The pinecone faces for the male and female remind me of Pikmin, and they’re adorable once you come to terms with the conspicuous lack of nose. At first, I didn’t like them at all. I really had to remind myself that they’re not human and don’t need noses, but once I was able to do that, I truly came to appreciate the design choice. When I sketch something (I’m an awful artist), I can’t even work up the courage to post it online anonymously, much less stamp my name on it and submit it for everyone to use. I don’t like destructive criticism, and I get discouraged easily. Kristen Perry had to know that the initial reaction would be one of shock and slight disgust. Seeing a face without a nose is fairly unnerving to begin with. He-who-shall-not-be-named (Just kidding. I can say Voldemort) was designed that way specifically to provoke that reaction, after all. Releasing the faces, knowing for sure that there would be potential backlash and hatred, is a sort of artistic bravery that I can really appreciate.
As for the noseless male with the scars, I’m in love. Again, when I saw this on Dulfy’s coverage, I rolled my eyes, laughed, and gawked at how ridiculous it looked. I thought, “No one is going to pick that face for anything but a laugh.” Days later, I’m using my free Makeover Kit to “fix” my Sylvari.
This new face addresses something that has long since bothered me about the Sylvari: There are very few masculine faces. The most masculine one (in my opinion only, I am not stating this as fact) is the one with the goatee, but he has features that don’t really appeal to me. The only other two I was interested in were the skull-like one used on the default Necromancer, and the one covered in layered bark (You know the one). In general, I felt overwhelmed by femininity when I wanted to make a masculine mesmer.
Now hear me out. I’m not saying anything disparaging about feminine men. I’m not the most masculine man myself, but I typically make masculine male characters only because that’s what I like to play. The Sylvari, even the males, are designed to be beautiful, and I appreciate that. In fact, when I set out to make my first Sylvari mesmer, I went ahead and accepted that Sylvari males were okay with femininity and I embraced the idea once I realized that making a masculine Sylvari mesmer would be a huge challenge. I made him incredibly flamboyant. He was thin, periwinkle, and I dyed his gear the most feminine and extravagant colors I could find. I thought it would be kind of cool, progressive, and unique to not be hindered by the idea of masculinity. …And then I ran into hundreds of feminine male Sylvari. It seemed like this was either the trend, or it was just very difficult to make a masculine Sylvari. I took that as a challenge. The end result was a black Sylvari with a hot-pink glow and the bark face. Little did I know that I had subconsciously internalized the concept from this brilliant piece of art that I had stumbled across and soon forgot about. (I did the same thing with my main, a Charr Ele, and now I’m struggling to redesign him… But that’s another story about Charr in light armor).
So, maybe this is horribly hipster-esque of me, but it made me uncomfortable to be using the same look as someone else. When I came across the picture many weeks after “creating” my new look, I felt like I had unintentionally plagiarized. I stopped playing my Mesmer and focused on other characters. That is, until the new faces were released.
I opened my Makeover Kit just to have a look and play around with the noseless faces, which I thought were completely ridiculous and impractical. I wondered what my Mesmer would look like with no nose, so I swapped the face… and fell in love. After an embarrassingly long time with a color wheel, I finally created exactly what I was looking for.
Below is the result of my work. I’ve always wanted to have a masculine Sylvari with a tri-color scheme centered around purple, and I feel like I succeeded. I’m nervous to get feedback on it, but I want to convince people to have an open mind about these noseless faces. I have never been so satisfied with a character’s look, and I feel like this face is exactly what I was looking for in a Sylvari character.
Thank you for reading, and thank you especially to Kristen Perry for the design choice.
tl;dr Read the title.
