What is the topic today?
Well, since some time I have the idea to talk about one little thing that generate many negative reactions and was one of the first weird designs to appear in the Awakening's DLC.
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| Micaiah Dark Mage Official Art for Wada Arco |
And that of course is Micaiah's Dark Mage Picture. What is wrong with this picture? Why it was designed like that? What I would change in this picture if I have the power to do it?
Let's answer this questions and more.
Wada Arco's Design (and possible idea about Micaiah?)
One of the first one can see when know this artwork is the Micaiah's Head
Bigger shiny eyes, a noticeable lack of any thing resembling a nose (unless you count the thing at same height that the eyes), a weird smile hard to know what exactly is she feeling.
The hair has a ahoge instead of the line that divided the hair in the original artworks; and the bangs are traslucent (also, the hair's colors are overall darker).
Wada Arco has drawn character with nose in many different ways...
- Some times she draws characters with relatively realistic faces, like this Gilgamesh.
- Other times she does small noses, like this Saber Extra's Artwork
Sharing the eye size, nose height, the transparent bangs and it has ahoges too.
This style appears in some arts from 2012 and 2013 (the years of Awakening and the DLCs release), so, it's likely that the Micaiah's Artwork had the disfortune to inheriting some of this style because Arco drawn some of these arts at the same time (or were made in short periods of time between them).
This explain the face's proportions and many details about the head and the hair. But what about the rest?
Micaiah's pose is one known as "Wariza", a japanese traditional informal sitting style where the butt is on the floor and the legs are bent backwards on each side of the body, mostly used for women; this is likely because the pose requires specific flexibility in the legs, making it painful to perform for some people, but for other it comes naturally.
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| Elise DLC Artwork by Kozaki Yuzuke |
And finally... Why Micaiah was drawn doing a wariza with that ambiguously happy face?
This is probably a stretch, but in my opinion, Wada Arco saw Micaiah as some sort of "sexy character" that needed to focus on their appealing aspects. What reasons she would have to think that?
- First of all, Wada had draw a character using the skimpy Awakening!Female Dark Mage Outfit as the basic base. As many know, this custome is basically a combination between a bodystocking (covers the whole body but doesn't work to actually "cover" the user because it's a skin-tight garment), a bikini-like thing, a cape and some golden accesories. The whole description of the outfit as something sexy, and that technically should be used for a character that actually makes use of this dirty sexyness.
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| A brief description of Tharja's weird but appealing "clothes". |
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| You know, a pretty girl for all of kinds of tastes. |
(The aspects focused in her outfit vary between class; with the exception of all of them be bare shoulders with the expose the armpits and have a big focus in her legs)
And these are the likely reasons for the direction that this artwork took, after explain the Wada Arco's vision, it's like to took a more critical analysis with the artwork itself.
Why Micaiah was selected as the Dark Mage? Other mistakes in the design and how to fix them
The first question is answered with a stretch again; Micaiah is the only lord in the franchise that use pantyhose (or maybe they're tight pants? It's hard to tell), make her easier to adapt in the Dark Mage Style; the other reasons are likely influenced for one curious and ironic aspect of Micaiah in Radiant Dawn: Her "Dark Affinity".
Between the viable choices for this outfit and the Shadowgift skill, Micaiah was the only one that made sense.
Now again with the weird design choices of the art...
We already talked about her face and her hair. But... What about this custome has anything special compared with the Dark Mage outfit outside of Micaiah's Blue Hair Ribbon?
She doesn't have anything else; with other character even if the custome was mostly generic, they decided to give to the character some extra clothes or change the colors, or even change the clothes itself.
Just... look at them.
Now again with the weird design choices of the art...
We already talked about her face and her hair. But... What about this custome has anything special compared with the Dark Mage outfit outside of Micaiah's Blue Hair Ribbon?
She doesn't have anything else; with other character even if the custome was mostly generic, they decided to give to the character some extra clothes or change the colors, or even change the clothes itself.
Just... look at them.
The colors are different (mostly blue and whilte is changed to include more red), Lyndis doesn't use the head armor.
Celica has some big changes in the outfit. Instead of the pants she has shorts; she lacks long sleeves but she has fingerless gloves; instead of the normal boots she has armored books; her outfit looks like it has a midriff, and the colors are completely different.
Elincia has her characteristic orange/white color scheme, alongside this, she has an orange cape, slighly different boots and some additional details.
Roy changes the color scheme, also he get a torn blue cape (a similar colors to the used in Binding Blade), the shield is draw differently, and other small details.
And this are enough examples in my opinion. Maybe the changes aren't big in most of the cases, but some little changes can give it a more unique look and personality to a draw; something that unfortunately Micaiah's Dark Mage drawing lacks in my opinion, looking very generic; the biggest reason for this artwork look so generic alongside the other Fire Emblem DLC Characters.
What could be change in the design to make it stand-out more as a Micaiah look but without breaking the design of Wada's drawing ? I have some ideas.
- Replace the cape and the choker with a blue scarf.
A simple and effective change, Micaiah most known design (her Light Mage custome) include a large blue scarf. The blue scarf can fit the role that the blue cape has in the original outfit, and make the references to Micaiah's more evident. Also, the cape's absence makes Micaiah's shoulders visible like in pretty much all of her outfits.
- Change the colors of the outfit to make it resemble Micaiah's color scheme more.
Another idea is to change some clothes colors to fit the blue/magenta Micaiah's Color Scheme. The cape is already blue like the cape that she has as a Light Sage. But the other blue elements in the outfit (the bra-like garment and the lower-body set in her crotch) could be changed to magenta, making the resemblance to Micaiah more evident.
Also, in both cases I would make the "bra-like" thing cover more the Micaiah's cleavage.
As an additional opinion there is the possibility to combine both ideas.
What do you think of these ideas to change Micaiah's Dark Mage appearance? Do you have another one.
I would like to see your comments explain your opinion. See you next time!
- Troykv (The Dawn's Historian and Micaiah4Smash Main Admin)
