Erie Craft Collective
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?
Saishi: I started playing FFXIV in February of 2014, about 6 months after ARR released. I had friends that had been trying to get me to play since 1.0 but I was already playing another paid MMO and didn’t want to pay for two. (Biggest regret, TBH). FFXIV was a way for me to interact with friends that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to see or talk to much, and as a result I have met so many people I otherwise would never have known.
I have worked with resin and jewelry-making in the past, and my first piece of FFXIV fan merch was a set of jobstones that Turk asked me to make, to insert into a collection of bath bombs that were going to be themed after the individual jobs. It was a lot of fun, and we just sort of kept the ideas rolling from there!
Turk: So, I was visiting Saishi, and then moved to Erie, all of a block away from Saishi. At the time it had been years since I picked up any video game. I preferred to stick to my retro games I already owned. But I had a PS4, in preparation for FF7 Remake. Saishi apparently only had one mission – to see to it that I learned FFXIV memes and got an itch to play. If I was at their house, it was on a screen. Streamers memeing. They were raiding. You name it.
Anyway, I’m famously a morning person. I was bored, I figured I’d play for a month or two. Saishi woke up to a discord message of, “Balmung, right? I think you’re on Balmung.”
Several hours into MSQ on Balmung later I get a reply back, “Balmung is locked, roll on Mateus.”
“Sure wasn’t locked this morning. I’m on Balmung. I’ll re-roll on Mateus then. No big deal.”
“TURK. DO NOT. WAIT. HOLD UP.”
That being said, I haven’t unsubbed since. Saishi’s fault (affectionate.)
Crafting? Well… I have my great grandmother’s sewing machine, my grandmother’s fabric and crafting bins… It’s in the family.
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?
Saishi: My biggest influence in resinwork is the feelings or ‘gut punches’ that I get from playing through the FFXIV storyline. I want my work to evoke those feelings in others, and I do my best to incorporate the colours and motifs into each piece, until looking at it makes me say, “Yeah. That’s exactly how I felt the first time.” I hope that those who hold those little pieces of memories in their hands can experience that same first time feeling all over again, and remember fondly the path that got them there in the game.
Turk: I’m Autistic/ADHD and I find scents to be a really nice way to immerse myself in a world and mindframe that I think many people overlook. When I think of what influences a character’s scent it’s not always so literal – not everyone is going to wear perfume or smell particularly strong, but it’s about what scents will evoke the feeling of that character without being a cheesy label on top of yet another generic scent. I choose and blend the scents for the characters, locales and what they evoke. Sometimes there’s scents that are not suited to body products that even though they fit a character, they’re not suitable for the end goal so really, it’s a nice puzzle to work on.
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?
Saishi: For me, it wasn’t even a resin piece. I grew up painting, and have a love for watercolour specifically. I wanted to create a painting that embodied the feeling I had the first time I saw the title splash for the Shadowbringers expansion. I painted an image of the Crystal Tower through the trees of Lakeland and named it “First Sight.” It wasn’t great, but I was proud of it, and people really enjoyed it. It became my most popular painting, and inspired me to recreate the colourway in resin later.
Turk: Personally – the Radz-at-han Perfume set I did a while back along with the Hades and Hythlodaeus Perfume sets. I was able to source really nice bottles in small enough quantities for what I do before the tariffs came into play at prices that make sense for what I make. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for more, truthfully.
What is a future project you hope to pursue, whether in fandom spaces or in your personal work?
Saishi: Before I was a resin artist, I was raised to love painting, and have used it as a creativity outlet since I was a child. I want to bring my love of painting into our shop more, either as inserts for resin, as inspiration for jewelry or other physical merchandise, or even as prints. FFXIV gave me a place to go paint en plein air during the Covid lockdowns, when I wasn’t able to get outside and go places in reality, and I hope to be able to show off those landscapes and inspirations in my resinwork.
