Highborne customizations for the Night Elves (NOT High Elves)

[FossilFree]

Fantasy dedicated to the Children of the Night



Fantasy dedicated to the Children of the Forest

Great job! Really appropriate tones for them imo.

[FlubberPuddy]

I hope at least some of you can appreciate the fact I have been playing with a palette created from the combination of some darker skins only available for the night elf males and some lighter ones only available for females (...seriously speaking, Blizzard making all current colors available to both genders is the least I am expecting for Shadowlands...)

Hate to disappoint you, cuz I completely 100% agree!!!! But you see the thumbnail video post with the two night elves right above yours here? I watched Stiven as he was applying the texture files to the Night Elves.

Those are the same file textures applied to male and female right there... @_@ like WTF Blizzard!? Female Night Elves get a COOL freaking Dark Elf Gray/Black skin tone and Male Night Elves are stuck with another Dark Purple skin tone??

_-_ I'm done Blizzard, I'm done...

But aside from that smol rant, really love what you did with the skin tones for fun. Love the variance and fits both aspects of Night Elf society

[Astranea]

you see the thumbnail video post with the two night elves right above yours here?

I guess everyone here has seen the dark blonde hair color from wowhead, right?

Auburn hair would be a very cool Highborne customization if it is confirmed, but seen how little extra features have been datamined for the Night Elves so far, I would not be entirely surprised if they were NPC or Death-Knight-only assets for now.

On the other hand... it does fit what is told to have been Dath'Remar Sunstrider's hair color, despite of it also being described as unusual, and whatever he became later on, it is undeniable that he was a Night Elf Highborne with pinkish skin and auburn hair to start with. Just hope the Blood Elf fans won't feel betrayed by Blizzard if that's confirmed to be the case!


Indeed, an unusual-looking young Night Elf...

really love what you did with the skin tones for fun. Love the variance and fits both aspects of Night Elf society

Thank you very much, that was what I was trying to achieve. Glad it worked out at least for somebody. :-)

Now this has been stated many many times before by me and others, but in the Warbringers Azshara video we can see the Night Elves (no reasons to assume they would all be Highborne) sporting a much wider hair color palette ranging from BLACK to purple, blue, white, greenish, BLONDE and even RED hair, and some of the characters' skins are of a pretty BLUE color similar to Azshara's, which makes this color a total 'must have' on a Night Elf wishlist.



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On a completely different and yet very much related note, I recently re-discovered this awesome Night Elf mage art and I am going to slam it up in the first post as an alternative to the most controversial Fan Arts for Highborne females which have been found 'guilty' of having flavors too close to those belonging to the like Blood Elves and Nightborne - although I am still keeping them at least as links, because I still think they are cool. ;-)

Night Elf Mage by Astri-Lohne on DeviantArt
(Piece commissioned by Blizzard to promote the class mount in World of Warcraft!)

[Astranea]

Rrrright. This night elf photoshopping thing seems to be causing a bit of an addiction...

On the bright side (hopefully) I present thou all some more fun (=fantasy) colors.

• Nightfall - based on the exclusive male purple skins 2 and 3
• Moonlight - total headcanon possibly too similar to the Void Elves... But the moon! ;-)
• Dawn - based on the exclusive male blue-green skins 4 and 6, but also similar to the recently datamined 'drow' skin

[Mace]

I guess everyone here has seen the dark blonde hair color from wowhead, right? And they are not done yet, there will be more stuff

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https://twitter.com/keyboardturn/sta...281765376?s=20
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EW0piBMU...png&name=large

thanks for the video, it is certainly opening up the Night elves more, which is a good start. You definitely want more customisation all round, but in particular you want the most popoular aspects of the Night elves to come out more. The Highborne and Moon Priestess - which is more the dark elf end , the civilization side ot he night elves that enchanted many of us who like this race, needs a proper do over.

I'm 100% for Night elves doing well, and getting good improvements. 6.0 was not very good for the Nelves, especially the Nelf male, expected so much more, got so much less. Let's work together to offer them good feedback, and the things we would like to see.

I just hope that those who say don't like the Illidari aspect, or the Highborne aspect or the forest elf druidic aspec won't derail this thread with pointless arguments that night elves shouldn't be any of these because they don't like it. This is not helpful at all, and I would suggest they make another topic for that.

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Today I had some "Photoshop Fun" experimenting with new skin shades based on the colors currently in game.

