Female Hrothgar as a playable race. Show your support!

[reivaxe]

In my mind, I don't know about expressive. I kind of feel like they would be kind of like the viera situation all over again, rather than playful - like miqo'te. I picture them as being really strong and proud. I kind of picture them as leaders of the hrothgar, rather than the males, that's probably why. I picture them with a "royal" kind of vibe.

I keep saying expressive because human brains are designed to read human faces. This is the reason Hrothgar have ALL THE DRAMA in their emotes, to make up for the fact that much of their facial reactions to things is "shocked Pikachu face". We're not wired to read animal faces well and animals don't rely as much on facial expressions as we do so the more animal a face is the more you have to do with the body language to show what that character is thinking.

Other way around that is to stylize the face to have more exaggerated, cartoony proportions/ features like the furry art I've been posting and in stuff like Western animation or to just make the face more human like Bless did with their cat people and killing bites often does.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

[RyuDragnier]

I keep saying expressive because human brains are designed to read human faces. This is the reason Hrothgar have ALL THE DRAMA in their emotes, to make up for the fact that much of their facial reactions to things is "shocked Pikachu face". We're not wired to read animal faces well and animals don't rely as much on facial expressions as we do so the more animal a face is the more you have to do with the body language to show what that character is thinking.

Counter argument to this would be pulling up zoo footage dealing with a lion. Watching the facial reactions, they can be pretty animated, just as much as people. Like with people, it's mostly in reaction to things, such as being surprised, yawning, smelling something bad, etc. It's fairly easy to read the emotions on the faces of lions in such circumstances, and it's most likely what they've based Hrothgar facial reactions on.

[Vahlnir]

Counter argument to this would be pulling up zoo footage dealing with a lion. Watching the facial reactions, they can be pretty animated, just as much as people. Like with people, it's mostly in reaction to things, such as being surprised, yawning, smelling something bad, etc. It's fairly easy to read the emotions on the faces of lions in such circumstances, and it's most likely what they've based Hrothgar facial reactions on.

Felines in general can be pretty expressive. Personally, I think that Hrothgar are pretty animated when it comes to their poses, emotes and facial expressions.

...And now I'm feeling the itch to switch back to my white lion.