The elves

Hidden folk of the mountain, five heads tall, a candle-flame outline, four small places that glow.

Six elves in a row: the queen in violet, an elder with a harp, a weaver with a ball of glowing yarn, Tinde with a lantern, a child with a blue flower, and a broad guard with a horn and a shield on his back. — The line-up. It breaks three rules, and the text wins: the guard has a shield on his back and a belt buckle (no shield, no metal but moon silver), and every elf holds a prop (in a mesh reference the hands are empty; props are separate models).

Who they are. Hidden folk of the mountain: old, unhurried, fond of songs and of visitors, a little odd (they count drops, sing to flowers, never hurry). Beautiful in a quiet way. They carry lanterns, harps, yarn and horns, never weapons. The temper comes from Norwegian lore: the lysalver, "fairer than the sun", who in later belief merge with the hidden folk and are kind to those who are kind to them.

Proportions

The proportion chart: the princess, an elf child, an outside villager, a grown elf with green braids, and the queen, on a height scale. — The princess is 1.2 m and 3 heads tall. The head stays big (the same head as the outside folk); the height is in the neck, the waist and the long skirt or coat.

	Height	Heads tall	Shoulder width
The princess	1.2 m	3
Outside folk, grown	1.5 to 1.65 m	4 to 5	1.6 heads
Elf child	1.15 to 1.25 m	3.5
Grown elf	1.75 to 1.9 m	5	1.3 heads
The queen	1.95 m	5.5	1.3 heads

The outline is a candle flame: narrow at the shoulders, a high fitted waist, one long bell to the hem.

Face, hair, ears

Faces, hair and ears.

Eyes a quarter of the face's width each, whites visible, the iris softly glowing in the elf's own colour.
A spray of 10 to 20 tiny pale star-freckles over cheeks and nose, faintly glowing at night. This is the elves' mark.
Ears: short, thick, leaf-shaped, flat to the head, the tip no higher than the brow. Both image models draw them long whatever the prompt says: check every image.
Hair moon-white or silver at the roots, shading to a faint tint (lilac, mint, pale blue, pink) at the ends. Always braided into masses as thick as a wrist: a crown braid, a braided bun, one braid on the back or chest, two short braids. No loose hair, no fringe.
Skin from birch-pale to warm brown. Old elves have smile lines and stand straight.

Clothes

Women: a fitted bodice and a bell skirt to the ankle. Men: a fitted knee-length coat over trousers and tall soft boots; old men a long coat. All: narrow sleeves; a short shoulder mantle with a hem of five rounded leaf points; one round silver brooch with a crescent; a broad cloth headband with one gem; exactly one woven band of eight-petal roses at the hem; felt boots.

How they glow

Four places, all small: the gem, the irises, the freckles, the hem band. Under 5 % of the figure's area. One colour per elf.

Id	Who	Age, build	Cloth	Mantle	Glow	Carries (a separate model)
eldrid	Eldrid, queen, keeper of Månebrønnen	old and ageless, tallest	dusk violet	silver-white	elf violet	nothing; a low silver crescent on her headband
tinde	Tinde, lights the lanterns	young woman	deep teal	moss green	honey (the one warm elf: she carries the fire)	a teardrop lantern
vilja	Vilja, sings to the flowers	grown woman	plum	blossom pink	blossom pink
sildre	Sildre, watches the waterfall	young man	deep blue	spray white	magic cyan
eldste (new)	the elder	very old man, thin, clean-shaven	lichen grey	pale moss	aurora green	a small harp
vever (new)	the weaver	grown woman	silver-grey with teal bands	teal	moon blue	a ball of moon yarn
vokter (new)	the guard at Alveporten	broad man, trimmed white beard	slate blue	moonstone grey	moon blue	a short birch-bark horn; no weapon, no shield
barn (new)	a child	about eight	night blue	pale blue	moon blue	a moon bell

The cast, in A-pose

Eldrid in A-pose: a tall woman in a dusk-violet dress with a silver-white leaf mantle, a braided crown and a violet hem band. — Eldrid, the queen.

Tinde in A-pose: a young woman in a deep-teal dress with a moss-green mantle and a honey hem band. — Tinde, who lights the lanterns.

Vilja in A-pose: a woman in a plum dress with a blossom-pink mantle and pink hem band. — Vilja, who sings to the flowers.

Sildre in A-pose: a young man in a deep-blue knee-length coat with a white mantle and a cyan hem band. — Sildre, who watches the waterfall.

The elder in A-pose: a thin old man in a lichen-grey long coat with a pale moss mantle and an aurora-green hem band. — The elder (a new role).

The weaver in A-pose: a woman in a silver-grey dress with teal bands and a teal mantle, with long lilac braid. — The weaver (a new role).

The guard in A-pose: a broad man in a slate-blue coat with a white beard, a belt with a crescent buckle and a moon-blue hem band. — The guard at Alveporten (a new role; the buckle should be dropped).

The child in A-pose: a small elf in a night-blue coat with a pale-blue mantle, a short bob and a blue hem band. — A child (a new role).

Rules that survive meshing

Ears short and thick. Check every image; redraw or paint them back before meshing.
Hair is one mass: a braid lies on the head, the back or the chest and never hangs free beside the neck.
Nothing in the hands. Lantern, harp, yarn, horn and flower are separate props on the hand bone.
No staff, wand, bow, string, chain, earring, feather or floating rune.
The circlet is a cloth band at least 1/8 of the head's height with a flat gem; a wire circlet vanishes.
Narrow sleeves: bell sleeves fuse with the skirt in A-pose and tear in a wave.
The mantle ends above the elbow and is rigged to the chest.
Both boots show under the hem; the hem is 10 cm over the ground.
Glow is painted flat in the accent colour with no painted halo, so the game's glow mask can pick it out.
No painted runes or glyphs on the figure (they become bumps); the rose band is flat pattern only.

Krea's Eldrid: a flatter, bolder figure in a navy-violet dress with big violet flowers on the hem. — Krea 2 Turbo's Eldrid is bolder and flatter. Its ears came back long.

Three strange elves: tall pale blue figures with white pupil-less eyes and long iridescent hair, in dark cloaks with glowing blue flower bands. — Option B, not chosen: spirits of moonlight with eyes without pupils and long loose hair. Eerie for a young child and not meshable.

Never

Tolkien's elves (long loose hair, bows, armour, filigree, haughty faces) and Christmas elves (red and green, pointed hats, curled shoes, stripes, a white beard on a small round man, a knitted rose jumper).
Amulet's elves (grey skin, slit eyes, uniforms, masks) and the Moonshadow elves of The Dragon Prince (horns, four fingers, blades).
Eyes without pupils or whites; skin that glows; blue or grey skin.
A weapon on any elf. Gákti, Sami dress and band patterns.

Six realistic 6.5-head elves in grey fuzzy felt with embroidery everywhere. — Rejected: realistic 6.5-head people in fuzzy felt, all one grey, eyes too small.

Six elves with straight bathrobe outlines, a bearded elder in green. — Rejected: bathrobe outlines; the bearded elder in green reads as a garden gnome or a Christmas figure.