While this is totally headcanon, and I am certainly not expecting to meet full consensus, I hope at least some of you can appreciate the fact I have been playing with a palette created from the combination of some darker skins only available for the night elf males and some lighter ones only available for females (...seriously speaking, Blizzard making all current colors available to both genders is the least I am expecting for Shadowlands...), trying to come up with something I found aesthetically pleasing while still somewhat close to the original assets in its flavor.

I went for two main themes...

• MAGIC - mostly about light, bright and saturated colors, for the fans of the Highborne and those wanting to rp an Azshara impression
• EARTH - with browns and greens from troll heritage, but also trying to steer away from the peachy tones belonging to the blood elves

And YES, in case you wondered, picking the names for the colors was part of the fun, too.

Hope you enjoy. :-)

"Magic" theme, currently in game
(the number tells you which one it is - I used WoW Model Viewer to export them and wowhead's Dressing Room to double check)

https://i.ibb.co/F3d4tLy/game-nelf-females-magic.jpg

Fantasy dedicated to the Children of the Night

• Pansy - a lighter variation of the male purple skins 2 and 3
• Levender - a saturated variation of the female skin 6 based on the colors seen in the Warbringers Azshara animation
• Lotus - a lighter variation of the female pink skin 9

"Earth" theme, currently in game
(the number tells you which one it is - I used WoW Model Viewer to export them and wowhead's Dressing Room to double check)

https://i.ibb.co/vBdnB1G/game-nelf-females-earth.jpg

Fantasy dedicated to the Children of the Forest

• Wood - based on the exclusive male brown skin 7
• Laurel - a saturated variation of the female skin 5
• Sandalwood - a shade between female pink skin 7 and male brown skin 7

https://i.ibb.co/hCkX70r/new-nelf-females-earth.jpg

I particulalrly like the Lavendar, and pansy skin tones.. and then the Moonlighght & Silver, Nightfall & Nebula too are amazing...but all the other ones are really nice. I also think it's a great idea to have some more wood themed ones but with apurple hues to them. The purple hue is fundamental - it is the night elf colour and it is gained from the Well of Eternity and their connection to the arcane. So every rendition of them every skin tone, must have a purple tint of somesort woven into it.


Gosh that Night elf male really needs work

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@Mace
You are conflating the old Kaldorei culture with the current one. That the ancient Kaldorei were very adept at arcane magic and built their civilization off it is irrelevant to the current ones, because those ones expressedly rejected arcane. They built their civilization on an entirely different foundation and it's what BLizzard should have conveyed, instead of them trying - and probably failling - to harp the Nightbornes or Blood Elves, who are not Kaldore anymore, not for 10 000 years, since the race took a different turn.

What you're asking is for people who survived Climate Change of disastrous proportion and rejected the civilization which led to that (sdomething we humans seem unable to do at all) to actively embrace it again, because time passed.

But the Night Elves of today should be glorious with just their druidic and priestly elements. It is Blizzard fault for not conveying it properly since Warcraft III, when they were awesome. But adding a sudden arcanic worshipping excroissance to them won't serve them at all. The Highbornes and Demon Hunters must remain at the fringe of their culture, otherwise there is no point playing a Kaldorei. May as well pick up a sin'dorei or a shal'dorei.

Gonna send you a private message response to clarify things, rather than turn this topic into discussing this issue.

[Manariel]

Gonna send you a private message response to clarify things, rather than turn this topic into discussing this issue.

No problem

[Astranea]

The purple hue is fundamental - it is the night elf colour and it is gained from the Well of Eternity and their connection to the arcane. So every rendition of them every skin tone, must have a purple tint of some sort woven into it.

This actually brings up an issue I encountered while playing with Photoshop... purple and blue seem to both be very tricky colors to balance on a skin tone, as they can make the character take some sort of unhealthy 'undead' shades. :-P

Gosh that Night elf male really needs work

Lol yeah, a lot of love from Blizzard is due over there.

At the very least they should fix the neck posture and take a look at their ears.
I have never understood why they need to be so chunky, compared to the ladies'.

I mean ok, they wanted muscular... but certainly, not even Druids should have muscular EARS?
Unless of course, they need that kind of counterweight on the ears to balance their neck position... ;-)

[Mace]

Rrrright. This night elf photoshopping thing seems to be causing a bit of an addiction...

On the bright side (hopefully) I present thou all some more fun (=fantasy) colors.

• Nightfall - based on the exclusive male purple skins 2 and 3
• Moonlight - total headcanon possibly too similar to the Void Elves... But the moon! ;-)
• Dawn - based on the exclusive male blue-green skins 4 and 6, but also similar to the recently datamined 'drow' skin

Ah.. this is my favourite, this is Children of the Stars - (I liked your magic theme, Children of the night, Children of the Forest) - but the umbrella and core of all this are the Children of the stars under a star and moonlit Night sky.

