Female Viera are what Au Ra should've been...

[Shougun]

And good point with the horns. Would have been spiffy, but yeah...the complications...

While I don't /love/ the restrictions if one asked me "Hroth and restrictions, or no hroth" I'd pick the former every time. Though you'd really want to make sure you go all in for "reasons why you've limited hats", I think Hroth does that a bit better than Viera (Hroth face shapes are really not standard, but like Viera might have had clipping, or toggle, ears and called it a day lol).

[Tsiron]

My art style does not really match what FFXIV is going for (at least as far as playable races are concerned, most of the monsters look absolutely wretched...), so these'll probably look off-putting and I'm not doing myself any favours by posting them, but I've spent so long thinking about Au Ra and how I'd change their design if it were up to me that I might as well. As I've said several times in this thread alone lol, my primary grievances are, yeah, female Au Ra being the way they are, I wish their tails were longer and their scales looked more natural. The ears/horns are... weird, but I'll get back to that in a bit.

Attempt #1 was kind of half-assed (in case you couldn't tell by the quality), but a lot of that stuff's addressed. I thought the tiny ears+horns combo we can see in some of the female would've been preferable to what we got, but honestly it's just an awkward spot for horns to grow out of. Them being digitigrade was a stupid thought I had that the devs would only need to animate them standing on their toes, without changing the base model and thus complicating equipment unecessarily. I've given up on the idea though, it would look odd with most footwear and they would have to change the default animations to match.

After a while I started sketching them on and off again until I ended up with this, which I thought looked promising! I mostly based the scales on pangolins, though in certain parts they're more reptilian. The horns were a compromise: weird, spiraling hollow structures growing at the end of their ears, made of the same stuff as their scales (keratin). Not that different from (some of) their current horns, but having actual earholes feels more natural to me.

Everything culminated in this art I gave up on, and thank goodness for that, right?

[Skivvy]

My art style does not really match what FFXIV is going for (at least as far as playable races are concerned, most of the monsters look absolutely wretched...), so these'll probably look off-putting and I'm not doing myself any favours by posting them, but I've spent so long thinking about Au Ra and how I'd change their design if it were up to me that I might as well. As I've said several times in this thread alone lol, my primary grievances are, yeah, female Au Ra being the way they are, I wish their tails were longer and their scales looked more natural. The ears/horns are... weird, but I'll get back to that in a bit.

Attempt #1 was kind of half-assed (in case you couldn't tell by the quality), but a lot of that stuff's addressed. I thought the tiny ears+horns combo we can see in some of the female would've been preferable to what we got, but honestly it's just an awkward spot for horns to grow out of. Them being digitigrade was a stupid thought I had that the devs would only need to animate them standing on their toes, without changing the base model and thus complicating equipment unecessarily. I've given up on the idea though, it would look odd with most footwear and they would have to change the default animations to match.

After a while I started sketching them on and off again until I ended up with this, which I thought looked promising! I mostly based the scales on pangolins, though in certain parts they're more reptilian. The horns were a compromise: weird, spiraling hollow structures growing at the end of their ears, made of the same stuff as their scales (keratin). Not that different from (some of) their current horns, but having actual earholes feels more natural to me.

Everything culminated in this art I gave up on, and thank goodness for that, right?

Were you a fan of Gargoyles way back in the day by chance? The female in #1 reminds me a bit of Demona (not a bad thing)

I don't really mind the tail options we ended up with, but I would totally take that long version as well.

I will admit, I've not actually given much thought to their horns outside of the usual "I wish they were separate from the face", although you've now brought to my attention that the horns are actually in a bit of a weird spot, and would probably cover any sort of ear-holes (thinking like a bird's here..) would be. So now that's in my head! Going to be judging horns in a whole new way.

Also a big fan of the more natural scales vs. the glued on variety we ended up with. Obviously no race is going to fit everyone's perfect ideal, but we can dream :3

[Tsiron]

Though I think those designs are interesting something like this would be as least played as roe. For females to be specific, also.....just because female au ra are short doesn't mean they're infantilize? lmao....

It goes beyond just their height, have you seen their emotes? how they sit?

Were you a fan of Gargoyles way back in the day by chance? The female in #1 reminds me a bit of Demona (not a bad thing)

I don't really mind the tail options we ended up with, but I would totally take that long version as well.

I will admit, I've not actually given much thought to their horns outside of the usual "I wish they were separate from the face", although you've now brought to my attention that the horns are actually in a bit of a weird spot, and would probably cover any sort of ear-holes (thinking like a bird's here..) would be. So now that's in my head! Going to be judging horns in a whole new way.

Weirdly enough I never had a chance to watch Gargoyles, even though it looks like the kind of thing I would've enjoyed! And, yeah, you kind of get desensitized to Au Ra horns but they really are just weird. It definitely feels like a design decision made just so they wouldn't have to deal with making more naturally placed horns work with hats and/or helmets (or not, as per Viera).

[Skivvy]

Au Ra's don't have ear holes, they hear from the vibration of their horns and their horns are also hollow if I remember right.

Ahhh, interesting. I don't really know much about Au Ra as a whole, so we'll go with that!

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Sure doesn't bode well for female Hrothgar then...

They were going to be Niche anyway, Beast Races as playable characters have always been attractive to only a small group of people.
Its typically why if there is a Beast Character in an RPG/JRPG, or even an anime and such, there is usally only 1.

[Iscah]

Yes it was stated in the Lore Panal way back in Las Vegas if you're curious.
Their horns can also be broken and so can their tail but their horns will grow back and so does their tail like some lizards.

I remember them saying horns can be broken and regrow – though that sounds "realistically" improbable to me – but I don't recall anything being said about tails.

I'd be more inclined to draw comparisons to scaled mammals (armadillos and pangolins) than to lizards.

[MagiusNecros]

They really dropped the ball on Au Ra by not using the original concept design. If they looked like demonic powerful Voidsent they would have been a popular race for edgelords such as myself.

The female was supposed to be large and imposing with a slender large frame and a meaty ass tail reminiscent of Xenomorphs from Alien franchise.

Instead we got bishounen men and petite kawaii lizard girls.

[Lunalepsy]

... and it's bumming me out lol.

They've got the physique, they've got the stature, their stance is similar to male Au Ra, and an argument could be made for Viera's more subdued emotes contrasting that of their counterparts.

Dragons my ass, the more I think about it I suspect Au Ra were meant to be an incubus/succubus type duo, but that doesn't mean the difference had to be that extreme... Viera look like they could've made fine demon ladies, themselves

I wish Viera didn't have weird noses and long arms.

[LisSquid]

It's an effort, but I feel like my au ra isn't as uwu waifu as it could be. To be honest, Viera face selections are almost as much of a reason that I swapped back as hats and hair. It was just impossible to create a serious/mature face as a bunny that I liked, and while I cry every day about being so short, my Au Ra's face just has more personality than anything I could create on Viera.

Comparing female Viera to the Au Ra concept art is very misleading because Viera are very much not that.