New seraph faces – What do you think?

[Sormiel]

Among many new additions and improvements, v1.21 will include changes to the seraphs' faces with the intention of making them visually similar to NPC faces.

My feelings are ... mixed. I welcome the consistency, but the actual expressions take away much of the charm the seraphs had for me. The smile in particular, which I always found radiated friendliness, looks almost ... menacing?

(Svarrmir kindly lends us a comparison of old & new – same expression "Grin" versus "Kind", I made a mistake here)

I think it's mostly the eyebrows. The mouths, on the other hand, look much better now.

But before going all reactionary and immediately taking this to /Suggestions or modding them back, I'd like to hear the opinions of others. Will it be an improvement? Do you prefer the old faces? Or do you feel that it's not much of a change at all?

Cheers!

Edited July 26, 2025 by Sormiel
mixed up two different expressions

[Echo Weaver]

Huh. You're kind of right. I think it has to do with the way the eyebrows are placed. Is that the exact same seraph face? Meaning - is the extra eyebrow tilt part of the new faces?

I love the eyes. I found the eyes as pupils with a line of color around them to look pretty creepy/strange except for a handful of skin/eye color combinations. The shading handles that beautifully.

[ComeAves]

The old faces are cuter, I was very much satisfied with then. The new ones kinda scare me, especially the eyes...
I mostly play singleplayer so I don't see seraph faces often, definetly not something I would mod back or fuss about.

[-Glue-]

So far, I really like the change. The Seraph's have always looked pretty ugly to me, and this definitely makes their faces look less like a soulless block. The mouth looks less like a worm glued onto their face, and the eyes carry much more emotion. They are far more pleasing to look at now, imo.
I think the different hair style also helps here though. In the new image, it covers up the edges of their face, removing more of that blocky look, and adding more depth/visual intrigue.

The eyebrows definitely make the smile look more menacing. They are pointed downward in a more confident way. Whereas before they were curved up, which looks more shy or nervous. The darker lines around the eyes may also be attributing to that feeling. Its a much more focused expression.
I think with some tweaks, the new faces could give the same friendly feeling as before. I personally like the look of the new expression.

[xXx_Ape_xXx]

Not sure how I feel about the new faces yet, it made my regular look seem somewhat angry now, and that's not what I want it to be. Will have to let it grow a bit, and see what I think after using it for a while..

[LadyWYT]

At a glance, I like the looks of them. The colors seem crisper and there's more subtle detail that wasn't there before. I think the biggest difference is the addition of proper eyelashes, along with a slight rounding of the pupils and adjustment of pupil highlights.

[Sormiel]

2 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

Is that the exact same seraph face? Meaning - is the extra eyebrow tilt part of the new faces?

Yes, it's the same character, same expression.

I think bringing the eyebrows closer to the original version would help them a lot in my book; I think the other changes could grow on me, especially the mouth.

Only somewhat related, but I think I should mention that I play with Express Yourself macros and exclusively in a group, so I emote a lot and see my seraph's face change every time. Hence why I might care more about them than others, especially those focused on singleplayer.

[ifoz]

I really hope the devs see this post before stable, I am not the biggest fan of the new faces either.
They look fine, but every single one also now looks either angry/cocky or sad/tired. There's no longer options for any kind of happy/friendly expressions.
I think it's the eyebrows and eyes now being angled at least slightly downwards in all of them.

Here's an image of my Seraph in both pre3 and rc1, same settings, same expression ("grin").
I don't like how he looks like he's glaring now, and there's no expression like the old, friendly version.

[LadyWYT]

10 hours ago, ifoz said:

They look fine, but every single one also now looks either angry/cocky or sad/tired. There's no longer options for any kind of happy/friendly expressions.
I think it's the eyebrows and eyes now being angled at least slightly downwards in all of them.

Here's an image of my Seraph in both pre3 and rc1, same settings, same expression ("grin").
I don't like how he looks like he's glaring now, and there's no expression like the old, friendly version.

Looking at your screenshot, I'd say it's the upper eyelashes/eyelids. On the old face, the rest higher on the eye, giving the eyes a wider, more friendly appearance. On the new faces, the lashes/lids rest lower, so the eyes have a more heavy-lidded bored/snarky/angry expression to them since they aren't opened as wide. That's not the say the eyebrows aren't playing a factor too, but I think adjusting the eyelids first would improve quite a lot.

[Echo Weaver]

11 hours ago, ifoz said:

I really hope the devs see this post before stable, I am not the biggest fan of the new faces either.
They look fine, but every single one also now looks either angry/cocky or sad/tired. There's no longer options for any kind of happy/friendly expressions.
I think it's the eyebrows and eyes now being angled at least slightly downwards in all of them.

Here's an image of my Seraph in both pre3 and rc1, same settings, same expression ("grin").
I don't like how he looks like he's glaring now, and there's no expression like the old, friendly version.

So those are  both different stages of the changes release? I think I agree that I like pre-3 better, though I like the lower lid on rc-1. The eyes look taller om pre-3, which means they're centered higher on the face. The upper lid comes all the way down to the top of the pupil in rc-1, which does give a bit more calculating look.

I think I prefer both to the ones in 1.20, though.

[ifoz]

9 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

So those are  both different stages of the changes release? I think I agree that I like pre-3 better, though I like the lower lid on rc-1. The eyes look taller om pre-3, which means they're centered higher on the face. The upper lid comes all the way down to the top of the pupil in rc-1, which does give a bit more calculating look.

I think I prefer both to the ones in 1.20, though.

Oh no, pre-3 faces are identical to 1.20, that's why I used it as the "before" image.

