character art

[mharici]

hellooo there! while i am unable to play the game due to billing issues ala error 401, realise i have an addiction and suffer withdrawals, thought i'd draw some doodles to kill the time.

i hope this is allowed. just trying to connect with the ffxiv community!

anyhow, i'll doodle your character, so post below and while you're at it tell me about how you went about creating and customising your character - is it your alter-ego, just a character based on what status suits your desired class the best etc etc

me? i thought i'd just create a random character based off the concept of "sun goddess" or "solar deity" and named her after a buddhist bodhisattva associated with the sun.

DONE:
x. everyone on page 1 (enkidoh and nahara on page 3, the rest on page 1)
x. page 2 posters - half on page 3 and half on page 5

[Reokudo]

My character is from my book, however male highlanders lack the short spiky hair style I want for him so I had to go with the shaved head instead.
XIV Vers
Book vers on left with another char on the right from it as well.(Drawn by an artist I have commissioned)
Your art style is cute.

Edit: Since people added their own little background stories. I'll add mine for my char, which has nothing to do with XIV unless I was to implement the whole "How this works for RP" bit.

Book: Ryu's a half dragon who loses his mother in a dragon attack on his village at the age of 5. He is left alive by his mother's slayer, whom left him with a scar across his chest to forever remember that fateful day. He is later discovered by a grizzled old mercenary on the outskirts of his now destroyed village. Said mercenary raised him for 16 years while teaching him all things in the art of combat. Now old enough to venture out into the world himself, he vies for vengeance against the Black Wyrmlord Sereses who slew his mother and undertakes a journey. On said journey he realizes that he has dragon blood within him(as he didn't know), and the terrible beast that vies for dominance within him that he must fight over control of his own body for.(His Dragon Soul.) Along the way he learns the importance of companionship, and that he alone cannot defeat every foe he comes across alone. He draws strength from his companions, and through the unwavering affection of one of them, it acts as his anchor to his humanity and what keeps him sane throughout his arduous quest.

How this relates to the XIV version: At the end of the book both he and the dragon he was fighting was sucked into a dimensional rift making it so I can play this character in any game and "RP" him. Albeit with some limitations. In XIV he does not possess the same abilities/powers he did in his own world, nor does he have dragon blood. In this, he is a simple Highlander male who retains his prowess in battle and memories from where he came from.

As for that other character in the commissioned image, she won't have a XIV version because quite frankly Elezen females lack the aesthetics to be as appealing as she is. But for those curious of the character, her name is Sacreia and she has a stand alone chapter in my signature.

[Laiyenu]

I'll play. (Although I really hope you get your account back soon!)


Laiyenu Rae started off as my first real MMO character (Starting on UO as a crappy Mage, CORP POR!) then moving over to EQ1 where I played there as a cleric up to lvl 68 (I think). Hopped form game to game as I got more into gaming using this name. Sometime after during my DFO days I was dubbed "Laiyenu the Bloodgaru Queen" as I thought the mob Bloodgaru's were adorable the way they latched onto you and said "Yay, Blood!" as they gave you a nasty Bleed dot while going berserk themselves. Lol. Laiyenu is always Blonde with a ponytail. Red Eyes and if possible Cat ears and tail (not all games allow such features D: )


Yup. Yay, Blood!
I'd post more artist commissions but not all of them are PG and well, there's way to many lol.

[Sunoske]

:u Character art is my addiction, I just wanted to make him as adorable imo that I could.

[Nahara]

FFXI was my first MMO and the birth of the character Nahara Ericlea, an Elvaan White Mage that hailed from Tavnazia. I put nearly a decade of work into the character, fleshing out his backstory and personality, that even after I eventually retired from XI, I wanted to keep the character. My story goes that, during one of the boss encounters that take place within the Empyreal Paradox arena, a tear in time and space opened and pulled him into the Void. Unable to get home, he travels throughout the multiverse, looking for worlds that need help and reincarnates himself within that world to be it's champion. Hydaelyn was one such world, but the reincarnation was destroyed almost completely during Bahamut's rampage. Nahara took what was left of the original reincarnation and gave it new life as N'hara Tia. Since Nahara was never able to fully crack how Hydaelyn's magic worked, he couldn't fully give N'hara white magic, and because it was incomplete when N'hara was born, casting healing magic drained him of his strength, which caused his black hair (a signature of Nahara and his reincarnations) to become discolored white. This problem eventually gets fixed when N'hara gets taught white magic proper, though his hair remains discolored.

