Zidane Tribal began his life as an "Angel of Death" created by Garland, the ruler of the dead planet Terra. Long ago, the people of a dying planet of Terra planned to save their civilization by assimilating another planet. Unable to find a newly-born planet to fuse with, they settled on assimilating the young planet of Gaia. The Terrans left their physical bodies and locked their souls in Pandemonium to be watched over by Garland until the Fusion's completion. The Fusion was a disastrous failure, leaving Gaia's surface in ruin and ending up with Terra shifting inside the planet of Gaia.

Garland was tasked with removing the souls of Gaia's "cycle of souls" and replacing them with Terra's. Garland synthesized humanoid vessels called Genomes to eventually host the Terran souls. To expedite the draining of Gaian souls Garland gave a soul to a new Genome and named him Kuja who would be Garland's "Angel of Death" sent to Gaia to cause unrest and death, but Garland deemed him a failure.

Although not mentioned in the game, theFinal Fantasy IX Ultimania elaborates that Garland had made the mistake of creating Kuja as an adult, which meant he never experienced a childhood and thus never developed capacity for complex emotions, meaning Kuja would never be able to enter a Trance on his own. The dangerous mix of power and undeveloped emotions, which allowed Kuja feel no remorse for his actions, was too much for Garland; he placed a limit on Kuja's life, and created another Genome to replace him: Zidane.

Zidane was experimental in that he would live through a full life, growing up as a child before developing into Garland's "Angel of Death." Growth and learning through childhood would allow Zidane to feel complex emotions and grant him the power to enter Trance, thus making him superior to Kuja.

Kuja, infuriated by Garland's decision to create another Genome, deposited Zidane on Gaia and abandoned him. Young Zidane, unaware of his mission, was found by Bakuat the age of four, and was raised by him as a member of the Tantalus Theater Troupe inLindblum only remembering one thing of his previous life: a blue light.

Though a theater troupe on the surface, the group is more akin to a band of thieves, and Zidane was raised in their ways. At 13 years old, Zidane departed on a journey to seek out his origins, and spent two years traveling. During this time he met a Burmecian dragon knight, Freya. Although Zidane never discovered anything about his past, he came to realize that a "home is where the heart is" and a place where can return to any time, and thus returned to Baku and Tantalus inFebruary 1798.

I made Zidane from a combination of a fairly bad bootleg trading arts and some GI Joe fodder. I cut the torso in the center and waste. Added a revoltech joint from the lower torso to the top, and drilled cut and drilled out the shoulders and neck. I cut off the boots and cut them and drilled out at the ankle to add more revoltech joints for ankle articulation. I cut and drilled out the cuffs and added them to some MU Valkyrie arms. I made joint fittings at the shoulders of the torso to fit the arms and maintain articulation there too. I drilled out the bootleg head and added a small revoltech joint to a new neck to connect to the torso and did some sculpting to the hair. From the waste to the boots was some GI Joe renegades ninja legs. I sculpted onto them to add the pockets and make them a little more baggy. I also drilled out the lower back and added a revoltech joint to the tail too. A little sanding and adjusting here and there and he was ready for a full paint job.

The two swords came from the bootleg also. Just needed a little work to clean them up some. The small gunblade type weapon was made from various fodder and a little sculpt. I cut the front of the sheath off the bootleg, sanded it down quite a bit, then added some green stuff to make it capable of holding the blade. Then painted it and added some nylon stretch material so it could wrap around the upper leg and be adjustable for articulation and removable if needs be.

I've always like Zidane, and I feel like he is a sorely underrated character. I hope you guys like and thanks for checking him out.