I have gotten a bit ‘scattered’ in recent months, with far too many ideas and just not enough time to do any of them justice. I want to narrow my focus back down, and put out my best work, even if that means just one or two new things a month.
Turk: Right now, I’m just happy the weather is going to be cooling off and I can start working on my crochet blanket again. I also want to start offering WoL Spray commissions again soon. Maybe sometime after GatewayFATE I’ll get some time.
As a creator duo collective that makes a variety of merch, do you find that you influence one another on what project you want to tackle next, or how you explore designing a new piece of art or project?
Turk: Honestly one of the best things about being a duo is the fact we can bounce ideas off each other. We get to proof each other’s work, keep ourselves grounded and motivated – and keep ourselves accountable. There’s been plenty of times where if it was just me I likely would have hit a major wall creatively. It also has helped me personally, grow as a person. I don’t need to do everything on my own. If I lack a skillset I’m not afraid to reach out to Saishi or a lot of the time to others in the fandom for assistance! I often reach out to Esper and Mista at Kuro Neko Melt Co. for assistance with label creation since I work full time and that’s absolutely something they excel at! I’m not alone in making what I make, and that’s half the fun. Fandom is a community – not a competition.
Saishi: I can also add to this. In addition to bouncing ideas off each other, and keeping each other motivated, we also like to see what kind of collaborative projects we can do. A lot of times, that means putting out stuff with specific themes, such as a scented item based around a certain character or location, and resin pieces that match that theme. As for the process of finding that theme, we are inspired by the people, places, and story of FFXIV, and all it takes is one scene making us stop breathing for a moment. In the next moment, we’re messaging the other and screaming “I HAVE AN IDEA.”
We may be chaotic, but our chaos seems to meld together pretty seamlessly!
Follow Erie Craft Collective and check out their shop!
Bsky
Etsy
FaeLich Studios
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 gosh it was so long ago! Back in September 2014, a couple of coworkers at my job at the time told me about FFXIV, asked if I had heard of it and as an avid gamer, I have but was not interested in MMOs at the time because of the whole subscription thing. They told me that the game had a free trial and to test it out so I took that offer to test out the game. At this time, I didn’t have a gaming PC, just a PS3 to play FFXIV. I went home that night, downloaded the game (which took 8 hours!), and signed up on Mogstation. Once it was finally downloaded, I entered the character creation screen. I didn’t know much about this game at all except that I knew it had classes/jobs from previous Final Fantasy games. I’ve played several FF games in the past and I was currently playing Final Fantasy IX for the first time when I started playing FFXIV. My favorite character in FFIX was Vivi and my coworkers told me that I could be a Black Mage in XIV if I wanted to. I saw that you could be an Elf race so I created my first FFXIV character. Started the game up and was immediately hooked after the first cutscene. Running around Ul’dah, meeting up with my coworkers in game, learning the lore and world of FFXIV… I didn’t want to leave. Sadly, being on PS3 at the time, I had no keyboard or mouse either so communicating with other players was difficult. It was so magical to see other players help each other in the game, even though all I could do was jump to communicate quickly.
Back then, the free trial was only for 2 weeks, it wasn’t how it is now. You only had 14 days from when you created your account and downloaded XIV to try it out. When those 14 days were up, I was a bit sad and was on the fence about purchasing a subscription for a game. I was tight on money so I had to hold off. Fast forward to March 2015 and I built my first PC and the first game that I bought for it was FFXIV! I wanted to get back into that game and play with my coworkers, but found out that they had to cancel their subs at the time due to being tight on money as well. But because I bought the PC version, I got another 14 day free trial. I played around a bit but lost interest quickly because I had no one to play with.
Until late June 2015, right when Heavensward came out, my coworkers told me to get back into XIV since they’re back full swing this time. I bought Heavensward, downloaded the expansion, bought a subscription as well, and the rest is history. I no longer have contact with those coworkers that helped me get started in this game as I no longer work at that job, but I’ve made many new friends in the meantime.