Also love the names.. "nebla""silver" "star"

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Lol yeah, a lot of love from Blizzard is due over there.

At the very least they should fix the neck posture and take a look at their ears.
I have never understood why they need to be so chunky, compared to the ladies'.

I mean ok, they wanted muscular... but certainly, not even Druids should have muscular EARS?
Unless of course, they need that kind of counterweight on the ears to balance their neck position... ;-)

Agreed, having looked at the Nelf male, there is a lot cool about his animations, his posture etc, but certain weird things make it look awkward and what would have been cool say on a better proportioned body, looks quite weird.

1. the neck - yes, definitely that neck

2. the body mass - right, msucles are good, especially if you'r a guy, but so is proportion, now I know the Night elf in robes actually gives a tone down look - have yo noticed? he looks slimmer in a robes, because they change the shape when robes are equipped, but if you like many others hate the waist down in robes for NElf males, you will where shirts and trousers - where the musculature become in appropriate for a caster male.

How do you fix? some argue that if they reduce the muscular tone, that is stepping on the Nightborne look - well, I would replay, everything about the Nightborne steps on the Night elf, if you want to look at it from that angle (however the truth is that they are not necessarily in opposition as the latter is a sub-race of the former and boils down to simply being a different type of night elf) - maintaining silhouette differences is something blizzard is keen to do. Yet, a dfeinigte need exists for a less bulky, less muscular Nelf model.

I suggest a compromise and 3 stage body slider
middle is the current night elf default
strong is the DH male's definition, ther is a non-demon scale skin tone of theDh that has much better definition and ripped muscles/abs
lean is the new option that will reduce muscle size and definition - most notably in the arms and thighs imo

This ist he improvement I hope ti gets.

[FossilFree]

Agreed, having looked at the Nelf male, there is a lot cool about his animations, his posture etc, but certain weird things make it look awkward and what would have been cool say on a better proportioned body, looks quite weird.

1. the neck - yes, definitely that neck

2. the body mass - right, msucles are good, especially if you'r a guy, but so is proportion, now I know the Night elf in robes actually gives a tone down look - have yo noticed? he looks slimmer in a robes, because they change the shape when robes are equipped, but if you like many others hate the waist down in robes for NElf males, you will where shirts and trousers - where the musculature become in appropriate for a caster male.

How do you fix? some argue that if they reduce the muscular tone, that is stepping on the Nightborne look - well, I would replay, everything about the Nightborne steps on the Night elf, if you want to look at it from that angle (however the truth is that they are not necessarily in opposition as the latter is a sub-race of the former and boils down to simply being a different type of night elf) - maintaining silhouette differences is something blizzard is keen to do. Yet, a dfeinigte need exists for a less bulky, less muscular Nelf model.

I suggest a compromise and 3 stage body slider
middle is the current night elf default
strong is the DH male's definition, ther is a non-demon scale skin tone of theDh that has much better definition and ripped muscles/abs
lean is the new option that will reduce muscle size and definition - most notably in the arms and thighs imo

This ist he improvement I hope ti gets.

I would just make the waist a little thicker, shorten the arms a tad, and straighten the neck. I'd also remove the idle sway back and forth, it looks like they are a little drunk or something.

[Pheraz]

@Mace I saw you make a lot cool night elf posts, so I had this idea but I do not have really the inspiration to bring it to the end:

New expansion: "insert title here that portrays the fall of factions and rise of the kaldorei"

Azshara somehow finds a way to heal/purge the naga curse from herself and her highborne. She somehow manages to convince Tyrande and Malfurion to be the good queen now and together they start forging a new Kaldorei empire. The night elves do not need the alliance anymore and this could bring WoW to a point of dropping the faction concept all together without losing the "war" in warcraft and so on. Wars go down more to race vs race all around the globe. Humans rage around in barrens against orcs, trolls unite with their forest trolls and rage against blood elves, undead eat themself and whatnot.

Edit: okay sorry not the best thread for this. It was definitely not intended to be fun or trolling or whatever. It was a serious request and I like mace posts... Why is everyone thinking intentions are automatically bad nowadays? :/

[Astranea]

Edit: okay sorry not the best thread for this. It was definitely not intended to be fun or trolling or whatever. It was a serious request and I like mace posts... Why is everyone thinking intentions are automatically bad nowadays? :/

My bad there, but please try to stay on topic. As I already explained privately (and seriously, if you have a message directed to someone specific, pm is your friend) we've seen this thread derailed several times already, and we seriously do not want it to become 'another high elf thread'.

