7marichan7
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 had been eyeing FFXIV for some years, above all at Dissidia NT and Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia as well as for official renders and fanarts I sometimes came across, though it wasn’t until June 2021 I joined the game officially with my friends.
Back then, I wasn’t new to fanarts or merchandise of a fandom, as I previously have done them for other Final Fantasy titles and IPs, however, I was reborn as an artist in many ways thanks to XIV. The world, characters, story… Everything instantly charmed me. I first started with only fanarts and lore building. For merchandise, it wasn’t until March 2022 I took the step to create my current Etsy for, initially, selling prints with merch leftovers from a Con back in 2017, then I created the very first XIV Scions charms in April that were updated during February 2023.
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?
Something I got told multiple times was that my style was easy to print on paper and other mediums. Comparing my illustrations to the art I create for the merchandise, I simplify the latter to one layer of shadows, one layer of highlights and an additional layer of highlights above lineart, noticeable on my XIV Heart badges, XIV Photocards, Dissidia Star Badges, among others.
As for what people could take away from my work: the answer that comes to mind is a moment of respite. I’m grateful to everyone who stops by and invests time on interacting with my art in any way, much more if I was able to lift their spirit.
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?
For illustrations: I’d say the 2023 London FanFest art contest. I spent three whole days and nights working on it, and I wasn’t expecting at all to end as a finalist alongside other wonderful and talented artists. It was a complete head-scratcher, but worth it in the end.
Merchandise: I’m proud of my Estinien plush doll, since plush dolls are one of my favourite merchandise items to collect. The process was both challenging and fun!
What is a future project you hope to pursue, whether in fandom spaces or in your personal work?
I’d love to expand my plush doll collection. I have recently uploaded some concepts for projects I, eventually, want to continue and make them come to life.
As new projects, I want to print fanbooks with merchandise bundles. I’m still a newbie to this field, I’d highly appreciate feedback and advice for the matter.
I plan to slowly get back into 2D animations, as I used to do years ago, even if they’re just sketches.
Your art bursts with energy – bold outlines, bright and saturated colors, blown-out highlights and deep shadows. Has your style always had these qualities, or was it something you found after drawing for some time that resonated with you?
My style always had bold lineart and saturated colors, though it wasn’t quite there until I tried brushes with different shapes. Everything suddenly clicked back in April 2021.
I wasn’t quite there yet, but I was headed to something, and it was thanks to merchandise design I could understand what it was: my lineart was bold but not polished enough, and same went for my shadows and highlights. I decided to revisit some artists I had admired since childhood, like e09etm (deviantART, inactive), Kylee Henke and Yuji Uekawa.
This helped me to achieve the style I have today. There’s a lot of room for improvement, so I’ll keep walking to the end and beyond.
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fuzzyren
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 learned about the Final Fantasy series from my younger brother, who started playing back in 2010s with FF6 and FF4 being my first proper exposure to the series, though I first caught interest of FFXIV when I saw my ex-friend playing it with their friends back in 2018. I didn’t start playing myself until March 2019, but after falling out with the ex-friend in early 2020 (before COVID), I went on a hiatus. I stopped at halfway through base 4.0 MSQ.
Following that, I had multiple hiatuses due to entering uni right after the first major lockdown in my country. I only managed to continue the rest of the story when Endwalker dropped in late 2021, and fully caught up on MSQ in 2022 (back then 6.1 is the latest patch).
I got interested in drawing stuff and making merch for FFXIV because I want to tell my characters’ story and show my love for the game itself.
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?
My art style is a blend of anime/western cartoon influence, so it’s kinda different compared to most FFXIV artists I’ve seen. I want my art to have a mix of cute and whimsical, with emphasis on expressiveness and vibrant colours.
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?
For me, these three pieces are the ones I’m very proud of the most. They’re from 2023-2024 but I still liked how it turned out.
This one is perhaps my most popular FFXIV pieces – on Twitter, at least. It was actually a speedpaint doodle + study of one of the Coils of Bahamut raids key visual but somehow it went viral.
For this one, this piece was made to celebrate myself beating Endwalker on my JP alt account. I personally still like this one because it fits how I exactly imagined it in my head.
As for this one, this was from 2024 last year to mark the release of Dawntrail. I still like this one because I like drawing summer themed pieces.
What is a future project you hope to pursue, whether in fandom spaces or in your personal work?
I want to get back to working on my original visual novel project, SEVERED, which I made initially as a prototype for my uni’s final year project.
Apart from that I want to continue working on my FFXIV WoL site, which you can check here, as well as working on my WoL zine. I’ve been going on and off these projects due to IRL commitments (*cough cough* work) and also currently being into another FF (FF10, if anyone asked XD).
XIV players tend to be an enthusiastic group when it comes to supporting artists, and many creators in the fandom focus their work very heavily on XIV. You draw within a wide variety of fandoms along FFXIV, however. Do you sometimes feel the pull to focus all your time and energy on creating for a single fandom to build that support more quickly? Or is being a “jack of many trades,” as it were, much more appealing to you for how and what you create?
I’m a multifandom artist, first and foremost, so being the jack of all trades is very important to me when it comes to art. I want to be able to cater to more than just FFXIV with my art style.
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