Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=101990&page=1#7 Author: Xavion Time Posted: 3/5/2022 at 3:35 PM Even in recognizing that color allocations probably aren't finalized, I'm wondering if the vines and that jarring blue tail are intended to be the same color, or if they'll be different color slots so they won't have to match. I love bold colors on the vines - it's a good chance for some vibrancy and contrast to set them apart which is a designer's dream - but if that means the faes will have to have a bright and bold booty as well I'm... I'm gonna have trouble liking these. Having to choose "bold booty for bold vines" or "vines must match everything else if you want to avoid a bold booty" would be very disappointing. (IE, I would prefer the option to make the tail white like the underbelly, or yellow/orange like the chest flowers, maybe even a warm pink that works with the orange and yellow to give it a sunset vibe, while still keeping everything else the same) Other than that little worry, they are gorgeous and I look forward to seeing how mutations will be divvied up! :D

Color allocations are basically never finalized until they are actually finalized. They pretty much always get shuffled around from the concept stages until finally onto the site and able to be played with in the Generator. There's just always way too many variables throughout production to really be able to finalize them until everything can be synced up with code and such.

So you should always take pre-colorizations like this with a grain of salt. They almost certainly will change to some degree by the time everything is actually finalized.

Why are they so detailed?! Ahhh! The art is amazing!

That being said, I do agree with others that the neck leaves/petals, especially on the male, look a bit too thick. I would love to see the Faes having a bit more of a delicate look to their foliage. This is an easy fix, though- just make the leaves a little less wavy around the edges and their shading a little more subdued. I also really like Catinheadlights's edit of the male, moving his neck foliage down and smoothing out his neck fluff.

It took me a minute to see it, and I probably wouldn't had I not either been looking for it or studying the images intently, but there is definitely something that strikes me as off about the adult female's posing, specifically her head/neck and front left leg. I think for the head/neck it's just an unfortunate optical illusion where her flower ruff makes her neck look thicker and therefore less flexible. Not 100% sure about the leg. Maybe a bit too short/wrong proportions...?

So far all of the things I have mentioned have already been mentioned by others. Two things that might just be me are how stiff and sticklike the adult male's front legs seem, and how the proportions of the male and female hatchlings don't match each other (although this could be an optical illusion caused by the difference of their poses allowing one to be further zoomed in than the other).

I CANNOT wait to see the finished product! Keep up the good work!

Just wanted to post a reminder to everyone to please keep feedback to a constructive manner. Quite a bit of posts so far in this thread aren't very constructive and are just miscellaneous things players personally are complaining about. This isn't really helpful.

The whole team invests hundreds of hours into these revamps over a period of 6-12 months. It's a massive project that everyone, especially the artists, work very hard on. I just want players to keep this in mind when they are providing their criticisms.


Additionally, I think one thing that keeps getting forgotten about over the past few revamps is that Sylesti are not literal real life creatures. These are stylized depictures of fantasy creatures mostly based on real creatures. There are TONS of real life examples of all sorts of crazy creatures that physically, literally exist lol - with all sorts of crazy anatomical features. I think it's a bit unreasonable to expect every Sylesti to look exactly like one specific version of a real life creature looks. These are not deer. These are not elk. They are Faelora.

We are also constrained to a square canvas. This greatly affects how we can set up proportions. We have to balance visibility with anatomical proportions. If we did everything "literal", almost every one of our creatures would end up super small with no visible details lol. This is not practical.

The point of these revamps is to not only greatly improve upon the original artwork, but to also greatly improve the layering so that we can implement better traits and more detailed features. In Faiona and I's opinion, the Faelora revamp so far is a tremendous upgrade across the board from the originals. That said, our revamps will never be "perfect", especially when many different players have all sorts of differing opinions and perspectives on what "their" vision of the species is. At the end of the day, these are fantasy creatures based on concepts crafted by myself, Faiona, and the art team. So please just try and keep these things in mind when providing your feedback.

Thank you.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=101990&page=4#32 Author: Authoress13 Time Posted: 3/5/2022 at 11:13 PM Why are they so detailed?! Ahhh! The art is amazing! That being said, I do agree with others that the neck leaves/petals, especially on the male, look a bit too thick. I would love to see the Faes having a bit more of a delicate look to their foliage. This is an easy fix, though- just make the leaves a little less wavy around the edges and their shading a little more subdued. I also really like Catinheadlights's edit of the male, moving his neck foliage down and smoothing out his neck fluff. It took me a minute to see it, and I probably wouldn't had I not either been looking for it or studying the images intently, but there is definitely something that strikes me as off about the adult female's posing, specifically her head/neck and front left leg. I think for the head/neck it's just an unfortunate optical illusion where her flower ruff makes her neck look thicker and therefore less flexible. Not 100% sure about the leg. Maybe a bit too short/wrong proportions...? So far all of the things I have mentioned have already been mentioned by others. Two things that might just be me are how stiff and sticklike the adult male's front legs seem, and how the proportions of the male and female hatchlings don't match each other (although this could be an optical illusion caused by the difference of their poses allowing one to be further zoomed in than the other). I CANNOT wait to see the finished product! Keep up the good work!

