Your Character; a projection, a fantasy or something random?

[jose123911]

Hey guys! So I've always been curious on what goes on the thought processes of when people create their characters. I'm more so leaning towards the visual aspect of this discussion.

When you make your character; do you base it off your appearance IRL, a fantasy, or just something random you want to create.

I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts

[Shamo_Lomenzo]

I just try to make something that appeals to me, whose characteristics aren't too unrealistic. For example no bright green hair and dark red eyes. I don't like picking what I feel like are "special snowflake" options such as scars or heterochromatic eyes. I guess someone who can blend in to the crowd but still may catch your eye in the right light.

... I THINK MY CHARACTER IS PERF OKAY AND I'M NEVER CHANGING HIM

[Ashkendor]

I just try to make something that appeals to me, whose characteristics aren't too unrealistic. For example no bright green hair and dark red eyes. I don't like picking what I feel like are "special snowflake" options such as scars or heterochromatic eyes. I guess someone who can blend in to the crowd but still may catch your eye in the right light.

... I THINK MY CHARACTER IS PERF OKAY AND I'M NEVER CHANGING HIM

I'm kind of in this camp. I never liked how heterochromia looked on my character, even as a Miqo'te. My character has always had pale green eyes because they were eerily catlike and sort of glowed in low light. I went through quite a few hair colors before I eventually settled on a reddish brown with orange-ish highlights, which I stuck with through a gender change and a race change. Now my character's hair is bright red and he still has green eyes (the limbal rings really make them glowy, too!). It's just enough "special snowflake" for me without being too out there. Compared to some characters I've seen he's fairly plain, but I like how he looks. I've actually tried several times to give him a new haircut or hair color and I just never like how it comes out.

As a Miqo'te, I went for a kind of feral look even as a female; I wasn't interested in being cute, though she still managed to be that anyway because catgirls just are. Now as an Au Ra, I purposely chose sharp features and an aquiline nose (seriously, if you see it in profile his nose is freaking huge), along with doing my best to not make him appear permanently annoyed. He also has the gruffest voice possible, to create as much contrast as I could between him and the female Miqo'te he used to be. :3

I guess it's pretty much random. When I saw Au Ra, I knew I had to change to one. I tinkered with the benchmark character creator for days trying to make something I liked and still ended up using something different from what I'd originally planned to use. xD

[ZephyrMenodora]

My character is a combination of my two kittens, Zephyr and Selene. Zephyr got FIP and died at 5 months old and I was devastated, so I rushed and adopted his sister who no one had adopted yet. Selene is gray and zephyr was white, so I stayed in that theme. This character is a tribute to him as I had no idea I could fall so much in love with a pet in such a small amount of time.

In most MMOs I play a romanticized version of myself, unless I make a female character in an attempt to get free items. Lol.

[AskaRay]

I definitely find my character attractive. And I only started playing because catboys were an option (since they weren't in FFXI I didn't play it).
Also everyone seemed to have crazy whitewashed kitties and it's like? the dark tones are so nice guys, cmon.

Yeah....that's about it

[Kaelah]

Also everyone seemed to have crazy whitewashed kitties and it's like? the dark tones are so nice guys, cmon.

Pretty much this. I just spent a few hours making a character I liked, I like green eyes so went with green. I was gonna go for purple hair as it's my favorite colour but I decided I wanted a more natural looking colour so went with red/brown. Added blonde highlights as my own hair in real life is highlighted blonde. My character started out pale skinned. She was like this in Beta (left), then changed to the right at launch when they allowed us to recustomise:



I changed the heterochromia because it was really common, and noticed as the quote above, whitewashed kitties everywhere. So I tanned up due to my special snowflake syndrome.
The red tattoo? I dunno. I thought it was cute, chose red as it went well with the skin tone and it suited the white/red WHM robes. The face I chose was just because I liked the stripe markings. Eyes etc are just what is attractive to me I guess. Character doesn't look like me at all except the fact I have green eyes (though not as nuclear green lol) and blonde highlights.

[Krissey]

I changed the heterochromia because it was really common, and noticed as the quote above, whitewashed kitties everywhere. So I tanned up due to my special snowflake syndrome.
The red tattoo? I dunno. I thought it was cute, chose red as it went well with the skin tone and it suited the white/red WHM robes. The face I chose was just because I liked the stripe markings. Eyes etc are just what is attractive to me I guess. Character doesn't look like me at all except the fact I have green eyes (though not as nuclear green lol) and blonde highlights.

-sidles on up to you- Well hello there short dark and beautiful. <3 I like the changes you made

[Kaelah]

-sidles on up to you- Well hello there short dark and beautiful. <3 I like the changes you made

xD Teehee~ Thankoo. <3

[Uhm]

A fanasy image of my real life looks? Yes I wish I was a 2m something guy with horns instead of ears... or a cat boy.
No actually that's not it, I have an over all idea of what I want to make, I see the character as it's own "being" without any real connection to me as a person. That's also why I would never change my characers looks in a major way and rather make multiple characters (only change I would make is when they decide to make faces and horns seperate).
I do make them in a way that I think is attractive.

[Khalithar]

My character has an identical appearance to my Elvaan from FFXI (or as close as I could possibly get), I chose that design in FFXI because it was the only Elvaan that looked good and I chose Elvaan because after doing some research about the game, the kingdom of San D'oria and it's inhabitants appealed to me the most. So I chose the character for lore/story reasons and the appearance because it was the only one that looked good.