makeup retrospective: my final fantasy ix lookbook

16-Apr-2025

Video games were always present in my household growing up, but I often sat back and watched. There were some games that I connected with and would sit in front of the TV for hours playing and others that I didn’t quite connect with as a player. I could watch my brothers play platform games for hours, laughing and backseating, but I was clumsy and frustrated whenever I was the one in control. One day my older brother bought Super Mario RPG and that changed my relationship with games. There was so much text to read, little nooks to explore, characters with story arcs, and incredible music. Finally, I had found my genre. From there I played Final Fantasy VI and VII, though I didn’t quite make it to end game with either (Kefka’s Tower and disc three, respectively.)

Final Fantasy IX, however, I played all the way to the final cut scene and was in awe how thoroughly it had swept me away. Even though I had to rely on walkthroughs and my older brother’s assistance to get through some of the more frustrating sections of the game, my overall experience was incredibly positive. Long before I ever became a Shakespeare kid, I fell in love with the theatre plot in Alexandria and how it brings the initial four protagonists together. Vivi’s adventure trying to obtain a ticket to watch I Want to Be Your Canary and, eventually, sneaking into the castle accompanied by a thief and winding up on stage with real pyrotechnics issuing from his gloved hands. Zidane capturing Princess Garnet (who, in her own right, wants to be caught to see her kingdom firsthand) and all of the great banter that ensues between them. And Steiner, of course, the somewhat bumbling knight who would die for his kingdom and Princess, taking everything that happens in the play 100% seriously, including Garnet’s staged death.

The aesthetics and color palettes also inspired me so much: a little bit early modern, a little bit steampunk, and a impressive, overrun wilderness: marshes, sandy deserts, dense forests, rocky mountains. It was such a departure from the previous two entries in the Final Fantasy franchise where the characters and environment were much more diesel punk. The character designs also won my heart because they were both adorable and unusual. The official, concept, and in-game art of the previous two entries looked very modern and emphasized fairly conventional body types. The clothing, of course, is something that stands out in most of the games, but I didn’t really see myself in those characters for a variety of reasons. The designs in FFIX, however, felt more fantastical and it was easier to project myself onto them while also learning from how their differences impact the way they are treated within the world (tails, horns, being a void.)

When I started wearing makeup again in earnest, I wanted to try my hand at doing a lookbook inspired by the characters from the series, including their trance mode designs. If I were to redo this series, it would probably look very different since my technique (both makeup application and photography) has improved and so have my tools—particularly which eyeshadow tones and textures I have access to in my kit. Maybe that is in the cards one day, but I still want to reflect back on my original interpretation of these characters and what they each meant to me.

There will be minor spoilers as I discuss each character, including ones who appear later in the game, but I did try to refrain from mentioning major plot points - just in case ^^

Zidane Tribal

This is my home. This is the place I call home. The man is still looking for his birthplace. But he already has a home.

It feels as though Zidane doesn't get enough credit given that he comes hot off the heels of Cloud and Squall who are definitely more conventional 90s heartthrobs despite the goofiness of their hair and weapons. While I didn't have a crush on Zidane, there was a lot that I liked about his character and that I have only grown more fond of revisiting the series as an adult. He's far more emotive than the previous heroes in addition to being incredibly funny, compassionate, open-minded, and brave. I love that he's a thief, an actor, and as at home in the countryside as in the bustling city of Lindblum. Plus, his core story about found families and the power of friendship fall into some of my favorite tropes.

If I were to revisit the first look, I would be a little more experimental with placement. I like the attempt at pairing warm and cool colors, but stark cut creases and wings aren't really my cup of tea. I would also probably pair this with a deeper, warm brown lip and amp the brown pigment in the inner corner to tie in the leather accents from his wardrobe. However, I still like this trance mode interpretation and it encouraged me to play with blush draping more often - though I might add a touch of yellow blush into the blend and a bit of iridescent sparkle to the center of the lip to capture the glint of his blade.

Princess Garnet Til Alexandros XVII/Dagger

My memories will be a part of the sky… It’s been so long… I can’t wait to see everyone… but it won’t be the same… I’ve got to let go of the past… I’ve got to move on.

