Your skin colour versus your character's skin colour

[Arelian Solin]

I'm a mixed guy myself (Slavic Jew and Hispanic) so I'm either super goddamn pale or fairly dark depending on how much I get out of the house during any given season.

 

My character's tend to have skin on the darker side of the spectrum for much the same reason as Ette, at the end of the day. I'm interested in exploring things that aren't typically portrayed in media for a darker-skinned character. Like being a turbo-nerd, magician, scholar, potential (non-violent) sociopath. That sort of thing. I wanna see more characters that have a depth outside of their "exotic" natures for having a skin-tone that fits a certain stereotype, whatever it may be.

 

Though I also take into account the region of the world they're supposedly from and that individual character's particular habits. My highlander, for example, wasn't terribly dark-skinned but he was fairly tanned because he lives in the middle of the goddamn desert. 

 

Thinking about it, being pale in Ul'dah is probably a sign of obscene wealth and/or privilege. Same with Limsa Lominsa, to a degree.

[BearCave]

Hm. To weigh in on mine, I have characters that tend to run the gauntlet of skin tones that I've played in the past. My current character is a tan Elezen, due to him travelling quite a bit and spending more than a small portion of his life away from Ishgard and the business up there. So he tends to stick out like a sore thumb amongst other Ishgardian RPers, which amuses me to no end. 

 

Ultimately as others have pointed out, I tend to go with what makes sense for the character and his background. My hangup in character creation is height, as I refuse to play short characters or characters that are shorter than me. I have no perspective for it. That however, is a discussion for another thread.

 

Edit: For clarification sake, I'm a rather tall and bearded ginger.

[Dat Oni]

Both Edgar and I are relatively pale, though obviously Edgar is practically anemic in comparison to a stereotypical human being. Don't get me wrong, I don't get a lot of sunlight, but Ed looks like he's been locked in the closet for 20 years and fed a low-iron diet.

 

Koporo has the same complexion I get when I'm exposed to sun for too long, thanks to my anti-inflammatory medication (Rheumatoid Arthritis is a bitch). Not quite sunburned, but obviously well beyond tanned. If one takes a good look, they'll see he has dirt patches on his face at all times.

[Kellach Woods]

I'd aloofly point to the one IRL pic I've put up to say I am far, far, FAR whiter than Kellach is, but instead I'll just state it here.

 

I'm as white as Kellach is black.

[myahele]

I  am browned skin IRL. My 1st character has the same shade as me (infect I made him look as much as myself as possible).

 

Then I decided to make him really pale with light eyes but that hurt my eyes if was in the open world.

 

Now the skin color is somewhere in between. A nice darkish tan. I'm currently roleplaying as a Ala Mhigan refugee and it seems like most refugees have the same skin color that I'm currently using. Though my character was a shade darker, but not willing to spend $10 just for that

[Jana]

I'm a bit brown IRL, but my character is much darker (and with that touch of grey Keepers get).

 

While I don't limit my character creating by human skin tones much, I generally stay away from red/green skin in my player characters. I'm not sure wwhy, I guess I just tend to like what looks like a regular human skin tone.

[D'aito Kuji]

I'm east asian (Japanese) and on the darker side, even more so when I tan.  I've always tried to make my characters represent my own ethnicity (with varying degrees of success).  I do this mainly because I prefer to represent and I think representation is important.  My characters often have Japanese names for this reason.

 

But I don't think it's all that obvious in-game (in FFXIV anyway).  None of the stories I've encountered make much of skin tone.  I think in Eorzea the differences between the lalafell, miqo'te, hyur, elezen, and roegadyn, are plentiful enough to cause all manner of discord in the realm. 

 

As D'aito is from the deserts of the Sagolii, it makes some sense that her skin would be darker.  But the U tribe is not noticeably darker.  But D'aito loves to sun bathe.

 

I've played lighter skinned characters too.  My City of Heroes character was very pale because the sun's light could not penetrate her nigh-invulnerable skin.

[Goodfellow]

My alts will typically be all the bizarre, inhuman colors that I don't get to see in everyday life, but my mains tend to (tend to, mind you) be a sort of darker olive which, incidentally, is my skin color.  I'll almost never play regular "human" races (no offense, hyurs; I still love you), and don't necessarily gravitate toward characters of my own sex, but skin (and to a lesser degree hair) do resemble my own more often than not.  I don't know if it's simply what I most identify with or that that's what I find most pleasing, aesthetically speaking (no offense, friends of other colors, shades, and hues; I really, really love you), but there it is.

[Erik Mynhier]

Well my ethnic background is dutch, icelandic, and german. I am so white I vanish in snow. Erik I gave lighter skin even though I notice most highlanders had darker skin because he has wildwood blood and I wanted that reflected subtly. Its mostly coincidence that we have similar skin tones. His is a bit darker then mine.

[thesunalsorises]

I'm Puerto Rican (i.e. mixed race,) so T'khai is pretty close to my skintone in the summer, though I'm definitely a lot more olive and if I'm careless about sunscreen I can get really dark. Ophelie on the other hand is extremely pale.

[Elysia]

This is an interesting discussion. As an "Asian", I do find the broad skin colour categories quite reductive when they are implied to be representative of nationalities, ethnicities or cultures. But skin colour is one of the most salient / visible indicators of ethnic difference and I support consciously contributing to diversity in an MMO. 

