Felicia Day's Dragon Age II Character Tallis Needs a Virtual Fashion Makeover -- Here's How She Should Look!

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

This week BioWare released the latest downloadable add-on for Dragon Age II, Mark of the Assassin, timed with the start of Felicia Day's highly anticipated Dragon Age: Redemption webseries, which features her character from Redemption, an elf named Tallis. The details are still a little sketchy around this new heroine (anti-heroine?), and while I've watched the first episode of Redemption, I haven't finished Mark of the Assassin myself. But when I started playing it, I was struck by Tallis' character design. Felicia Day has a very unique face that contributes to her charm and appeal, but it doesn't seem to translate to her digital Dragon Age doppelganger.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say the character looks a bit creepy. Compared to the other characters in the game, who are a lot more polished, Felicia's stands out like a sore thumb. Just take a look at Tallis above right, compared to the other assassin character, Isabela. I mean, look at how they're advertising her, on the left! They were definitely trying to recreate Felicia's unique and sweet features as faithfully as possible, but some things just don't translate well into polygons and pixels.

No, this just won't do. And since I'm such a fan of the Dragon Age  franchise, I decided to re-imagine Felicia Day's Tallis in Second Life, adding my own spin on this redheaded assassin's style. Take a look:

But this is just a taste; keep reading for all the juicy details on how I put this look together:

In Dragon Age II, the elves have much more distinct features than they did in the first game: They're lanky, almost bordering on gawky, with massive irises and broad, high-bridged noses... in addition to their characteristically pointed ears. Tallis is no exception, though she of course shows some of Felicia's facial elements, and a bit of signature smirk. I did my best to reflect that in creating my shape for Tallis, though I was careful not to make her look too alien. I'm wearing the Loa skin from Mother Goose's [Click here to teleport to Mother Goose's in TURPENTINE], specifically because the realistic skin is an integral part of recreating Felicia's real features. I added a pair of eyes from MiaSnow [Click here to teleport to MiaSnow in TWOMOONS ISLAND], famed for having very large irises -- perfect for an elf. I picked a pair of cute sculpted prim ears that were large and just a little bit droopy, like Tallis' ears in Redemption, from Beetlebones [Click here to teleport to Beetlebones in SEOUL CITY], and tinted them to match the skin.

Her hairstyle was where I finally began to diverge from what's been established so far. In the game, Tallis wears a high, thick ponytail, while Felicia's live-action Tallis wears her hair down. Having long hair myself, I know that it may look great when it's loose. However, if I were an assassin, I'd prefer to keep my hair out of the way as much as possible. I compromised with a low and loose ponytail called Fight, a limited release by Elikatira for Collarbor88 [Click here to teleport to Collabor88], in a Day-worthy shade of red. I also took some liberties in terms of Tallis' body art. Call me a dork, but it really stood out to me that she's apparently part of the Qunari, a society of heavily painted warriors, but in the game, she doesn't have so much as a speck of paint or ink anywhere. Her armor also shows a lot of elven influence, and many elves in Dragon Age also sport intricate tattoos, but still not a line to be seen on Tallis. So I chose to run with the Qunari idea and added a layer of red warpaint by Ghurab [Click here to visit Ghurab on the Marketplace]. The original tattoo has markings on the face as well, but I edited the layer to keep her face clear and Felicia-esque.

I found Tallis' original armor a little too vividly colored, not to mention a little bit flimsy. Anyone working with the Qunari would need something with a little more substance, so I started with the green and brown Ddraigh armor set from DragansVarg (you might remember the black version from my take on Assassin's Creed), then tinted and added pieces of Caverna Obscura's Ascalon Ranger set [Click here to teleport to Caverna Obscura in ALLIGATOR BAYOU] to get this layered look. After some minor modification even her pauldrons are a blend of the two, with Ascalon on the right shoulder connecting to the Ddraigh pauldron on the right. Finally, I added a pair of highly detailed matching daggers from { TALA's } Weapons [Click here to teleport to TALA's in CIFRA] to complete the avatar-- and make her combat ready, of course!

I'm rather fond of my SL-based Tallis myself, but I put the question up to fans of Dragon Age and Ms. Felicia Day: Which version is more worthy of the Internet superstar? Since she once visited Second Life as her Guild character, I wonder if she'll want to try becoming Tallis in SL too!

Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Missy Restless]

Great job Iris! In my opinion your SL-based Tallis is far superior. I'll tweet this URL @feliciaday and maybe she'll notice :)

[Damien Fate]

Looks great! Definitely better than the in-game version.

[Kim]

Goofy look on her face, looks like she's fallen victim to the newbie "Joker face" mistake. Turn down the mouth corners a little bit.

Other than that, perfect!

[foneco zuzu]

Nice work,;)

[Anonymous]

Keep the mouth corners as they are; they're just fine.

Whatever you do, do NOT put the mouth corners "down". I swear every avatar in second life is running around with that fugly "pout" look on their faces.

[Kim]

Anonymous is right, corners down TOO MUCH is bad too. A happy medium between the "fugly pout" and the "joker face" is best.

Fantastic work overall and congratulations on getting it featured at Kotaku.

[DSX]

Found this post while googling for a mod to fix her face. I'm about 20 minutes into the DLC, and can not stand the way her character looks. Absolutely agree that Bioware has dropped the ball on her cosmetics, it's quite simply a distraction with just how ugly she is in game. Felicia Day definitely deserves a better treatment from their art team.