Dagger was such an important character to me growing up. I loved her adventurous spirit, her earnestness in overcoming her royal naïveté, and how her grief prompts her to seek balance between responsibility and individuality. In Garnet's first cutscene, she flashes Zidane a mischievous smile proving herself capable of keeping step with him. She reinvents herself more than once, changing her name and appearance, reconnecting with her heritage, and we watch her blossom into such an incredible person. Final Fantasy has a lot of great female characters, but I have a soft spot for Dagger.

The first in this pair of looks quickly becomes one of my signature styles playing with negative space on the lid with a more dramatic inner corner and lower lashline. I also love how mint and lilac look together, though I do wish that my lip was more harmonious with the rest of the look. At the time, I didn't really own anything that would lean cooler.

Vivi Orbiter

No more. I won’t let you make any more instruments of murder!

From his first stumble into Alexandria, this little black mage completely stole my heart. Final Fantasy IX is generally quite existential, despite its lighthearted moments and Vivi's profile screen's inquiry "How do you prove that you exist? Maybe we don't exist" haunts the game. Like Garnet, Vivi has so much curiosity about the world, but he’s also terrified of it, in part, because its inhabitants are prejudiced against him. Replaying the Black Waltz arc breaks me every single time. Despite how he is perceived, Vivi is determined to connect with the world, to find his people, a purpose, and it's a beautiful exercise being "human" and "existing" are processes and not material, given states.

Back then, I was so much less confident in doing smokey eyes, but I like the concept! I think I could revisit this with better blending and maybe push the corners out a bit more. It took me a while to envision how I could represent the color palette for Vivi’s trance since those light pastel yellow-greens don’t really show up on my skin tone. So I went with something shimmery and ethereal and I hoped that it would still capture the essence of how much damage this cute little black mage can deal during the end game fights.

Aldebert Steiner

I shall follow you to kingdom come if I must.

My first impression of Steiner was that he was such a goober. And he is! But I also wasn’t expecting to end up deeply invested in his story; maybe not as much as the other characters, but he became important to me in his own right. It makes sense for his trope to be a serious knight, especially when I step back and examine the sweeping themes about collective and individual identity. Steiner is a knight, period. But as he follows Dagger, develops respect for Master Vivi, and even drops his disdain for Zidane, he allows himself to develop genuine friendships trading obligatory fealty for voluntary loyalty. By the final third of the game, Steiner enthusiastically pledges himself not to his kingdom, but to his friends. That just kind of gets me.

The first look here is a bit of a miss for me, but I had limited access to greys and blues back then and I'm confident I could do something pretty cool with the shiny shimmers I own. Steiner's trance look is still a cool concept but I wish it were a touch more purple to line up with the game sprite. Plus, what an opportunity this would be for a dramatic purple lipstick with green shimmer!

Freya Crescent

I could not bring peace to Burmecia and thus fulfill Sir Fratley’s wish. But now, all I can do is protect this beautiful place.

Nobody in this game was cooler to me than Freya: a dragoon who attacks by jumping so high it takes several turns before she skewers her enemies with a lance, a woman who doesn't take any of Zidane's shit, and, at least in my save file, the one who takes down the Zaghnol solo. I loved that the Burmecians weren’t human or conventionally pretty with their sharp claws and foxy snouts.¹ When you first meet her, Freya's a bit snarky and aloof which made it catch me off-guard that her story can just wreck your heart.

Much like my all-time favorite Final Fantasy character (Terra Branford), Freya’s narrative is about memory. While Terra struggles to recall her own history, Freya has the burden of remembering what others have forgotten: a teen soldier, an estranged over, a fallen kingdom. What I find the most compelling about Freya, however, is that the beginning of her story is about all of this trauma and her goals shift toward this desire to heal in whatever capacity is achievable during the bleakest moments.

Quina Quen

Why you care about small things? World very simple place. World only have two things: Things you can eat and things you no can eat.

