I'm convinced Squeenix is rapid-firing events specifically to delay my progression through NG+ Heavensward. We celebrate Valentione's Day before seeking out Master Matoya in Final Fantasy XIV, hope to see you there!

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within the last few years, a practice i've taken to using frequently is to use my own admittedly meager skills to sketch out pose and outfit concepts whenever i plan to get a commission from someone. it's been a lot of fun; i've found that i really like designing outfits. for example: Acid Shark's fit was basically entirely conceptualized by me before i handed it off to any artists.

sometimes this is because I have a Specific Vision in mind. Take, for example, this art of my OC Catherine Sophalo by @audioerf, compared to the outfit reference I'd come up with.

this was a very specific design i had in mind for this character and i know from experience that sometimes trying to specify exactly what you're looking for in text is less than ideal. as such, i decided to take pen to paper and sketch out the exact idea i was holding in my mind's eye. it's easy to see from the outcome that this was an incredibly successful decision.

another situation this is good for is when you want to spare the poor artist the stress of having to figure out a particularly complicated design. take this piece of Acid Shark in cosplay as the character Strife from Darksiders, done recently by @teamcatple.

Strife's helmet is meant to be worn on a head that is, ostensibly, human-shaped. but uh-oh, Acid Shark's head is distinctly not human shaped! so what do you do to ensure that the either you send the artist a ref just like, welp, good luck! or you do what i did and say "hold up i got this" and design it yourself. And as you can see, the result speaks for itself. in that it's really good.

I'm convinced Squeenix is rapid-firing events specifically to delay my progression through NG+ Heavensward. We celebrate Valentione's Day before seeking out Master Matoya in Final Fantasy XIV, hope to see you there!