Regarding the leaves, and many other parts of these new Faelora, it is all interchangeable. We will give players many different options via mutations to customize their Faelora to their liking.

This is a great improvement over the current fae artwork! Thank you Krin, Fai, and Fimbry for your hard work!

A couple of things jumped out at me as kind of 'off' though. I don't know how much work it'd be to change things at this point, so I'll keep it brief.

- As several people have mentioned, the shading on the male fae's petals makes them look a bit thick. A little like peach leaf curl. The female's look great though!

- I like Cat's edit to the male fae's chest fluff

- Scath mentioned the female fae's leg proportions and now I can't unsee it. Again, I like Cat's edit.

- The female's body looks a bit long, maybe it just looks front heavy due to the petals?

- The male baby still looks off to me; I think it's mostly the head. It looks very un-fae like compared to the female baby and both adults.

- A tiny detail: the chest fluff of the female baby looks very chiseled / inorganic.

I hope this doesn't come across as unappreciative of everyone's hard work. Even if nothing can be changed, overall it looks amazing and I'm very excited for this revamp!

These are really pretty~ I especially like the more detailed shading of the fur. Also, that picture of faes without vines/leaves is super cute. I would love some mutations that hide the vines and/or the neck petals so we could see more of the lineart underneath.


Since color slots are still being decided, I also would love if the tails matched the flower petals around the neck instead of the vines, or if they had their own color slot like the griffis do.

I think the main issue with the neck fluff on the male fae might be the color slots it currently has, and the placement of that white underbelly bit beneath his chin. The white underbelly color under the chin does have the unfortunate effect of making the neck fluff look like it's hanging off of one ear rather than on the neck itself, lol. Maybe just removing that bit of color under the chin would help. Or perhaps extending the white in streak further down the neck so it's a bit more clear that the fluff is going around the neck and not just on one side.

The bottom of the male fae's neck also looks a lot darker than any other shaded part of him. I can't tell if that's an issue with the shading itself, or if there's some kind of gradient going on making it look super dark compared to the rest of the shadows. It does look out of place, though. On the second image with just white in all color slots shows there's a lighter bit at the bottom, which looks great, but the colored image has no lighter bits on the bottom of the neck fluff. Is the bottom of the fluff pulling from a different color slot than the base? o:

The blobby the shading on the male's neck leaves are a bit jarring in comparison to the style of the rest of the shading. I know they're supposed to be different from the female's leaves, but I think sharper shading might help it look more like leaves or petals and match a little more with the rest of the male's shading. Maybe making the petals look crinkly instead of smooth would work better with the shape of those leaves?

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=101990&page=4#34 Author: Krinadon Time Posted: 3/5/2022 at 11:29 PM [quote=2629134] Regarding the leaves, and many other parts of these new Faelora, it is all interchangeable. We will give players many different options via mutations to customize their Faelora to their liking.

*happy dance*

Unsure about the male baby's jaw line. Don't particularly think babies should have at least that big of one, otherwise this is amazing

I personally like the male neck fluff as it is, with one slight exception: the white part just under the jaw looks off to me, an I would love for it to be brown to match the rest of the neck fluff.

I think if that white part were to be shaded the same brown as the rest of the fluff, then it would read more as 'mane' and I love the sharp delineation between the mane and the rest of the belly.

These are very beautiful! I certainly appreciate seeing a glimpse of the Faelora in a new, more-detailed light. Pretty much everything is an improvement over the current design, from the more intricate leg vines to the fur sculpting to the facial expressions. Not much to say here except, I really look forward to seeing these in the game! :)

If I was to provide any constructive criticism, there are only a few things I would mention as possibilities:

- The current in-game adult male design has his front legs arranged so that his shoulders are a little farther forward than his feet. This makes him look like he is puffing his chest out, and I really think that proud stance suits him. But the proposed new design has rather stiff and straight front legs. It isn't as if the new designs have to be a perfect carbon copy of the originals or anything, but this is an aspect of the original adult males that was "lost in translation," I feel.

- The leaf tails are wonderful! Such a neat complement to the Faelora's vines and neck foliage. I know the coloring is subject to change, but one adjustment that could be made is blending a bit more of the body coloration into the core of the leaf, and then having it transition to the other color (in this case, teal blue) along its edges. This seems like it would make the tail seem a little less jarring, and blend into the overall design better. Alternatively, as some other players have suggested, the tail leaf color could match the neck leaves instead of the body vines, to balance the colors more.

- Deerlike animals do have a dog-like face in certain aspects, but there is something about the baby male's new face design that looks a little more predator than herbivore. Perhaps the cheeks could be softened and made less bold and pointy? I think that may be the detail that makes the current design come off as a bit foxy.

But really, these are just minor considerations compared to all the work and adjustment that has already been put into these. The art team is doing an excellent job!