#i was thinking of a design for a robe

[cfserkgk]

I'm quite into these kinds of academic robes, I think they look cool. Here's the siblings in robes despite them canonically being in ancient China.

[dollopheadedmerlin]

I actually love how ugly Merlin's outfit is in Merlin. BEFORE YOU YELL AT ME - I love his outfit, I think it's fun, but when you look at every other character, even other peasants, he literally is wearing ill fitting rags. Everything is too big on him (despite being like six foot but whatever) and his silhouette reeks of boring character design.

But like!! Yeah!! He is just Some Guy. I love how they never give him som epic mage robes or a cool outfit for more than thirty seconds. He is unassuming. He's over here, commanding dragons and controlling the weather in the medieval equivalent of stained sweatpants and a night shirt. It's great.

[hinamie]

round 2 of prelim designs for @philosophiums n my lovechild of an au

first year trio

[crystal-verse]

personal opinion but i think the exarch's robes and that entire outfit is one of my favorite ever g'raha outfits. just, the sheer amount of billowy draping fabric, the color combination, the little gold accents, the way it adds to his ethereal kind of vibe -- it's really really great and i'm still kind of sad that g'raha's endwalker outfit doesn't really capture that same sort of billowyness.

like look at this!!

look at the atmosphere you get from those robes billowing about!!!! i know the in-game model wouldn't be able to capture it but still!!! what we could have had!!

EDIT: this got way more notes than I expected but friendly reminder that we appreciate all versions of g'raha on this blog, so please don't say anything mean about g'raha's other designs in the notes please and thank you. i really like his endwalker outfit even if it isn't my favorite like the Exarch's robes are.

[notsolonedesert]

I think ur art tastes like strawberry cheesecake at a sunny afternoon like when the sky is purple and pink, luv u pooks

Omg that is the cutest (and tastiest) description ever, thank you so much, I'm IN LOVE with your art style and you're so so kind!!! 🥹🫶✨

It's very old, but take this drawing of one the first concepts I had for Ctimene and Penelope's designs!

Must have been from 4 months ago :'D

[maareyas]

In Pursuit of Absolution

Your name is Silver, and you are a cleric. Your journey begins in the frigid outskirts of the Winterlands. After an encounter with infernal magic, you were accused of witchcraft and banished from the only home you've ever known. "I...I will fix this. I have to...!" Alone with your grief, you set off on a journey to rid yourself of your curse...and hopefully be accepted back home.

I'm giving the hedgehog catholic guilt :] As always, Silver is Going Through It in the octopath au. He has the most lore and plot thus far!!

no border version and closeups under the cut:

[sameboot]

your friendly neighborhood wizard! (and their terrible secret)

[ultimadmt]

magolor, the interdimensional yapper

here is my

magolor gijinka!!

i love funny egg so heres my take on the design :3 💙 i also think hes almost as short as kirby and insecure about it (hes loser coded)

[ganondoodle]

you know im unable to shut up when i have any opinion on zelda (though i try and have thus far succeeded at not commenting on any other concept from the darn book)- i find most totk ganondorf concept art worse than what we got to insulting even (of those i have seen) ..... this one though

much more the one in the background than the one up front, still at least he has the collar and the weapon we saw in the first trailer of things that never happen in the end (like so much else)

[aetherean-alchemist]

Eepy + sick late night Holywater duo doodlies/designs I drew the other day (⁠✷⁠‿⁠✷⁠)

Apologies for the messiness lmao- I've been a bit demotivated in the digital department, so I've been drawing in my sketchbook a lot. Honestly, it has been pretty fun, so I figured I could share these sketches (⁠・⁠∀⁠・⁠)

[rhiangalaxy]

Working on my Binghe designs! (Some design notes under the cut :p)

Edit: Had to reupload the image because I forgot his demon mark 😭

[ID: A Scum Villain Drawing. There are three half body shots of Luo Binghe in books 2-3, book 4 to post-canon and Luo Bingge. The left most Binghe from books 2-3 wears a tired, upset expression with less fluffy hair and primarily red and black clothing. The middle Binghe from book 4 and post-canon is wearing a remarkably happier and lovestruck expression, with much fluffier and curly hair. He is wearing a green hair ribbon around his throat, green jade earrings and light green inner robes. His outer robes are dark grey and red. Bingge is wearing an angered expression. His hair is noticeably straighter and has a small braid on the left side. He is wearing black and dark red robes. End ID]

