#PLEASE dont clown on this post we see several much darker skinned ishgardians so 'its fantasy france' isnt an argument here. also dont come

[deus-and-the-machina]

maybe this is a bit of a useless point to make but it does bother me sometimes that estinien’s skintone gets lightened quite a bit. I don’t necessarily blame fanartists for this bc some renders/cgi trailers make him look paler than his in game model, but I just wanted to draw some comparisons. now the lighting can vary quite a bit, but I tried finding pictures in multiple lightings for comparison

he looks a little washed out/not well lit in this image but you can still tell its the same skin tone

Furthermore, here’s him next to fourchenault, who we know is meant to be somewhat darker because his dad is louisoix.

Here they are in the endwalker trailer

I don’t think this but specifically is that bad, there’s still a notable contrast between his hair and skin tone even if it looks to be a bit more tinged pink than he usually is, but it’s still comparable to fourchenault. The render though is eeeeeeeh

his most prominent render isnt necessarily inaccurate but the lighting feels like its on full blast

The countdown art also DEFINITELY makes him look a little paler. it resembles the previous render

I also wanted to point out this happened to y'shtola too somewhat. look at her renders compared to her model compared to the end walker trailer

ike she is distinctly pinker/paler as well. im not sure how the process of making the cgi cutscenes works but im fairly sure they use different models, so I generally accept that they lost some specifics in translation. there are other differences people have pointed out such as Zenos' nose being shaped differently in the end walker trailer so its bound to happen.

Here are their figures too

yshtola has a skin tone somewhat accurate design but estinien is DEFINITELY lighter. his eyes are off too, being a weirdly deep blue when his canon eyes are grey, so again it can be chalked up to lost in translation aspects but its still disappointing to see

im not really trying to argue that estinien or yshtola aren't "white" or white passing by our standards, but they really aren't pale and its kind of weird that they often get lightened in trailers/renders in estinien's case. especially when I see so much fanart drawing estinien as super bone white pale because they're probably looking at the renders that pop up first online if you search and show his whole outfit for design reference.

I do really appreciate it when I see artists draw them darker, it makes me very happy.