I drew this up yesterday, as kind of a 15th anniversary tribute, but decided it'd be better to do something more meaningful to the Sluggy community as a whole. At any rate, here's my revisitation of Riff as the Red Mage from Final Fantasy.

It just somehow made most sense to cast Riff as the Red Mage, as we have a caster who can also wear armor and fight. A battlemage, if you will. As such he is a really good early-game character. As the game progresses, however, my experience has been that the Red Mage becomes increasingly mediocre in both the fighting and casting. Where the other fighting classes get awesome, class-specific weapons and armor and the other casters get awesome, class-specific spells, the Red Mage really has nothing going for him that the other classes don't cover. Though I don't foresee Riff letting that hold him back.
Originally I'd intended to have Riff casting a spell of some kind as he ran, but I just couldn't make the spell look convincing. Instead I opted to have him running with the Water Orb (one of the key mcguffins from the original Final Fantasy). The armored boots and bracers seemed to fit Riff's personality, and I added a chain-mail shirt because the Red Mage can wear chain armor and chain mail is a fun texture to draw. (Just ask any Prince Valiant artist.) I'm also quite happy with how the pommel of his sword looks, but less so with the scabbard.
Anyway, I like how this turned out and I'm happy to hear any thoughts, comments, and other feedback.