I’ve been subscribed to FFXIV since June 2015! There’ve been a LOT of ups and downs during my time playing this game, but I learn from mistakes and it never made me want to quit the game. From meeting new friends (some that I’ve known for almost a decade now!), been to two Fan Fests, and even got my best friend of over 20 years and their partner to play it!
FFXIV is like a second home to me, even if hardly anyone is on, we still talk outside of the game. It’s had such a huge impact in my life and throughout the years, I’ve made art of my own OCs as well as drawing others’ as well. It’s a huge motivator to make art and get better at it, and to even share it with others who love the game as well. I love seeing others’ art on social media as well, it really gets me motivated to learn new techniques.
In the last 4 years is when I started to buckle down and start making my own FFXIV merch. My very first big project was making custom WoL shaker charms of the Miw Miisv (the blue jellyfish from Ultima Thule). It was a lot of fun to do! I started to make more merch, expanded on my stores, and then soon I started to table at conventions in 2023 after launching my own business, FaeLich Studios! I started to join more art communities on social media to share my creations and have been enjoying seeing other artists share their creations as well. It’s been an absolute blast to communicate with other artists in the community!
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 love to make pieces to reflect what I feel and to hopefully make the viewer feel the same. For merch, I like to make cute colorful things that will bring joy to people when they see it. I always love to make people smile when they see my merch and it fills me with such absolute joy to see someone excited. It’s been rough with everything going on in the world today, so even a little bit of joy can help someone get through the day.
Art has been my passion since I can remember. Taking on commissions and having satisfied customers when they write back to me after I send it to them always puts a smile on my face. I love to see others get excited when they see their OCs in art form or even see that I sell merch of their favorite character. It really helps me be motivated to do more art if it means to bring more smiles to people.
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?
There’s a piece that I’m still super proud of, one that took me a couple of weeks to do. It was my version of the Patch 6.1 – Newfound Adventure key art. For someone who has been playing FFXIV since 2014/2015, Endwalker was a very personal journey to me, especially with how bad my mental state was when it came out. Closing the chapter of 6.0 and a brand new story starting in 6.1, it felt like it was telling me it was OK to move on, that everything will be OK. So in my version of that key art, I drew my WoL, Aston, and how his journey has been throughout the years. It was also a very personal piece for me because it showed how much I grew as a player since I started playing and how much I loved this game. I learned a lot of new techniques for this piece as well and learned how to properly use Clip Studio Paint. Although it’s a 3 year old piece at this time of writing, it’s still my favorite art piece that I’ve done.
What is a future project you hope to pursue, whether in fandom spaces or in your personal work?
I hope that I can continue making merch, but with how the world is right now, most of my projects are on the backburner for now due to costs. In the meantime, I’m doing what I can and I’m still planning new things!
As for personal projects, I have a lot of art WIPs I still like to finish, especially one that I’ve been working on for too long! I’ve also been dabbling in 3D art and animation in Blender this year and how fun it is to make your own animations! I’m still in the middle of making some 3D animations as well, it’s a learning curve for sure.
What plans do you have for re-launching your Twitch channel? Do you think you’ll focus on your artwork, delve back into retro consoles, or are you interested in trying out something else entirely?
Re-launching my Twitch channel has been fun, planning-wise! I’ll most likely focus on casual gaming and art as before, but also adding some new things!
Repairing/customizing retro consoles will be newly added since I love doing that sort of thing as a side hobby. I’ve fixed up a few old consoles for friends before so I wanted to stream those projects for people who are interested in watching it! I might have a few other side projects in the works, but we shall see!
I might also stream FFXIV since I’ve never really streamed it in the past, but I’ve thought of a few things to do in the game that I think people would enjoy watching!
As for trying other things to stream, I can do different art projects, like making bracelets and charms since that’s something else I do on my own time, possibly painting and some traditional art. Lots of ideas!
Follow FaeLich Studios and check out their shop!
Twitch
Bsky
Ko-Fi
Website
Webstore
Youtube
Inquiries of Art 
Leave a comment