[ID: Notes from the illustration above. In the book 2-3 version there are notes stating that his hair piece is from Huan Hua, and that his hair is less fluffy with the quote 'what no shizun does to a mf'. The second Binghe has notes that his side braids are done by Shen Qingqiu and that the hair ribbon around his neck was given to him by SQQ during his disciple days. The notes about Bingge state that the braid is from the Bingmei vs. Bingge Extra and that his hair is straightened. End ID] 

[tbgkaru-woh]

The Golden Boy of Lanling Jin

[gh0st-b0und]

i also love this gay ass little worm imo,, he should get to be a silly little centaur

[squigglyshroom]

sad boy hours once again

[holyghostflo]

what a goofy lil' goober (he's committed various war crimes)

[liketheinferno2]

These aren't full ref sheets but I was trying to take some clear pictures of Hephaistos for later art reasons and then got side tracked doing all of the Pandaemonium bosses so here they are in order. Also for anyone following who doesn't play FFXIV and knows it as the catgirl game, enjoy this instead? VISUAL SPOILERS obviously.

Asphodelos

Warder of the Condemned: Erichthonios

Mythic Creation: The Hippokampos

Mythic Creation: The Phoinix

(+ familiars)

Hemitheos: Hesperos

(+ sexy fanfic redesign by Nemjiji)

To be brutally honest I never really liked either of these designs compared to every other Hemitheos we get, I think the really brutal black and red of the Phoinix is weakened by gold accents, but I still am always down for gay vampire surf rock. The Savage version kind of looks like Ultimalius as well if you've played XVI.

Abyssos

Mythic Creation: Proto-Carbuncle

Hrgrhhgrhrgrh

Hemitheos: Hegemone

^ My favourite detail on this is you can see the parasite's outlines in her robes and in her legs, then right through the eye holes on the mask to wrap around the torso. I'm convinced this version of Hegemone is functionally an ant being piloted by a cordyceps infection.

Hemitheos: Agdistis

She's very big

Perfect Imperfection: Hephaistos

I'm probably biased by Abyssos being the first raid I was there for day of release but these really are all fantastic. It's also when the story abandons all pretense of not being (at least partly) about family abuse and is loudly using the body horror and shackle motifs to talk about that. It's great. Hephaistos specifically is constantly bulging and twisting in and out of different forms like a highly unstable chimera and the more I look at these the more I notice parts that just should not be there. He's giving everything.

As for the Savage design It's a hard thing to rate as such but my favourite part is the veins that grow down from the eyeholes in his mask like bloody tears.

Thanks Abyssos I love you

Anabaseios

Mythic Creation: Kokytos

Dæmoniac Dungeon: Pandæmonium

It's really hard to communicate how huge this nasty tumor crab I zoomed out as far as physically possible in the game engine and subsequently ended up at a goofy angle staring up his nose.

Ephemeral Justice: Themis

Best boy. The double ended lance and second pair of arms are fantastic for this character.

Theos: Athena

In.. almost every final fantasy adventure you're fighting the real villain not at the very end but a little beforehand, the big iconic end boss is often more a metaphorical figure representing everything wrong with that first person's ideals. Athena cut out the middle man and became her own JENOVA.

I do like the moth angel, especially the hollow body full of dubious orbs, but with her eyes closed all the time it gives off the impression of this not even being the true body but some kind of anglerfish lure in the shape of a fairy... which might be true because this exists:

I really really love her twitchy anemone feelers and how the moth body ends up grafted to the rest of it waist down.

Anyway there's the gang I did not specifically intend for this to be design reviews I just wanted to have clear photos because when you actually see them in game there's other things to focus on. In hindsight I can appreciate more the theming of each tier and then the series as a whole, but my only (extremely obvious) observation for now is that every character Athena had a personal hold over is decorated in chains somehow and so I should have seen the Hegemone thing coming lmao. Heph and Aggy are still my favourites I don't think that's changing any time soon. I'm also noticing that Anabaseios is now just old enough for random DF parties to fuck up severely and I find that fun so I'm going to go fight the crab mansion now.