Over the last few titles, the complexity in the Final Fantasy character designs has increased immensely. With FFXII the design has reached it's peek, giving the world's cosplayers an even huger challenge than they already have.
Because they decided to set Final Fantasy XII in the Final Fantasy Tactics world, the character designer for FFT, Akihiko Yoshida, has also been brought back! Thus you can see a huge difference in the styles of clothing. For me, Yoshida-san is a genious at details, which you can see at the different patternworks and armor he enriches the characterdesigns with. But now let's take a more indepth look at Balthiers appearance.

His hair is short yet stylish. It's a lightbrown colour, shorter at the sides and the back, while the top stands slightly backwards. He's got a pair of wellgroomed sideburns. The hairstyle looks pretty up-to-date and could really work for asian hip hopers~ or any "bad boy" in a boyband, hoho.
He has a wellproportioned face. I wouldn't say androgynes features, but Basch definitly has a more defined jawline than both Balthier and Vaan. I would say his eyes are an eerie lightbrown/grey.

Here comes the hard part! My English is too bad to describe this, really, but here goes nothing.
On his upper half Balthier wears a white shirt and an amazingly detailed but pretty peculiar black and gold vest. (They've made it so we can't figure out how to undress him ;_;) The vest is partly open at the back, the middle section is held together with individual laces while the upper part comes together and goes into the collar.
The back and sidesections of the collar are part of the vest, while the front is white like the shirt. His upperbody-wear really gives him a piratesque feel. Pirates were illustrated to have vest, although Balthiers is far more complex, and the collar gives me the vibes of a dignified sea-captain. Just look at Captain Hook or even Guybrush Threepwood in Monkey Island 4!~
I will work on this section but for now the picture will have to speak for themselves.

Tight leather pants! A pain in the desert, but great on ice terraines~ not that RPG characters ever complain.
The pants look to be black or dark gray leather. They've got patterns around both thighs and kneecaps. There seems to be some additional, thicker pieces of the same fabric below the knee. Maybe it's leather-covered armor?
Over the pants he wears two large belts, hanging crossed, each holding a small bag. For Ammo-storage? ^^
The shoes remind about slippers but alot cooler.They are open at the back and pointy at the toes. Now that I look a little closer, they seem to be connected to the end of the pantlegs... Man, he could very well be impossible to undress.

Balthier also sports 6 earrings, symmetrically 3 in each ear. Two of them look like pieces of dark, thick string that have been drawn through the nips. The others 4 are wide golden rings.(fake-holes? only the Squenix-staff knows~)
Then we have the mystery of the brightly coloured rings! He has a whole of 4 rings on his left hand. Green and Yellow on the middlefinger, Pink and Blue on the ringfinger. Whatever meaning they might hold for him, the rings do add some playfullness to Balthier's colourscheme of gold, brown, white and black. I think many of the character's have colours in their outfits that either compliment eachother or just stand out, for example Ashe; Pink and bright blue, Basch; Red and green, Vaan: Red and blue, Penelo: yellow and blue. Fran's hair and skintone make a contrast in her colour scheme.
Lastly we have the colourful bracelets. Also on his left hand he has a bracelet made of beads in different colours and two plain ones in pink and yellow.