[Echo Weaver]

21 hours ago, ifoz said:

Oh no, pre-3 faces are identical to 1.20, that's why I used it as the "before" image.

The mouths in your pre-3 pic don't have the same fuzziness as the top before/after, and the eyelid detail is more pronounced. I'm now squinting at my character's face... 

Edited July 24, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[Murlok]

I see different reactions to new faces and just want to contribute my "voice". I like the new faces, they have become much more alive and natural, which, by the way, my viewers on the stream agreed with.

 

They probably need to be improved in some details, but I fully trust Saraty's instinctsand I'm sure if something was missed, it will be fixed later.

[ijkdenem]

bring back all of the old skin and hair colors please.

[Cleitarchus]

The old faces were cute. I liked it a lot more that way. 

[Sormiel]

On 7/24/2025 at 9:45 PM, Murlok said:

I like the new faces, they have become much more alive and natural

I definitely think that they look much more refined, but as a side effect, many of them look more tense than before. Since your seraph has a rather tense expression to begin with, I can see why it's a clear improvement for you :)

 

I made a little side-by-side comparison of all expressions, including the 9 new additions on the right.

(By the way, this means that I made a mistake in my original post: The left face is Grin, while the right face is actually Kind, so they are not the same. On the other hand, the right face doesn't look very kind to me ...)

Seeing them like this, I can definitely say two things for sure: The majority is a direct improvement, no question (look at Smirk ...! It's so much better), but on the other hand, no face looks particularly friendly, don't you think? Grin looks neutral, Kind looks quite intense, and Mellow and Caring look almost identical to Kind.

In short, for me a change to Kind and Grin to make them friendlier would do, or alternatively a simple addition of something like Friendly/Happy. For those who can't get used to the new faces at all, mods would be the way to go – but I'd rather avoid that myself.

I'm planning to write a suggestion for this small change. What do you think?

 

On another note, by Jonas, don't switch around between versions with one of the new faces selected!

Spoiler

 

[dakko]

3 hours ago, Sormiel said:

In short, for me a change to Kind and Grin to make them friendlier would do, or alternatively a simple addition of something like Friendly/Happy. For those who can't get used to the new faces at all, mods would be the way to go – but I'd rather avoid that myself.

I'm planning to write a suggestion for this small change. What do you think?

To me, the way that the upper and lower lids are angled/exaggerated makes Kind look menacing. I dislike it intensely because of that.

hmm.. in fact, a comparison between angry and kind supports my observation. When one is contemplating taking aggressive action against someone else, the eyes narrow; that is what I notice in the eyes of "kind." (eta: in "angry" the eyebrows are also involved -- the brows are not always involved when it comes to being menacing, it's the narrowing of the eyes)

Edited July 26, 2025 by dakko

[Uishii]

As much as it hurts me to say this, I was kind of a hater for the old faces. They felt really jarring and disjointed when compared to the rest of the games art and aesthetics for me.
When i saw the new faces I got very excited to see some tweaks being made to how they look. They also feel far more expressive now which I'm a big fan of.
Overall they just feel more fitting now.

[Facethief]

On 7/26/2025 at 7:28 AM, Sormiel said:

That thousand-block stare on some of the old faces… the temporal anomalies really got to the seraphs.

[majestik]

Overall I don't have anything against the new faces, they seems a bit more smooth than the old one. I think it doesn't really affect me because I only play solo and don't often change player view. But seeing Sormiel side-by-side comparison, I agree that the Kind and Grin ones are a bit too intense and that work less for me.

[Krougal]

I'll be happier when the human skin tones are updated for the new models.

Yes, the smile does look menacing, but considering how harsh the world is, I'd say it is the smile of an "uncompromising survivor"

[Facethief]

10 hours ago, Krougal said:

the smile of an "uncompromising survivor"

That’s the “smile” of someone who had to eat something they probably needed later, (limb, friend, paper, clothing) I don’t think it’s quite to that.

[Echo Weaver]

I like the new faces overall, but the side-by-side really does highlight that the mouths have lost expressiveness. Grin is definitely not grinning, and smirk (my face) is at best vaguely ironic.

And, as pointing out, the tilt of eyebrows is too menacing in expressions that should be friendly.

It seems like this could be refined a bit.

Edited July 28, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[Dark Thoughts]

On 7/22/2025 at 9:29 PM, Sormiel said:

with the intention of making them visually similar to NPC faces.

I don't see that at all? They look the same as before to me, just more polished. The other NPCs, which afaik are regular humans, look way different.

Personally I think they looked stupid before and still do in the new version. I still hope we'll get other (non furry) species in the character creation at some point, including humans - modded or vanilla - even if it would be inaccurate to the story (assuming you play it anyway). After all, there's a homo sapiens mode too, which technically should also remove seraphs.

  

On 7/26/2025 at 1:28 PM, Sormiel said:

but as a side effect, many of them look more tense than before.

I think it is more of a matter of them being more defined and consequently add variety. Most expressions were pretty samey.

Edited July 28, 2025 by Dark Thoughts

[Krougal]

4 hours ago, Dark Thoughts said:

I don't see that at all? They look the same as before to me, just more polished. The other NPCs, which afaik are regular humans, look way different.

Personally I think they looked stupid before and still do in the new version. I still hope we'll get other (non furry) species in the character creation at some point, including humans - modded or vanilla - even if it would be inaccurate to the story (assuming you play it anyway). After all, there's a homo sapiens mode too, which technically should also remove seraphs.

It's the eyes, it is creepy that the iris and pupil are reversed and it just doesn't make any sense.

I also was disappointed that homo sapiens mode doesn't have a human model.