Given how sensitive the elf topics are in general, I'd rather have very few posts than witness pages of arguments. ;-)

[Pheraz]

Alright, sorry for derailing, was def. the wrong place!

On topic: I think the next build should be up tomorrow, let's pray for some night elf customisation then. I am quiet sure that they at least add the skin and hair tones seen in the videos of keyboardturner and wowhead plus some leaves and moons for the "classic" nightelf look

[Pheraz]

Looking at the new build, sadly no elf stuff this time BUT almost every race has new hair styles now, I'm 90% sure night elves are also getting new ones. Dwarfs are even getting Wildhammer tattoos and feathers!

[Mace]

Looking at the new build, sadly no elf stuff this time BUT almost every race has new hair styles now, I'm 90% sure night elves are also getting new ones. Dwarfs are even getting Wildhammer tattoos and feathers!

I noticed that too.. A little alarming, seeing that it is following the same trend as 6.0 - humans, dwarves etc, getting a lot of work done, night elves being shoved to later and later (same with trolls), what happened last time is we ended up with rushed night elves, especially heavily rushed males, and blood elves that were postponed, but because the pressure was off after release, blood elves had a much higher quality of work on their models, and Night elves and trolls were terrible, especially the males.

However the new face shapes has me actually excited. Although we are seeing this for humans, it's the biggest indication that faces are getting some extra attention. Night elf males need this really badly, along with the ability to regulate their age. Also makes me wonder now if they'd give us some ability to alter body shape.

[Hellspawn]

That has me worried as well but I think its a bit to early to point fingers regarding missing customization progress for night elfs on beta.
I think body types will not happen at least for this customization push. I could see them making some nice looking faces this time around since they don't need to replicate the vanilla faces (a lot of them were pretty bad)
It would be cool if they could fix the prosture on the model and make the skin textures a bit nicer (some muscle definition look a bit strange)
But I would be already happy if we get at least some new stuff I want to use on my characters.

[Pheraz]

I noticed that too.. A little alarming, seeing that it is following the same trend as 6.0 - humans, dwarves etc, getting a lot of work done, night elves being shoved to later and later (same with trolls), what happened last time is we ended up with rushed night elves, especially heavily rushed males, and blood elves that were postponed, but because the pressure was off after release, blood elves had a much higher quality of work on their models, and Night elves and trolls were terrible, especially the males.

However the new face shapes has me actually excited. Although we are seeing this for humans, it's the biggest indication that faces are getting some extra attention. Night elf males need this really badly, along with the ability to regulate their age. Also makes me wonder now if they'd give us some ability to alter body shape.

I am pretty sure they will add lot of stuff for night elves. They know how much people play night elves and they want to make money simple as that.
Interesting to read, this is one of the guys who made the new tech for the new customisation: https://twitter.com/m4ttyan/status/1260699007115866113

[Astranea]

It just occurred to me as I leveled another Horde toon through Nazmir, that the pink skin tone for the male night elf seen in the data mining was already used by some NPCs in Bfa:



Which by the way also proves the point of jewelry being loved by both male and female night elves regardless of their cast or job line. ;-)

The lack of options for the Night Elves in the Alpha has been a little bit disappointing so far, but I am trying to think positive, and hope that means that Blizzard is still considering requests made by fans through the official forums (as supported by this post in which a Blue asked for more player feedback just a few weeks ago). :-)

[FossilFree]

It just occurred to me as I leveled another Horde toon through Nazmir, that the pink skin tone for the male night elf seen in the data mining was already used by some NPCs in Bfa:



Which by the way also proves the point of jewelry being loved by both male and female night elves regardless of their cast or job line. ;-)

The lack of options for the Night Elves in the Alpha has been a little bit disappointing so far, but I am trying to think positive, and hope that means that Blizzard is still considering requests made by fans through the official forums (as supported by this post in which a Blue asked for more player feedback just a few weeks ago). :-)

Wait, where was this pic located? That's so cool!

[FlubberPuddy]

Wait, where was this pic located? That's so cool!

Nazmir during the War Campaign where the final charge is lead to siege Dazar'alor. IIRC.

[FossilFree]

Nazmir during the War Campaign where the final charge is lead to siege Dazar'alor. IIRC.

Interesting! Now I need to track them down...

It's funny how a lot of these customization options are already in the game. I wonder if Blizzard considers these ones to be Shen'dralar, or if they will come up with something new like Day Elves lol.