Chaobu
Tell me a bit about your history playing XIV! What pulled you in, and what inspired you to start creating art and merch for it?
I started playing in December 2021 because my brother recommended it to me (bless him for carrying my sprout/MMO newbie self through ARR while fighting the login queue and trying to get through Endwalker at the same time). The moment that fully pulled me in was the Final Steps of Faith trial, and I’ve been obsessed with my WoLs and the world of FFXIV ever since. And, when I get obsessed with something, I get ideas that I have to draw or I will explode (especially my WoLs! If I don’t make art of them, who will???).
How does your personal creative outlook or style influence the merchandise and art you create (XIV or otherwise)? What do you hope people take away or feel from your work?
In general, I lean towards drawing things that make me happy, and my style definitely reflects that! “Things that make me happy” typically ends up being cute little creatures like the carbuncles or minions from FFXIV. Or, in other cases, it’s “things that I find cute and endearing that most people probably don’t find cute, but I have trouble communicating their cuteness convincingly through words so I’ll use art as a medium instead” like real-world reptiles and amphibians or the Shadowkeeper from FFXIV.
My merch is pretty self-indulgent, since it’s often things I really want to have in real life (and also things that I don’t mind having a few dozen of just in case I happen to be the only person that enjoys that particular design haha). I’d say my overall philosophy for making FFXIV merch has been similar to my philosophy for making merch in general: I really like being able to hold my art and the subject I draw as a physical object that can be displayed or carried around easily, and I want to share that joy with others!
How has your art developed over the time you have been a fan artist? Has creating fan art pushed you to explore new creative skills that you might not have otherwise?
Of the fandoms I’ve been in, FFXIV has definitely pushed me to grow the most artistically. I’m an artist of little creatures and little creatures are what I’m most comfortable drawing, so I didn’t draw people often. But, now that I’m obsessed with my WoL and really want to draw him and the other OCs I’ve made up for FFXIV, I’ve been drawing people more and I think I’m (slowly) getting better at it! I’ve also been trying my hand at writing and communicating small narratives with my FFXIV characters. Yes, I like drawing them being happy, but I have discovered that I also like putting them through the wringer. 🙂
Is there a piece of art you’ve created that you are especially proud of – for example, a piece that pushed or “leveled up” your skills, or one that was particularly popular, or perhaps something that came out exactly as you had imagined it?
This question ties into another incident where FFXIV got me to draw things I don’t normally draw: the Soul Crystal tea stickers. I don’t like drawing rocks or crystals, and I really don’t like drawing plants, but the idea got into my head because my tea shelf needed organizing. I could not let the idea go. Every time I looked at my tea shelf in the morning, the idea was fresh in my mind again. I had to draw this or explode trying.
I’m really happy with how they turned out, and I get a little confidence boost thinking back to them when I try to draw something outside of my normal repertoire or that pushes my skills!
What is a future project you hope to pursue, whether in fandom spaces or in your personal work?
I really want to draw more narrative-focused art and comics with my characters! Seeing other artists’ takes on the story beats and world of FFXIV is always such a delight, and I want to throw my characters into the ring, too!
Across your catalogue of pins, stickers, and charms, you have a distinct and immediately recognizable style—from the shape and design of the character, to the colors of the piece itself—that is consistent from one to the other, even if the items are from different fandoms or not from a fandom at all. Can you pinpoint a particular moment when you felt you had really “locked in” your style, so to speak?
Funny you should ask that! If you asked me a year ago, I would have said, “Yeah! I’ve really locked in my style!” and been able to give a vague answer of when I settled on using the style I use for most of the art I post online (around 2020 or so while I was stressed out and drawing like crazy to cope).
But, I’ve been experimenting with the way I create lately! The cool art I see in the FFXIV community and manga that I’ve been reading recently has been such an inspiration (I see art so beautiful and resonating that I want to incorporate every pixel directly into my atoms by studying it). I’m at a point where there is a style I’m very comfortable using, but I’m also experimenting with it. So, I can see my “regular” style I use for merch changing in the future. I have no idea how it’ll change, but it’ll change in some way and that’s very exciting!
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Cookie
Tell me a bit about your history playing XIV! What pulled you in, and what inspired you to start creating art and merch for it?
Oh so my history with FFXIV is a two-parter! One of my IRL friends who had played FFXI told me about the beta for A Realm Reborn. I watched her play for a bit and was hooked. I had never played an MMO before and I loved the idea of making a cute cat girl! I played with her and another friend until Crystal Tower. Sadly she and our other friend stopped playing and I ended up stopping, too. A few years later I found a Twitch show called Critical Role and fell in love with it. It was on the Geek and Sundry channel and one of the other shows they had was called Crowd Control, and one of the Critical Role members was on that and they just so happened to be playing FFXIV. They made an FC (that was pretty much just abandoned by the channel), I joined it, and am still in it to this day.
[The FC] is VERY small now with a group of close friends. But I have been playing ever since and it has become a big part of my life. It has brought into my left some of my best friends and the love of my life. I love the characters and story and because of that when I started to learn how to do digital art after I got my first iPad in 2020, one of my first drawings was my Bunbun girl. The merch side came from one of my friends pushing me to apply for artist alley at our local anime convention for the summer of 2023. When I got in I decided I want to make merch of things I knew and loved so I could gush over it with my customers, and so making FFXIV-inspired merch just came naturally.
How does your personal creative outlook or style influence the merchandise and art you create (XIV or otherwise)? What do you hope people take away or feel from your work?
I like to tell my friends “I just wanna draw pretty things” – you will see A LOT of my art is pretty girls, lol. A good portion of my merch that I make revolves around me going, “I want to make this for me, I hope other people will like this, too.” That doesn’t always work out in my favor. But what I make makes me feel happy and I hope it does the same for others.
How has your art developed over the time you have been a fan artist? Has creating fan art pushed you to explore new creative skills that you might not have otherwise?
Oh yeah, I started diving hard into other artists for inspiration and different drawing techniques, joined an artist alley Discord, and even have a dedicated night with an artist friend and we get in a Discord call and just do art that night after work. We work on merch, commissions, and personal art. Share tips and trick and techniques we find.
Is there a piece of art you’ve created that you are especially proud of – for example, a piece that pushed or “leveled up” your skills, or one that was particularly popular, or perhaps something that came out exactly as you had imagined it?
So there’s this one I made of Hatsune Miku [that] I did like two years ago that TODAY I still love. I don’t know what it is but I love how it was rendered and sadly I haven’t been able to render quite the same again… yet.
What is a future project you hope to pursue, whether in fandom spaces or in your personal work?
Another love of mine and HUGE inspiration to me is Sailor Moon. My hope is to draw all of the sailor scouts by the end of 2025. I also plan to start applying to more artist alleys in 2026, so I have quite a few new merch items in queue (bunch of those being FFXIV-related).
When you are working on a personal commission, what are your favorite sources of inspiration for bringing your client’s character to life? Do you like character mood boards, music, the character’s backstory, etc.?
Oh, when I am doing character commissions I like to ask them about their character’s personality. That way I can match the pose and facial expression to that personality. I also always love a good mood board or a backstory if they have it. The more details the better!
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