#genshin redesign - redesigns of the characters/npcs/etc
#genshin edit - edits of the character’s official art
#genshin fanart - general fanart tag
#sumeru - sumeru mastertag
also see @cor-lapis sumeru redesign masterpost
#natlan - natlan mastertag
#genshin oc - genshin ocs fall under this tag
also see @genshinimpactocs for a blog dedicated to genshin ocs!
#genshin npcs - genshin npcs go under this tag, but may also be tagged by name if they have one
#alternate outfit - characters in different outfits, like modern clothing - to note, redesigns don’t count as alternate outfits
#melanin edits - edits of official art that change a character’s skin colour to be darker, as well as changing features like hair etc
#genshin ship - tags any overtly ship related content (art that explicitly shows the characters in a romantic light, not just art of them together)
if you need any trigger warning tags or filtering tags lmk and i can do that :D
#[character name]
or
#genshin [character name]
characters are tagged by their name as it appears in the game, and if they have multiple names i’ll try to include both!
notable mentions:
for nahida/lesser lord kussanali, i just default to nahida
raiden is tagged as both raiden and ei
older scaramouche designs only have scaramouche, newer designs have both his name & wanderer
as you may know, i redesigned the sumeru boys a few weeks ago because, as much as i love them to bits, their designs are well. not that great in some areas. also because i wanted to draw them more often without the roadblock of their designs being so complicated. i've mainly been drawing my cyno and tighnari redesigns, but i did also do alhaitham and kaveh, so i thought that i'd show off these redesigns in one post, along with some notes on why i made certain decisions. hope you enjoy!
(pre-note: just so no one gets confused, i also renamed everyone when i did my redesigns, giving tighnari and alhaitham first names and cyno and kaveh last names.)
tighnari ❀
(renamed abdullah al-tighnari; tighnari was made his surname because that was the case for the real guy he was based on)
i went into this thinking "how can i make this design more appealing to me while still retaining what the original design meant?". since tighnari is one of my favorites in the game overall, i put a lot of pressure on myself to make a decent design.
a lot of tighnari's design inspiration comes from moroccan (specifically amazigh) culture, which i kept in my mind through most of the drawing. this inspiration shows in his bead necklace (i forget the name), his belt, and his earring, which i remade to mirror the shape of moroccan headpieces.
gave him some muscles because there's no way a guy with his job wouldn't have them. also a bottom-heavy fat distribution for self-indulgent purposes.
the design has less layers and lighter/flowier clothes because of tighnari's canon sensitivity to heat. if you're living in the rainforest (a famously humid biome), you probably wouldn't be wearing what canon tighnari does, heat sensitivity or not.
gave him some traits that are popular headcanons, such as the flower thigh tattoo, the sharp teeth, the scars, the claw-like nails (with the middle and ring nails filed down for No Reason), and the lichtenberg figure. also gave him tan skin and wavy hair because i Cannot deal with canon nari looking like that.
sturdy shoes! archery gloves! his vision on his belt! quality of life features that an actual forest ranger would have!
i will admit that the slit pants, the shorts, and the tights were all for self-indulgence reasons, but i think they go together well with the rest of the outfit too.
a braid in his hair for cynari marriage purposes. (i hc that in sumeru, marriages are consummated by braiding each other's hair)
kaveh ❂
(renamed kaveh laghmani; surname is of iranian origin, but i forgot the meaning)
another real quick note: if i change a character's pronouns in their rewrite, i'll be using those pronouns in their notes. here, kaveh goes by he/she pronouns (she just like me fr).
his canon design is actually my favorite of the sumeru boys, so this redesign was more of a simplification while still keeping the original color scheme and such.
from my research, kaveh's mainly inspired by persian/iranian culture. this is what i had in mind with her shirt and her jacket... shawl... thing. idk what to call it.
kept him a skinny twink; imo, her being a twink in canon fits pretty well.
emphasized the bird of paradise motif with the thing on her side looking like feathers. you will see this again with alhaitham.
made him brunet for more cohesion with the color palette, also because i don't like the whole blonde-fading-to-brown situation he has going on in his canon design.
flowers!!! also giving him a pretty headpiece bc this guy is flashy. also also keeping the feather, it's cunty and fun.
i wanted to make kaveh obviously gnc/genderqueer without going into full-on feminine outfit territory. you can tell she's not quite cis but it's not super in your face yk?
made his vision one of his earrings like yae miko because i forgot to give it a proper place in my concept drawings lmao
quality of life feature: actual artist gloves that aren't cut off. seriously, them being fingerless in the canon design completely negates the point of artist gloves.
removed his braids because of the aforementioned marriage headcanon.
alhaitham ⚘
(renamed amir al-haytham; i wanted to give him the most basic name possible, though i fought with myself a lot on whether to write it as al-haitham or al-haytham)
my god i despise his canon design. it's so... not him. my goal with a redesign was just to give him an outfit that made sense for his character because jesus his canon design is an atrocity.
alhaitham is mainly inspired by either saudi arabian or general west asian culture (like what's constant and such). i was mainly inspired by casual saudi arabian menswear when i was designing him.
hot take but i don't like alhaitham being buff in canon. i made him chubby/fat in my redesign mainly for self-indulgent reasons, but also because it makes more sense to me. also gave him facial hair because yes
kept his color scheme mostly the same, along with the eye motif. emphasized the eagle motif slightly with the feather hip piece (see: kaveh's redesign).
gave him a headscarf (not a hijab or anything like that, just a regular headscarf) because he felt like the type, plus i got the design idea for it and went "well i can't not include it now".
wanted to give him the vibes of an npc who was forced to be a main character
no he isn't wearing his vision anywhere, he doesn't carry it around in my rewrite.
quality of life features: more sensible, looser clothes that are easier to live in- really the whole design is meant to be a quality of life improvement first and foremost
cyno ⚡︎
(renamed cyno al-sahrawi; surname meaning is "of the sahara" or more generally, "of the desert")
like kaveh, i'm gonna be using he/they pronouns for cyno here because that's what i put in my rewrite.
in my opinion, cyno's design is relatively solid, but with a few glaring flaws that kinda ruin everything for me. i'll bring them up as these notes go on.
they're very obviously inspired by ancient egyptian culture, specifically anubis. like, it's very blatant. with my redesign, i wanted to keep those inspirations in mind while making the outfit less stereotypical and make more sense.
why does this man, who's said to fight a lot, not wear a shirt? why are you letting the place where most of your vital organs reside breathe freely? also, why does this guy not have scars?
simplified a bunch of patterns, especially below the belt and with his headpiece. also made their helmet(?) a darker, more saturated purple to attract your eyes' attention to it.
gave him eye of horus makeup for a little cultural nod
the black piece in the back was made to look like a tail to further the jackal thing.
curly hair that resembles lightning bolts <3
the shoes were inspired by traditional egyptian footwear, because if this guy is out in the desert all the time, i'm not letting him go without some kind of foot protection.
quality of life features: a bit of armor on his arm (partially for aesthetic purposes), less flowy bits on his helmet and hips to prevent distraction or getting caught on things, the aforementioned shoes
added braids for cynari purposes, because i'm me.
hope you enjoyed reading this! please keep in mind that this is all off the top of my head and doesn't even go into color theory, how the designs mirror each other, and other smaller things like that. i might make a part 2 someday going into those things, but who knows with my memory lmao