Behind the scenes, I was fully prepared to keep the FFXIV Nahara an Elezen as I had when I first made him during 1.0. However, a couple friends of mine grew interested in XIV:ARR, and were set on creating Miqo'te characters. Eventually, I was persuaded to change Nahara from an Elezen into a Miqo'te, and I do not regret the decision in the slightest. I was never quite satisfied with the look of any Elezen character I made and the stats for Wildwood Elezen weren't exactly friendly towards White Mages (being weak in MND compared to the Sun Seeker Miqo'te).

[Fensfield]

Oh well this is a lovely idea o.o Here I'll show you Rorin':



Rorina Rokiku. As for how she was created, a friend and I decided to have a go at making Lalafell twins. Their backstory being Rorina kind of realising that a man they'd long considered an uncle and a family friend.. really wasn't a nice person at all, and electing to sneak herself and her sister out of Gridania (she manufactured an excuse about woodsin and being exiled, which her sister fell for >.>).

The process of designing them visually, though? That's.. not quite so easy. We decided we wanted to go for something a little exotic however, thus the darker skintone and the hair colour. After that there was a lot of debate over how to make them look individual and yet compliment one-another, which lead to subtle variations in hair highlights and going for a similar yet not exactly the same choice of facial structure. Eyes were another place we went for individuality (aiming to suggest Rorna's slightly more serious personality, and her sister's somewhat brighter, although the v2.0 rebuild undermined that a bit), as well as - obviously - hairstyle. Since they're both supposed to be fairly young we didn't go too high in terms of character height..

Sadly we messed up a little in choosing Gridania as our starting city. That was a fine choice back in v1.x but v2.0 presented a nice chance to play off the background and choose Limsa Lominsa, which we sadly only realised after character re-creation which we couldn't do-over lest we lose our legacy elements (not that we had a lot to lose, but there were a couple of nice event items and the Mark of the Twelve is neat).

.. Hang on I'll find a picture of her sister to stick on the bottom..


- Roruna, as changed in the v2.0 character creation. And..


- That's Roru' back during v1.x.


.. Ah heck with it, a couple more >.>

- The two together back during v1.x...


- and a drawing by Roruna's player

Gosh those are kinda big. Sorry about that! x.x

[Laiyenu]

Topic died kinda fast D:

[Enkidoh]

Well then, I better cast Raise on it.

EDIT: seeing as how everyone else is adding their characters' backstories, I'm going to do the same.

1.0 version of Enki:



Backstory:

Enkidoh d'Roux (commonly she writes her surname with the 'd' dropped from 'd'Roux'), was born Enkidoh Ninghol five years before the fall of Ala Mhigo, the city of her birth (the year 1552 of the Sixth Astral Era). Her mother, Htirea, was a Botanist who sold flowers at a stand in the city, while her father, Pryatr, was a member of the city militia, a swordsman who often had the unsatisfactory title of 'Gladiator' thrust on him despite him being a soldier who happened to favour the sword.

Both her parents were outcast members of the Seekers of the Sun clan of miqo'te, a clan rare amongst the Eorzean citystates, and even rarer in Ala Mhigo - her father was a non-breeding male (or 'tia') who challenged the tribe's 'nuhn' for the right to sire offspring... and lost. Hence, left with no alternative, he turned his back on his tribe and left to found a new one, and offered the females of the tribe the chance to make a new start.

Unfortunately, only one accepted his offer to join him, and soon, the two, left their desert home behind, abandoning the Seekers' primitive tribal society for a more urban way of life, which they found in the castle city of Ala Mhigo, and accordingly shed their ties to their former lives by adopting Ala Mhigan names. Nevertheless, they still raised their daughter reverently in their clan's traditional worship of Azeyma the Warden, the Goddess of the Sun, not entirely comfortable to convert to the traditional Ala Mhigan worship of Rhalgr the Destroyer, god of destruction, nor the 'new official faith' of Nymiea the Spinner, as decreed by the King.

When Ala Mhigo fell to the Garlean Empire, following a brief but brutal civil war which saw the tyrannical king's regime toppled, Enki's parents were lost to the fighting, and Enki fled, orphaned, afraid and alone. Drifting aimlessly she found herself amongst a ragtag group of refugees fleeing the violence before the Empire's net closed completely, preventing any further escape. After stopping at an apparently abandoned fruit cart, she took an apple from it only to be chastised angrily by the cart's owner, an Ul'dahn wildwood elezen merchant named Gill'ette d'Roux.

When the grief became too much, Enki broke down crying, and the elezen woman's heart softened, and comforted her. Realizing Enki was now orphaned and homeless, and lacking children of her own, Gill'ette decided to take the young Miqo'te under her care, and took her to live with her back in Ul'dah, raising Enki as her own daughter (hence Enki now took Gill'ette's family name of 'd'Roux', although she often spelt it without the d.) Growing up as a member of a wealthy merchant family, Enki was now safe, but saw from afar the contempt and resentment other Ala Mhigan refugees in the city experienced from the Ul'dahns, and Enki realized that she could never reveal her origins to anyone, lest she loose the family she had only just gained.

