FINAL FANTASY IV
CECIL (PALADIN) PROJECT #10 CREATED: 1999 "That Light... it called me... my son..." Cecil was always haunted by the terrible things he was commanded to do as a Dark Knight, which eventually caught up to him when he was shunned by the people of Mysidia. In his quest to shed his Dark Knight identity, Cecil traveled to Mt. Ordeals, where he quite literally confronted his dark side. He emerged victorious, demonstrating his true inner strength and was aptly rewarded. He was transformed into a Paladin, no longer able to rely on his old equipment and weapons, which were tainted by Darkness, but he emerged more powerful and pure than ever before. When I decided to start building action figures based on the characters of Final Fantasy IV, it was difficult for me to reconcile all his many different designs. Which one is correct? The version of him seen on the world map? During battles? His sub-screen character portrait? Which of these represents the "true" Cecil? And how did that computer-generated model from the PlayStation full-motion video factor into things? I attempted to select the most distinctive elements of each of these to produce a likeness that reflected all these different looks. I started with the Rohan figure from Mystic Knights of Tyr Na Nog, which was in stores at the time and seemed suitable for my purposes. Cecil doesn't wear quite as much armor as the toy had, though, so I removed some of the armor panels (which were eventually incorporated into my Rosa and Edge projects). I used the head from a Liquid Snake figure from the Metal Gear Solid toy line, adding a headband that I tucked behind the his hair. (The headband is visible in his status portrait, but it's miscolored.) This is a very early project of mine, and if I had to do it over again, I think I would have interpreted his game sprite a little differently (and not relied so heavily on the look of his CGI model). I'm probably going to do a new version of him at some point in the future. |
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