What a strange and wonderful character! I had no idea what to make of them partly because the character model and avatar design made so I was never sure what I was looking at. However, even back then, I was very compelled by Quina’s ambiguity, including their disinterest in modern conventions of gender and sexuality. Is the trans color palette a coincidence? Maybe, but it's fun to imagine that it's purposeful! Even though Quina is not anchored as emotionally in the core plot, I think they contribute a lot of fun comic relief that would be lost if cut from the story. Plus, that resistance to social norms feels very in the spirit of the game's themes. One thing that separates Quina and Vivi is that they are so sure of who they are and what they want. Something as simple as a drive to cook good food casts Vivi's own quest to know himself in a different context: you can exist because you want to exist and you can be who you are because it's who you want to be.

I didn't have the right tone of blue for Quina's primary look so it ended up a bit more teal than I was going for, but I still like the vibe of it. For the trance mode, I was aiming to do a mostly all-matte look to represent this delightfully cookie-monsterish, frog-loving clown, but then I had to do a rescue mission on a patchy blue that led to layers of shimmer and metal. I loved how the final look came out, but it was just as unexpected as Quina themself!

Eiko Carol

I’m not gonna cry! I’m a grown-up now, and crying won’t help one bit!

When I was a kid, I was very ungenerous toward Eiko and thought she was annoying, bratty, and "redundant" in combat if you already have Dagger in your party. Having watched Voidburger and ChipCheezum stream vods for the game, I now realize there was a lot of me in Eiko’s character that I just didn’t want to acknowledge. I was just as stubborn, full of myself, and, most important to her core plot, lonely. For a kid to grow up so isolated and still manage to experience even more loss and suffering is deeply unfair and I wish that I had been more compassionate about that before - made all the more ironic since so many of my original characters had similar personality traits to her. It's also great to experience Eiko go from spiteful interactions with Dagger to being one of her biggest champions.

I adore how colorful and shimmery Eiko's main look turned out and would gladly wear something similar today. She was rarely in my party, especially toward the late stages of the game, so I didn’t use Eiko's trance abilities nearly as much as the others. Her design, however, is super cute! Funny story though: I immediately wiped this lip gloss off and pitched the tube in the trash because it was a sensory nightmare.

Amarant Coral

Damn hypocrite. Always talking about friendship, when you’re nothing but a selfish loner.

So… I don’t have any attachment to Amarant whatsoever. I found his character deeply uninteresting and underdeveloped especially since he joins your party relatively late compared to everyone else in the cast. If I step back, Amarant can be viewed as a foil to Zidane. They're both thieves, but responded to the hardships in their life very differently leading to the development of opposing moral compasses. I wish that had been tapped into even more, especially after witnessing the arc they gave Steiner. There was potential here, but I don't think it paid off enough for me.

It was winter when I did this pair of looks so I leaned heavily into the festive green and reds. Apologies for not including an image of Amarant's trance mode,² but I liked how this purple look came together so much that I couldn't resist including an extra shot from that photoshoot.

Kuja

Oh, how I’ve longed for this day… the day I might finally cast away this mask to reveal my true self. Now it no longer matters if the Iifa Tree is liberated. It means nothing to me! The tree is so beautiful. Its beauty becomes the great mother tree that lives among the stars.

Kuja is a fantastic villain: dramatic, cunning, petty, and yet with a backstory that completely tips his motivations on their head in a way that I did not see coming. While I think most of the Final Fantasy antagonists have elements of the queer villain trope, Kuja is just so delightfully extra from his costume to his speech (at least in the English translation) and I ate it up completely. His theme music, the epic battles, and the foil of all foils to Zidane just made for such a satisfying story.

The primary look could be much more interesting now that I have deeper purples to work with, but I think the idea was okay. However, I knew going into Kuja’s trance mode³ that I wanted to mirror Zidane’s to contrast the originally softer, whispery pinks with harsher, vivid reds. Even though the drape is more dramatic, it’s surprisingly more "wearable" than I thought it would be. It still looks more pink than I wanted it to, which has been the bane of my existence with red eyeshadow, but I clearly still enjoy it if I included to shots.

Revisiting this makeup series really makes me want to play the game again... but maybe not enough to put myself through all the random encounters. Some day, I'll get back to it though because I feel like there's an essay sitting in me waiting to be written.

Thank you for reading! ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ

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#Final Fantasy IX #makeup #video games