Looks will only get you so far

Now and then, and actually pretty often, the community asks for updated character models, especially for the races that have existed since original World of Warcraft. Blizzard said something like this "we're reluctant to do this, as people are attached to their characters and how they look. But at the same time we're working on this task already, adding more facial structure and expressions" at Blizzcon.

As a person that is attached to how my characters look (I actually got Shadowed Unit Frames just so I could have a big 3D-picture of myself up at all times), I hope they are careful when they change the way we build our characters. I'm not artistic or creative at all, so I would end up either with max-face or boring-face. :) I'm generally not fond of having my settings messed with... But of course I want my characters to feel more alive as well. I hope when they do this, I get to keep my current look on Lae. It would be awful to suddenly have her foreign to me.

I'm really not exaggerating about not being artistic and creative. :) It's a known fact among my friends that all my charatcters are draenei (except the non-played warlock). But a while ago a guild mate was looking at my alt in Stormwind, and he said something like "Lae. Isn't this exactly the same face and skin colour you have on your other character? In fact, all your characters look like this!?!" In which my reply could be nothing other than /shrug /blush /sink-into-the-ground.

As I like to make lists of things, here are my rankings of current obtainable female draenei looks.

SKIN COLOUR

Draenei skin colours are variations of blue, green and purple, pale to dark. Of these I tend to like purple best, then blue and then green. And dark before pale.

Lae was my first char, and thus my first draenei. Originally I made her blue back then, but a couple of years ago I paid to have her skin colour dark purple. I can't really explain very well why, but she just looked a bit wrong compared to the newer alts I had made.

15. DK-only look, pale

14. DK-only look

13. DK-only look, dark

12. Green, feeling sick poor thing :/

11

10

9

8. Transparent pale

7

6

5

4

3. Bluuue

2

1. Dark beautiful purple (skin colour, don't look at the face!!!)

This is the only skin colour I use when I make draenei alts now, everything else looks pale and wrong.

FACE

10. Less intelligent (in my imagination)

9. Macho

8. Arrogant rich drama queen

7. Unfriendly

6

5. Sooo sad

4

3. Freckles

2. Classic beauty

1. Oh so damned cute and happy and friendly

When making new alts, I usually go with face 1... Sometimes 2. But I see now that 3 is pretty cool as well. And if I was a RP-er and wanted a char that had gone through some tragedy, 5 would be a very good choice. But I'm not. :)

HAIR COLOUR

10

9. Yellow

8. Moss

7

6

5. Blue

4. Black

3. Purple

2. Brown

1. White

The white hair colour goes very well with the dark purple skin tone, making a good contrast. I also feel the white isn't old-white, just one-of-many-colours-white.

HAIR STYLE

16. 80's male rocker :(

15. Hairband :/

14. Slick

13

12

11

10

9

8. Spiky

7. Elegant

6

5

4

3

2

1. Ponytail

A hunter on a quest needs her hair away from the face. It's practical really. Well, and looks very good. All my alts have hair styles within 1 to 6...

HORNS

7

6. Talbuk

5

4. Proud

3.

2

1. Laid back

I've kept to 1, 2 and 3 on all 3874 draenei I ever made.

LAE

Ok, so adding all the best features, the above one should be the best female draenei look in my subjective head. However, this is not how Lae looks. She's a bit more strict. A lone ranger, not smiling all the time. Don't get me wrong, she has a great sense of humour and an awsome personality. ;)

Draenei hunter Laeleiweyn anno 2011

Draenei hunter Laeleieweyn anno 2007

Lae