Character Design: Malenia from Elden Ring

Company From Software has always been distinguished by its special approach to visual and sound design in games, but since 2004, when it joined the development team Hidetaka Miyazaki, their style has essentially become the standard for dark fantasy gaming.

The key design points of his creations are two main components: the theme of gods and similar creatures, as well as the theme of knights. But all this, unlike most other works of a similar genre, is presented under the sauce of exaggeration, worn-out fabrics, terrible creatures, plague, and other components of a fading world, thereby combining beautiful and idealized content with a mutilated form.

Today we will talk about the recent “Elden Ring"and, in particular, about the visual design of one of the most difficult, according to players, bosses of this game – about Malenia, Mikella’s Blade, which serves as an excellent example for all the above theses.

If you don’t go too deep into the extremely branchy lore of “Elden Ring”, then Malenia – this is one of the demigods of the local world – Interearth. But, unlike other relatives, it is infected with some kind of beautiful rot, because of which, in the literal sense, it rots from the inside. But despite the terrible illness, due to long training and unsurpassed skills, over time, she gained the status of one of the best swordsmen. And everything would be fine, but the battle with another demigod for the right to take the throne did not end in the best way for Malenia – she defeated her opponent, but because of this she lost almost all her strength and fell into a kind of coma, or just a long sleep. Choose according to your taste.

And when we discover this character in the game, she appears to us in two different forms. So, in human form, Malenia looks like a young red-haired girl, dressed in a beige dress with a winged helmet, and also equipped with metal prosthetics instead of her right arm and both legs.

The main colors of the heroine of today’s analysis are red (he is scarlet, he is also mahogany) And bronze (or brass) – it is not entirely possible to determine the color perfectly due to *so-so* lighting limitations.

It should also be noted that the rendering presented above is the author of Jean Zoudi matches the version featured on the official Elden Ring Collector’s Edition figure. In the game, the colors of her clothes are much more faded and have more yellow-sand shades. Perhaps this was done in order to highlight her hair and cloak in greater contrast, but to be honest, I like the original version much better.

This combination of colors is https://casinojoyuk.net/games/ not widespread, since gold was often used instead of bronze/brass, because this combination has been a symbol of royal blood since ancient times. And, interestingly, it is in these colors that the tree on Malenia’s cloak is depicted. But here let’s make a small lyrical digression again.

Although, as stated above, the cloak model, as well as the original figurine, have a golden tree design, the same cannot be said about a similar image of her coat of arms, available both on the set available to the playable character, and on the box from the collector’s edition – the colors of the latter are clearly different from the red and gold combination.

Collector’s Edition Box

To quote an old joke about matches: “Are you all crazy over there?”?»

But if we consider only the in-game version of the boss, then perhaps the departure from the standards of “royal design” should hint to us that Malenia, apparently, was never destined to become the next ruler. So to speak, “all that glitters is not gold”. It is also possible that this design was chosen because she is the daughter of two other important characters in the story – the queen Mariki, having pale blond, and even almost brass-colored hair, as well as fiery red Radagona. And in this case, the choice of colors of Mikella’s Blade, which is very logical, may be a reflection of her relationship with these representatives of the royal family.

Queen Marika the Eternal

Radagon from the Golden Order

Malenia’s armor includes only a few metal elements, including a helmet, arm and leggings, but there are no full-fledged analogues to them in the real world. I am not Klim Zhukov, and I am not so good at determining the type of ancient elements of protection and clothing, but it is very likely that when creating the character, the developers were inspired mainly by ancient Greek armor. This is evidenced by the absence of stiffeners, minimalism in patterns and decorations, as well as the use of large sheets of metal instead of small plates, which in the end still doesn’t stop her from jumping like mad throughout the entire location..

The material of the armor itself, be it bronze or brass, is a rather strange choice, given the presence of steel and other more advanced materials in the Elden Ring universe. Well, okay, let’s assume that this is just some kind of magical analogue.

The colander helmet also has no real prototypes, but the main eye-catching element here is the wings located on its upper part. They are similar to those that in the usual culture are usually depicted among the Scandinavian Valkyries (it’s not for nothing that they call her that in the game, after all).

And we will not focus on the extent to which such interpretations are justified or unjustified. It’s better to note another interesting detail – the similarity of Malenia with one of the bosses of the game "God of War» – Queen of the Valkyries.

Firstly, their color combination is identical: bronze and red. Secondly, the design of the blades includes mechanized elements: Malenia has a huge sword connected to a prosthetic right arm, while the Valkyrie Queen instead uses mechanized wings, with which she carries out most of her attacks. And finally, thirdly. Both bosses cause a burning sensation in the buttocks of many players.

And since we mentioned wings, let’s look at some details of Malenia’s second form, which she acquires after the player wins the first phase of the battle.

After defeat, a huge fiery flower grows around the girl, more like a cocoon, and then she throws off all possible clothes and continues to dance with the player, but using her own wings. Hmm… A flower that bursts out of a demigod’s body and helps him be reborn after defeat? Drakenguard, is that you??

A unique solution to the visual design of this stage of the Malenia battle are wings consisting of… hair and moths… When you see this, first of all, the symbolism of the moths themselves, which in many cultures personify death and rebirth, comes to mind. At the same time, the hairy wings are still the same all-pervading rot, which has become one with Malenia. Killing her, but at the same time finally granting her some kind of godhood. Albeit a little perverted.

The very traces of rot on the character’s body are similar to what we saw in the works George R.R. Martina in the universe of Ice and Fire, or more precisely – greyscale. From the book description it follows that the flesh becomes hard and covered with cracks, and also acquires a gray tint. Well, here it immediately becomes clear that it was not for nothing that this same George Martin took part in writing the plot of Elden Ring – he clearly grabbed some ideas from his previously accumulated experience, so to speak, complementing the image and combining the beautiful with the disgusting, and the blossoming with the fading.