It was about that time that the Age of Adventuring began, and Enki saw the growing number of adventurers leaving the city. In particular, she took notice of the Gladiator's Guild the Colosseum, who practiced the ways of the sword, just like her father taught her. In fact, seeing the gladiators training made Enki remember her father, and mother, and soon, she begun to pine for the city of her birth. Ala Mhigo.

She knew though that getting to Ala Mhigo would not be easy, as the city was still under Garlean occupation, with access severely restricted in and out, but she also realized that an adventurer might have the best chance of gaining access. Hence, when Enki came of age on her eighteenth nameday, the now adult miqo'te revealed to her shocked adopted parents that she was going to become an adventurer, and a Gladiator at that! But however much they tried dissuading her, her mind was made up. And so, having taken two years to prepare, on her twentieth winter, she left Ul'dah behind, to make the long and gruelling trek to the north east, to Ala Mhigo. After many weeks on the road, after finding herself in the thick, impenetrable forest of the Black Shroud, she soon realized she was lost. She had to then make a life-changing decision. Should she continue on and hope for the best? Or turn around and head back the same way she came?

Of these two paths, only the Warden (and perhaps the Matron too) knew what path she was to take, a fact directed to Enki in the form of a shooting star, and another, and another. Streaking through the thick forest canopy like fiery birds. Her bright blue eyes wide with wonder at the beautiful spectacle, she hefted her pack, and followed the streaking stars, not to Ala Mhigo like she intended, but to Gridania, her destiny - a destiny that was not just hers, but that of all of Eorzea...

(Later history still to come )

Character creation:

Enkidoh Roux first had her origins in FFXI, my very first MMO - as I'd made my FFXI version of Enki as a mithra, I went with miqo'te as well (as I've always liked cats I guess I just identify with catpeople in anime/games ), and I gradually created her backstory up from the start as I played through the game. I chose Seekers of the Sun as her clan though, as I much preferred the skin tones and hair colours available for Sunseekers in 1.0 compared to the Keepers of the Moon. I've always liked red hair (even though I'm naturally brunette!) and so it was a no-brainer that both versions of Enki have red hair. I do share blue eyes and slightly pale skin with Enki though, which is about the only similarities I have with her.

As I've long loved the WHM Job in earlier FF games, I originally chose WHM as my starting Job in FFXI, although when I first started FFXIV 1.0, I decided to do something different, and thus I started as GLA, remembering how hard it was to solo as WHM in FFXI. Ever since, I've just loved playing as GLA, and have since made it Enki's main, and developed her storyline around it accordingly.

As for her name though, 'Enkidoh' is a name I've long used as a handle in multiple games/websites (I originally chose it at random for a account name for eBay out of an old EGM issue with a FFV guide - it was how SE's original English language translation of FFV translated 'Enkidu' in the game), and Enki's surname, Roux, is my partner's character's surname as well - I didn't even need to think to chose the same name when I created Enki.

I've done quite a bit of art of both versions of Enki (FFXI and XIV), which if you forgive my chocobo-scratching I call art, does capture their personalities rather well, I hope:

My character with my partner's character (Enki is the one on the right ).

[mharici]

Keep them coming! It's so interesting hearing everyone's stories ^^

I bought a time card so everything is sweet now! Looks like my long weekend won't go completely to waste! P.S Please don't expect too much from my doodles, just killing time and I'm not too good. Also sorry for the guys, I'm particularly not so good with male characters

Anyway, batch one of doodlies...(feel free to adjust brightness and saturation yourself!)

Reokudo: that art is just... so beautiful ;_;

EVERYTHING I TOUCH TURNS FLUFFY AND CUTE IM SORRRRY



Laiyenu: aw I love the history with your character. I drew her according to her appearance in xiv though!



Sunoske: I love character art too! Even if it is just a doodle, there's just that something awesome about seeing somebody else draw/interpret your character.



Nahara: Miqo'tes are awesome so good choice

I'll be back with your doodle in a bit, Fensfield's characters were so cute I needed to draw them ASAP ;_;

Fensfield: That's awesome, making a pair of twin characters with your friend.

Ah, just realised it the pic turned out a bit blurry. When I have some more time, I might install photoshop so I can just sketch there instead of with a pen and taking a photo of..

[SolviteSekai]

What a creative way to constructively let everyone know how mad you are that you can't play.

10/10