Ummm hello I just ran into your Code Vein AU Ivan and I need to know more because I love that game and it’s such ana incredible idea!! What’s his story??
Hello there! I am quite flattered that you enjoy the CV Ivan artwork!! He was quite fun to draw.
As for his story, it is still a work in progress, so what I put down is probably set to change. But it's a mix of references from both Code Vein 1 and 2 and some homebrew ideas because I was a little disappointed that the second one doesn't really connect with the First one... at all. But i still loved the game.
So it's mainly a RusAme AU, but there are a few extra faces, like Matt for example.
So like CV 1 - the Thorns of Judgement happend and the idea was it kinda mixed the Resurgence from CV2 and the Thorns from CV1 ; And to fight against the Horrors, mankind started a massive Project Regnum.
The Project was to find a suitable vessel to hold a Dominant BOR Parasite - This AU's Version of the Queen. As they would take command of Revenants on the field and mostly take charge on the war against the horrors.
Ivan in this AU is a scientist who is given Revenants to study them, test them, and see how their body can handle certain stresses and situations.
If they seem to do well, he gives them the parasite that will hopefully make the subject a "Queen" Type Revenant. All subjects so far have frenzied or gone berserk, so he has had them euthanized.
Then he is given Alfred.
Massive time skip: he is found by a revenant in the far distant future as he is resurrected/summoned by a Formae (I liked the Formae/magic idea in the second), but he has little to no memory of himself or his past.
There is quite a bit that has been thought out, but a lot of it is still in the... "Should this even happen? Is this a little much?" - type phase. So it's still being heavily brainstormed.
But I am happy you find the idea of the AU interesting!!
I have been playing Dusklight and been having a BLAST! So I have been brain rotting a little bit.
Besides, Alfred just fits too well to represent the Triforce of Courage
I remember a long time ago I had a friend who tried to make this into a fanfic. I hope that friend can smile seeing this now that I have the confidence to draw it.
Had a lot of fun designing Ivan as the Twilight Prince/Twili! Kinda proud how it came out for the full-body.
With the generosity of modders and other behind the scenes activities
I have officially made Ivan in
Final Fantasy XIV
Finally got his face in reference and inspiration from @gremlins-hotel 's more recent concept art of Ivan in our AU.
With me being burnt out with work I haven't been drawing as much. But I have still been brewing ideas behind the scenes and with Final Fantasy's GPose I have been brewing some fun poses.
So you may see me and even Grem post these.
I am not going away from artwork. So I will still post stuff, when I have the energy and draw.
Was just thinking of your ff14 AU, but out of all the mounts ingame, what would Ivan and Alfred have as their main mount?
but also, can you imagine Alfred trying to squeeze into this goofy mount
oh boy, a good question. it may be a long answer that requires a little bit of background info to start, which i will ATTEMPT to be concise with. @artistically-hershie and i have done a lot of work on the au since this post, to the point that the events in this art piece are actually no longer fully accurate!
so...just to start, we made certain executive decisions regarding the au ra as a race, which affect this answer. we really, really loved that the original au ra concepts leaned hard into them being canonically related to dragons. as the story goes, these original designs just weren't working out with the game/heavensward expac as it went through testing and development - mainly egregious clipping errors and clothes/gear not being able to fit or requiring special models - so the au ra steadily lost more and more of their draconic traits (such as little ears, digitigrade legs, longer tails, more horns, etc.), becoming the "voidsent/demon people" that we received in the game today.
that's frankly so boring! give us our dragon people back!!
if squenix doesn't have the balls to make them related to dragons, then we certainly do. we gave them back some of these traits and fully claim that the au ra are related to dragons and the greatwyrms. and in ivan and alfred's case specifically, they're actually a cousin species, the au rei ("AW ray"; we didn't want to completely disregard the otherwise fun concept and design of the au ra that are in the game, such as the nomadic xaela and the diasporic raen populations). they're basically the older, more basal big brothers to the au ra, who are a derived population that moved away from their original homeland and changed with enough time, as life is wont to do. and speaking of homeland, we saw a blank island above hingashi that we've claimed as theirs. they also live in a two-tribe structure in which it's sol & sarnyy (rather than raen & xaela, still sun/moon coded though), with each larger tribe being broken up into numerous clans. that's all story for another ask, however.
so the au rei are far larger than even the au ra, having not left their home and mingled with non-drahn races to have made them smaller. this also meant the au ra began to lose some of those more obviously draconic traits that they had before their move to othard. and i do mean that they are much larger. more concentrated dragon blood meant greater body size and musculature; traits such as having a mix of scales and feathers (source: look closely at hraesvelgr, vrtra, and azdaja, who all have this mix); more horns and more variation in horn/tail growth patterns; freaky feets and claws, and more. and out of spite, we're giving the au ra and our au rei their tiny ears from the concept art. i will attach sketches at the bottom of the post where this trait can be observed more easily.
they're also meant to have less of a severe size difference between the sexes than the au ra do - this was also intentional design on our part, because i love them but it is a bit ridiculous. the dragons of ffxiv apparently canonically have no gender but both genders at the same time! (final fantasy xiv's dragons can also reproduce via parthenogenesis OR any dragon is feasibly capable of bearing an egg via sexual reproduction, it turns out! xiv's dragons really said gender is an eorzean concept and we don't fw that, so we ran with it.) they choose how they present and wish to be identified. so we actually have aimed to make the au rei more androgynous in writing and in art, since we can't do it in the game; it's much harder to tell "male" vs. "female" with them, just like it is with the true dragons. gender is social for the au rei; it depends on the roles they take on within their tribe, which means it can change depending on what you do or who you're talking to. confusing for eorzeans, normal for the boys. ivan as a healer often gets identified in the feminine at home because of the profession's associations with one of their creator gods, the dusk mother, nhaama, who is primarily referred to with feminine markers!
but i digress... you've asked about their mounts. as you can maaaaaybe guess, well, these big dragon freaks aren't about to neatly fit on a yol or a horse any time soon. they're too large and too densely built. they'd kill the poor things trying. instead, their homeland has a native population of mountain gryfons that those of the warrior incline will be challenged to go out and catch for a battle mount/lifelong companion as a test of courage and resolve. otherwise, they ride sturdy steppe bison since a horse won't do to carry a single au rei or their mobile tents and domiciles (they're also nomadic, where do you think the au ra carried it over from?). these bison are integral to many parts of their lives, alongside other livestock such as sheep or goats. meat, fur, milk, bone, horn, hide, as currency or offering to their gods...plus whatever they can hunt and forage. you name it, they've done it. gryfon feathers are also prized, and even more rarely, gryfon meat for certain rituals regarding the dawn father, azim.
as for their main mounts in general, ones that are perhaps not tied to lore...well. that's honestly not something we've given much thought to. with the way the au starts/goes, ivan and alfred won't have access to their gryfons or bison until about the very end of heavensward and into stormblood. until then...i suppose it's up in the air. they're too large for any conventional chocobo, and if they desired a horsebird, they'd have to be provided (or have the gil to purchase) the much larger draught chocobos, which would be the only breeds capable of bearing them anywhere. we'd have to think on that some more!
if you simply want silly mounts that neither of the boys fit in, we figured out the air force mount is absolutely diabolical. the manacutter is pretty bad, too.
forgive how busted ivan looks in these sketches. i recently started using clip studio paint and i'm still very much learning to get used to it. (and to drawing again in general, yikes.) he ended up being my warm-up and it meant he suffered a little in terms of quality, though the design still stands firm and there was no less love put into drawing him. i'll redraw him at some point. i drew alfred second because i deadass did NOT want to deal with his horns and was therefore procrastinating.
