This post is [participating in the Nexon PEAK Post Challenge].

To begin with, what is 커마?

It is short for customization. According to the Naver Korean Dictionary, customizing means “to make something the way the owner wants” or “to make to order.” In games, though, the meaning is a bit broader. It can refer not only to a character’s appearance, but also to things like personality or stats. In this post, however, I want to focus on appearance. So from here on, I will use character 커마 to mean freely styling my character into the look I want.





As you probably know, Mabinogi Mobile is part of the Mabinogi IP, alongside Mabinogi Online and Mabinogi Heroes. Even back when I was playing Mabinogi Online, there was a real pleasure in styling a character’s appearance and dressing them however I liked. Mabinogi Mobile carries over that same pleasure. Still, if I had to point to one difference between Mabinogi Online and Mabinogi Mobile as games that are both fun for 커마, I would say it is body type.

In Mabinogi Online, you could not directly set a character’s body type, but if you ate too much you gained weight, and if you ate tree fruit you could slim down again. In other words, you could “manage” your build in-game. Mabinogi Mobile is different. Here, body type is something you can “choose.” There is a default build, a slim build, a sturdy build, and a heavy build. Because of that, body type alone can give a character a completely different atmosphere.



Change just this, and the whole feeling shifts - Body type

Where does a first impression come from? More often than not, the biggest thing we notice at a glance is overall build. In Mabinogi Mobile, you can choose not only the default body type, but four options in total, including slim, sturdy, and heavy. This is the exact same character from head to toe, with only the body type changed. And even then, the impression already shifts dramatically. That is where the fun begins, because it gives us a way to make our own 커마 feel just right.

 Among my alts, excluding my main, this is the one I am most attached to. What stands out most is the intimidating gaze, tanned skin, tall height, and beard. Beyond that, though, this character has a real-life model, so I keep adjusting him to match that person’s appearance. Yes, he is based on my spouse, an actor named Yeonho, who lives with me. This character tends to get reborn whenever my spouse’s appearance changes, whether that means his hair has grown out or he has gained or lost weight. In general, my alts have a shorter rebirth cycle than my main, so I change them whenever the mood strikes me or when the style starts to feel too different. The impression really does change a lot from physique alone, does it not?



A different kind of atmosphere shift - Skin tone

There are many factors that go into deciding what clothing colors suit a character, but I think the biggest one is probably skin tone. Even if the face is the same, changing the skin tone can alter the whole atmosphere. Personally, I tend to prefer tanned skin. In real life, I have fairly pale skin, and that comes with its own inconveniences. On the other hand, I have heard people with naturally tanned skin say that they end up preferring fair skin instead. Setting that aside, the game also gives you a wide range of skin tones, so you can style your character according to your own tastes and the particular mood you want to aim for.





Want to know a person’s personality? Look at the eyes.

There is a saying that you can see a person’s personality in their eyes. If you try changing a character’s eye shape and compare the results, it becomes easy to understand what that means. Depending on the shape of the eyes, the personality they seem to suggest changes enormously. Some look gentle, some warm and easygoing, some sharp-tempered, and some bold and spirited. And this is with the same smiling mouth; if the mouth shape changes too, the range becomes even wider. That is why choosing a character’s eyes, and deciding what color they should be, is such a satisfying part of the process.





Can it really vary this much? - Face shape

You can adjust face shape too: sharp, oval, angular, round, long, and so on. Is it not striking how a change in face shape alone can create a completely different face and atmosphere? At this point, it almost feels fair to say they look like entirely different people.





The highlight of character 커마 - Hairstyles

At last, hairstyles. Hair probably creates the biggest shift in overall atmosphere. If everything else stays the same, it is the most immediately noticeable change by far. And if changing only the hairstyle can do this much... what happens when you change the hair color too? It is on another level. In other words, a male character does not have to stick to short hair. Since the real-life Yeonho has long hair, it is even more fun that I can give the character based on him long hair as well.





A magical change that transforms the overall atmosphere - Gender

In Mabinogi Mobile, you can change gender as well. The biggest difference is the body’s overall silhouette. The colors available to male and female characters are the same, whether we are talking about skin tone or hair color. Eye shapes and body tattoos work the same way too. Some hairstyles are different, but there are even more that both can use. Because of that, you can style a character in largely the same way and create a transformation simply by switching gender. I once deleted all my old screenshots in one sweep, so unfortunately I do not have any proper shots of the male character. Regrettably, I can only share a low-quality one.



The cheat code of Mabinogi Mobile 커마 - Age

In Mabinogi Mobile, characters gain one year of age at 6 a.m. every Saturday. From age 10 to 17, their appearance changes little by little with each passing year. That makes age-based changes another fun element in themselves. Younger characters have a certain cuteness, while older ones carry a more mature charm, and that contrast is genuinely enjoyable. When I miss that cuteness, I rebirth at age 10, and when I want to wear more stylish clothes, I rebirth as an adult. This too is part of the appeal of appearance-based 커마.







It is nice that 커마 can be so varied, but each character only gets one appearance

Still, any one character can only wear one look at a time, and that always felt a little limiting to me. That, in turn, led me to alts. I play my main while also enjoying a range of different character looks through my alts. I change them less often than my main, but I still give those alt characters a makeover from time to time. When I do, I try to bring out as many different kinds of charm as possible. If they all run around looking the same, or even just too similar, I get tired of it quickly. So I vary their body types, skin tones, heights, and dye points as much as I can. The photos below were taken on the 1st anniversary, when all of my characters ended up wearing the same outfit.





Even now, I still keep rebirthing and styling my characters regularly. All of them. Sometimes I build them around a concept I want to try, and sometimes around their class. Somehow, if I do not pour my own tastes and ideals into a character’s design, I find it hard to grow attached to them. So I took a set of screenshots of the companions currently with me, all in the same pose.





When you take 커마 seriously, you end up caring seriously about the characters too

Beyond that, if you spend enough time walking around Erinn, you also run into quite a few people doing cosplay. I was genuinely surprised when I once came across Father Park Yoon-gyu from Toemarok in Dunbarton. And that is only one example; I have also seen Sailor Moon, Inuyasha, Aladdin, Edward Elric, Mario, Naruto, and many more. Whenever I happen to run into them in passing, I cannot help admiring the effort all over again. In the image below, the character I saw before is Father Park Yoon-gyu, and the image on the right is the representative image for the Toemarok World Arc webtoon. There is definitely a particular kind of fun in that.





Mabinogi Mobile almost makes it hard to grasp just how serious it is about 커마. Even the range of outfit designs is broad, and depending on how you dye them, the very same outfit can look completely different. So today as well, I am hard at work dyeing. If you love character styling games, if you truly enjoy 캐꾸, if you love free-form 커마, come on over, Mobinogi!