#i'm on the fence abt whether to add these silhouettes to the bio page in the pinned post

[chaoticspacefam]

Elven Rambles About Character Builds

So! As we know, SWTOR’s body types (especially for the women) are sorely lacking in proper variety in-game. It’s something that’s always bothered me, and I have specific images in my head for how I imagine each of my main girls to look in terms of their figure. But the problem is, for all of them, none of the in-game body presets that are available come close to their actual builds, I’ve just had to settle for “eh, I guess this is as close as I’m gonna get, whatever”

I’m putting the rest under a cut because it gets quite long, I do talk a little bit about the slavery plot point of the Inquisitor storyline so that’s something to be aware of before proceeding, but it’s mostly just a lot of me rambling about my dumb space children so be prepared for a lot of reading, I guess (there’s pictures too tho!) haha

Aria is certainly the “worst” for this, because while she has a “baby” face, her torso is a lot chunkier, and most importantly, she’s short, ya girl’s 5 ft 1 for God’s sakes! I don’t know if it’s just my eyes, but to me, BT2 looks the “shortest”, so even though BT4 is probably the “closest” I can get in game to her overall structure, it’s too tall for her. So, I’ve ended up having to “settle” for BT2 even though it makes her look way too slender, really. (honest to God, can we have someone on character design that doesn’t insist on every woman having a perfect hourglass figure because “they have to be that way or they’re not attractive”, PLEASE Bioware! Bigger, round or square, or pear-shaped or whatever, ladies, can still be beautiful too!)

And let’s not mention that there’s such a vast difference in all the different male body type options (look at male BT2 and male BT3 for instance) And yet for the ladies, the differences are so subtle that I honestly have to squint to see them (and yes, I have kinda crappy eyesight but it should be more easily noticeable, if you can do it for the men you can do it for the women, you fucking cowards) because that’s a whole other rant. ANYWAY

SO, Ela shared the link to this site in our wonderful SWTOR content creator discord that I’m resident in and of course my brain went “wait a minute, I can use this”

So I did. It’s certainly not perfect but it’s good enough to give a much closer representation of how I imagine their builds/shapes to look. As mentioned I have a general idea of how I want them to be shaped in my head, but it helps to have a visual reminder when I’m trying to draw them, so now I have been making these silhouettes to add to their (new) ref sheets when I get round to em

This is more along the lines of how I imagine Ari to look. She’s smol, and very square-shaped, with a fair bit of fat on her lower half especially (it all goes to her hips, I feel ya girl XD) So, I reiterate again, BT4 would be “correct” enough in terms of the pudge and the general shape, but it’s way too tall-looking in all the cutscenes I tried it in. So, BT2 was what I “settled” with, but this is the sort of build she should have.

and then in-game, Vano, Ni’kasi & Saarai are all BT3, because it’s the only “tall” option, but there’s a big problem with this because as the only option, it means your character has to be “tall and perfectly hourglass” which is....not the case really for any of them. There’s literally no options to have a “tall/big” lady but also have a different build or muscle structure and it frustrates me to no end, because even though they’re very close in height, their body types couldn’t be more different.

Exhibit A, the twins, put side-by-side to really show the difference between them:

Saarai is a 6 ft 3 wall of pure muscle, she’s a literal tank & even though she’s fit, she’s very “broad” in stance & stature, she does have a sort of hourglass dip on her hips but it’s very subtle because she’s just that muscly (thanks dad, she’s definitely your kid pfpfpfpf) Ni’kasi, on the other hand? She’s only 6ft, she took more after mom than dad height-wise, and there’s no way for me to show it easily on this silhouette (I’m working on other stuff & don’t have time to make an edit in Sketchbook just for this post), but she actually did get Kissai’s broad shoulders...the problem is, that unlike Saarai, Ni’kasi hasn’t had a steady, healthy diet after she got turfed down the social ladder into the slave pits. Poor diet (and a shortage of enough food, too, they had to keep her in line & stop her escaping somehow, obvious solution: “make sure she’s too weak to even think about it”) means she’s a lot skinnier and more “twiggy” than her twin. She’s not grossly underweight anymore, obviously the Overseers and Zash had to make sure she was fed up properly to gain enough strength to be able to train & then run around the galaxy killing things at Zash’s bidding, BUT because of the malnourishment she suffered at that point in her life, she’s never going to get as much muscle as Saarai did and even though she’s a healthier weight now, she’s still slender. She has more of an hourglass than her twin, but her hips are much narrower than her shoulders, so it’s not as prominent (and even this silhouette has too much of an hourglass for her as is, but as I mentioned earlier, don’t have time to make the edit myself rn, will do it later XD)

And finally, Exhibit B, Vano:

Now, I would argue Vano would be the closest of the three to being pretty much BT3. But note “the closest”, not “exact”. Why? Vano’s 6 ft 2, so she’s only an inch shorter than Rai, but their builds are very different. Saarai’s a beefcake, but Vano’s a Mirialan, so she’s got muscle, but she’s lean and tall. Vano here is about 80% or so legs and 20% the rest of her body, she’s got legs for daaayss and that’s what gives her the height, but apart from a six pack, you won’t actually see most of her muscle, whereas Saarai could flex with her guns out and you’d totally notice.

This got very long, so if you made it all the way to the end of this post of me blabbing about how I wish the body types had more variety & why I want that for my girls, I appreciate you very much, have a cookie! 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪  < take one and pass it on as they say ;) hahaha