2012-07-02, 10:51 PM
Sorry, but this image seems rather obvious to me. This is a compilation of concept sketches for the sword whose final version is the colored one at the top. If you look at the skecthes, they put arrows next to a couple of them. Those mark the ones with elemnts they decided were 'keepers'. The most mportant of the arrows is the one that goes from a blade image in the third column at the top and runs down to point to a sword in the third column at the bottom. Look at the final version of the sword and you can see that it combines the overall shape of the sword pointed at with the repeated blade shape of image at the origin of the arrow. Take those three swords/blades and put them together and you will get the sword in color/
This whole sheet is a very common kind of thing you see in a game's art department. Most likely, all of the blades and swords you see were drawn by a different person on the art staff. The designers say to them "Here is what we are looking for, now give us your version." Then the designers look at them all at once and pick and choose what they like and don't like amongst the offerings. Then they assign a final artist to mock up the idea and you get the final item.
As far as it purpose, I think that this is probably one of the in-game swords for the character shown here: http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=56666
That character clearly has a sword of the same design found in these sketches. This may be a lesser version of it, or it could be the Empress weapon for it. (Just like how DS gets new mace weapons every job advance, this could be one of those for the character concept here.)
I foresee this character concept arriving as an 'opposite' for Luminous, or at least a primary enemy for him.
This whole sheet is a very common kind of thing you see in a game's art department. Most likely, all of the blades and swords you see were drawn by a different person on the art staff. The designers say to them "Here is what we are looking for, now give us your version." Then the designers look at them all at once and pick and choose what they like and don't like amongst the offerings. Then they assign a final artist to mock up the idea and you get the final item.
As far as it purpose, I think that this is probably one of the in-game swords for the character shown here: http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=56666
That character clearly has a sword of the same design found in these sketches. This may be a lesser version of it, or it could be the Empress weapon for it. (Just like how DS gets new mace weapons every job advance, this could be one of those for the character concept here.)
I foresee this character concept arriving as an 'opposite' for Luminous, or at least a primary enemy for him.