FINAL FANTASY IV
JINN PROJECT #674 CREATED: NOVEMBER 2023 "I guess Jinn is burning as usual, huh?" Jinn was one of the creatures living within the Land of Summoned Monsters, a realm where monsters, not humans, populate the towns. Jinn was a creature of considerable renown, even among his own people, and had numerous historical texsts devoted to documenting his legend. As a master of the element of fire, he could attack with the force of a fiery maelstrom, and he was purported to have an equally hot temper as well. Young Rydia of Mist became acquainted with Jinn during her time spent in the Land of Summoned Monsters, and as a Caller, possessed the abiltiy to bring him forth and send him into battle on her behalf. Jinn was especially effective against cold-based foes. (Jinn appears in numerous other Final Fantasy titles, and is usually named Ifrit. The name Jinn is an odd translation of the word djinn, or genie, whereast the name Ifrit describes a specific type of fire-based genie in Arabian mythology.) Jinn is mostly humanoid but with animalistic characteristics, exhibiting elongated, exaggerated horns like that of a ram or goat. He has always reminded me somewhat of the villain Savanti Romero from the original Ninja Turtles comic book, as both characters vaguely resemble the fauns or satyrs from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. He is apparently quite rare, and tends to do for insane amounts of money on the secondary market (well over $100). Furthermore, the horns on the figure tend to pop off, and are missing from most of the loose samples on eBay. I trolled auctions sites for literally years until I was finally able to snag one with the horns complete and intact, and at a decent price. And then I ended up discarding almost the entire action figure in favor of a He-Man toy that fit the Jinn design much more closely. I still used the horns, though! I replaced He-Man's head with the head from a Bishop action figure from X-Men, though I had to use the original ball joint piece so the new head would fit on the neck properly. I added new horns to the shoulders, gave him some pointy ears, and sculpted new wraps for the lower legs and feet. The earrings are actual metal rings. I ended up gluing a few of his joints together (like the elbows) because I didn't want paint flaking off after I had finished the project. This is a different sort of project than usual for me, since it's basically designed to assume one pose, and one pose only. In his Super Nintendo game sprite, Jinn has two little round things attached to his belt. It's not immediately obvious what they are, based on the game sprite's limited resolution. Close examination of his original concept art, however, reveals that they are, in fact, tiny little skulls. How adorable! Needless to say, I had to reproduce that tiny but important detail. The reason he's crouching in all of his game sprites is because the sprites are based on the original Yoshitaka Amano artwork, in which he's charging right towards the viewer. The character has been redesigned and reinterpreted for numerous other Final Fantasy game appearances, but my project is based directly on his appearance from Final Fantasy IV. |
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