but went Hyur Midlander specifically because I wanted to challenge ideas that it's the most vanilla option you could take visually. When it comes to Elezen I think it's a matter of avoiding making the head look small relative to shoulders and legs. Hairstyle achieves part of that but you also need to work with spacing of features within the face so things remain cohesive.