Guild Wars 2

The Sylvari branch hairstyle has this in the middle. This image is driving several people nuts. What is it supposed to be? A cow? A Charr with a crown? A human in front of a throne?

Can someone help us with this, please?

To me it just looks like a “Tree Callus”. Pretty impressive that the designers of the style took that behavior into account. Most sylvari are born from pods, apparently, so treating them as if they were born on limbs of a tree and were ‘trimmed from the trunk’, so to speak, is quite interesting lore-wise.

When a tree is wounded, the injured tissue is not repaired and does not heal. Trees do not heal; they seal. If you look at an old wound, you will notice that it does not “heal” from the inside out, but eventually the tree covers the opening by forming specialized “callus” tissue around the edges of the wound. After wounding, new wood growing around the wound forms a protective boundary preventing the infection or decay from spreading into the new tissue. Thus, the tree responds to the injury by “compartmentalizing” or isolating the older, injured tissue with the gradual growth of new, healthy tissue.

Google “tree callus” for more pics of this behavior in nature.

Tree/branch stumps often produce new growth around the stump, which would be the branches growing out from around the stump in the ‘hair’ style.

I have thought of that. But other styles of hair do not have it. And the center of it is decidedly some kind of design. Most tree callouses are cut marks or smooth inside. The image inside it is what we are really curious about.

Also, most plants that deliberately release part of themselves do not form callouses. It is meant to separate there, so no more growth happens at those points.

The image is just another mirror image of the tree callus. It’s half a callus with it’s mirror image.

one of the ear options is also a tree callus.

You’re seeing an ‘image’ where there is not one, it’s a common phenomena. It’s just a random tree-texture. It is not a Charr or anything else…

FlamingFoxx.1305:

You’re seeing an ‘image’ where there is not one, it’s a common phenomena. It’s just a random tree-texture. It is not a Charr or anything else…

Yep, it is called pareidolia. Looking for imagery in this sylvari’s head is like seeing a face in your morning toast. The human mind is great at seeing patterns and recognizing faces — sometimes too good, and we see thing that aren’t there.

Notice that the design is symmetrical. Almost any time you see a symmetrical texture in a video game, it’s basically a sign of the designers finding a clever way to save time / resources while rendering in-game graphics. Happens all the time.