 

There were a number of reasons why Avis looks the way she does (and why, all that being said, cosplaying her won't be difficult for me at all. At least in terms of physique and hair color!). Her Ul'dahn heritage was one consideration, as was her similarity with another dark-haired incarnation from a story I used to work on... and there was also the fact that I generally preferred my mains to be... very ordinary people. So nothing out-of-the-world for them, in terms of appearance. However. I'm "yellow", of Chinese descent, while Avis seems fair by Eorzean standards, but I certainly don't see her as either 'white' or 'yellow'. Or even as anything close to the Doman gene pool, even for her dark hair. I gave her a slight olive shade for an Ul'dahn tan... at least, that was my intention during character creation, but she largely shows up as white or Asian in-game in harsh lighting. Still procrastinating on getting that Fantasia to rectify this... 

 

So I don't think it's bleed, or a bad thing, just because you look like your character. We all have our own reasons - story or otherwise - for why / how we design the people we have to stare at through the days and weeks leading up to 50 and beyond. 

 

The rest of my (invisible, sadly) alts appear darker or have a more 'alien' skin color. This is both a deliberate choice and an aesthetic preference.

[TheLastCandle]

Depends on the character. Yvelont is my main here. This guy is my main in Elder Scrolls Online. I feel equally "connected" to both, but admittedly my knowledge of European concepts of chivalry, heraldry, war and weaponry and so on and so forth (which I use quite often in my RP with Yvelont) is much greater than my grasp of the RL peoples and cultures the Redguards draw from, so I do feel more "at home" for lack of a better word playing Yvelont.

[Nako Vesh]

I guess I tend to play medium-to-dark skinned characters while I'm pasty as hell. The exceptions to this are characters that don't spend a lot of time in the sun. One character in Guild Wars 2 was a giant nerd, so she was inside reading all day, and the other was a Necromancer so I just wanted to complete the creepy theme and make her super ghostly pale.

 

I used to make almost exclusively pale, Anglo phenotype characters, but one day I just sort of thought about it, "Why are my characters pale? Why is pale and white default for me?" I felt the answer to that had some bad implications, so I decided to change it up. I feel like the "default" fantasy hero typically tends to be Anglo, so why not do something a little different? I liked it so much that I haven't had a pale character since.

 

But usually I chose the completely inhuman colors just because I can! :lol:

[Titor]

I am pretty pale IRL, and Titor is as well, thought Titor is a bit more of the sickly pale verses the 'white' pale. He should be darker for his ethnicity (His RL ethnicity would be Kazakh), but his illness drained most of the colour from him.

 

In other games, if I can play a race that can be grey/purple/blue/black skinned, I usually do. In WoW, my blood elf death knight (Who was kind of the only main I had with human skin tone choices, the rest were non-human skin choices) used the dark grey 'death knight' skin, and my keepers/duskies in this game are ashen to pure black coloured skin (sans Nerva, who is just a bit tanned, but he is an edge case).

 

I do have a character that is not represented in games at the moment (though i had her made at one point) who is a /very/ dark skinned highlander lady, with a bit of an African accent. She is cool, but I never really found a good place for her in FFXIV, but I might bring her back sometime as an airship pilot when I want a new alt.

 

I generally play a wide variety of skintones I think, I do not particularly stay into one tone. I think my favourite skin tones are nonhuman greyscale/ashen tones (like keepers can get). I also really like the pure white colour you can get on hellsguard femroes. If I am playing a non-human race, I really enjoy going for the (generally)non-human colour tones they can be if they have any greys/blues/greens/reds or whatnot in their skin pallet.

[Flickering Ember]

As someone who follows a pretty strict “write/draw what you wanna see” policy I can’t really complain about that and then play a myriad of pale characters. 

 

Listen ok, I have a type.

 

This is my design policy for my characters. My characters will differ over games but there are a couple of features I choose more consistently than others. 

But if I have a certain aesthetic/combination with the eye/hair color in mind I will choose based off of that too.

 

That said, no, Ember and I do not share skin tones. We are, however, both red heads. 

[Maril]

I am rather pale, being scandinavian and all - Nailah resembles me in the summer when I've had a slight tan.

Thala'to is grey and well. I am not, unless I've been rolling about in something grey like.. sand or so. Which I do not really do  

My seeker cat is far more tanned than I could ever hope to be. 

 

I tend to go with what I think looks best overall but I also think some other things into it, like for example with Nailah, she's a natural redhead and so I felt it wouldn't make sense if she was really really tanned. She also has some of the issues with sun redheads have and actually uses lotions in order to be able to function in Thanalan without turning into a shrimp, but she has done it for so long it's sort of a second nature to her now.

[Seriphyn]

Seems like from the poll results, we have an even split! Interesting!

[Titor]

Seems like from the poll results, we have an even split! Interesting!

The poll needs a "I play both characters of my skin type and different to my skin type" option. I am not sure which one to choose myself

[Zyrusticae]

IRL I am a pale yellowish southeast Asian.

 

This is what my characters look like:

 

 

 

Hmmmm. You tell me! :lol:

[QueenFrejyalen]

I'm very pale white with black/dark red hair IRL.

 

Queenie has darker skin with white hair.

 

Not much of a reason why really, just thought the dark skin + white hair suited her character.  =]

[Titor]

What games are those last two characters from Zyru?

[Khadan]

Kayllen in game is about my complexion, maybe a little paler but pretty close. I have an alt that is a more 'middle eastern' complexion. No reason other than geographical, really. I don't place too much importance on skin color irl and that's carried over to in game in probably every game I've RP'd in. I admit that it's probably easier to identify with a character that's your own or close to your own ethnic background, though, #justsociologythings