Famitsu's preview of Final Fantasy XIII-2 this week includes a discussion from character designers Yusuke Naora and Toshitaka Matsuda.

Naora discussed his work on main characters Noel and Serah. For Noel, he gave the character light clothing because he's a hunter, but he made sure that the clothing wouldn't make him look too delicate. He also minded some of the details like making Noel's hip bag hold a hunters knife. For the characters's dual swords, he used a color from Yoshitaka Amano's Final Fantasy 3 illustration work.

Regarding Serah, Naora was asked by the director (I presume he's talking about Motomu Toriyama) to make tight clothing, something like a "plug suit" (I'm going to guess he's talking about the plug suit from Evangelion). Her necklace was originally something else, but he was told to make it into that necklace, suggesting that there could be something story-related.

Toshitaka Matsuda, the game's lead art designer, worked on design of the Moogle that accompanies Serah. He was originally a Final Fantasy fan and loved Moogles, so when he was asked to design the Moogle, he was both honored and nervous. The order that came down from above was he make the Moogle into a cute Mascot-style existence. He designed the character in the image of an infant, and redrew the design over and over again until the head shape and body line would match just perfectly.

Famitsu also has some character sketch work for the Moogle. You may be able to find it online if you look around.

[via Sokuho@Hokanko]